Sailing club visiting speakers - fees

[snowleopard]

I got lumbered with running the programme for our club (£5 pa subs, no premises, monthly meetings through the winter). I'm looking at widening the search for interesting speakers beyond members and friends and wondering about fees. Up to now we have just paid expenses and a meal but are running out of potential speakers so, for those who are in similar circumstances, where do you find speakers and how much do you have to pay them?

 

[[70521]]

I got lumbered with running the programme for our club (£5 pa subs, no premises, monthly meetings through the winter). I'm looking at widening the search for interesting speakers beyond members and friends and wondering about fees. Up to now we have just paid expenses and a meal but are running out of potential speakers so, for those who are in similar circumstances, where do you find speakers and how much do you have to pay them?

I am on the committee of the local branch of my engineering institute and we only ever pay travelling expenses for speakers. Finding speakers is always difficult, but with lots of talking to people you will be surprised who is a world expert in something or other! There is a rich seam of wonderful speakers in Devon and Cornwall.

 

[dylanwinter]

I used to do quite a few talks

and I learned a huge amount from the sailors I met

I had a lovely time and they were great feedback on the films

but.....

it was the geography and my sliding income that meant I had to quit

for all sorts of understandable reasons clubs seldom have the money to pay for speakers

a bottle of scotch is a wonderful gift between gentlemen but it really does not cut the mustard with petrol at £1.40 a litre

finding yourself getting back into a car at 10.30 on an icey february evening and then driving three hours home witha £20 bottle on the back seat does not much sense

I do very local ones - but living near Oxford means that yacht clubs are a bit thin on the ground

I think as a club sec you are in a really tough position

you have to ask yourself if you would be prepared to drive six hours for a bottle of Bells and a warm handshake

I feel like a right sod turning down requests


Dylan

 

[sailorgirl]

My UK dinghy club has a few speakers during the winter months and only ever covers expenses & their bar tab for the evening. Over the years we've had talks on many subjects - highlights include local history (fascinating to learn about our premises before they were the clubhouse and see photo's from the library archive ), photography, sail making, aircraft manufacture during the war (we had a local factory, now a housing estate) as well as a regular spot on racing rules. I recall that one of our members even gave a well received talk on his restoration of a wooden canoe even though many of us had been around the club whilst he did the work. What other hobbies do your members pursue - see if they have contacts.

We sometimes are asked as a club to speak at other clubs as our own history provides an interesting insight into the social history of the last 125 or so years as well as being an active sailing club for all that time, I've done this once or twice on the same basis ie expenses and a beer or two.

 

[st599]

I got lumbered with running the programme for our club (£5 pa subs, no premises, monthly meetings through the winter). I'm looking at widening the search for interesting speakers beyond members and friends and wondering about fees. Up to now we have just paid expenses and a meal but are running out of potential speakers so, for those who are in similar circumstances, where do you find speakers and how much do you have to pay them?

The RYA can provide speakers for cost of travel.

Have a look for people trying to sell things, we've had:

a book launch on the first round the world race
the founder of the ARC
RYA rules advisors
a local historian.

 

[Xcinquemila]

For each speach at the RORC in HK I get paid 1500USD + I can invite a table of 12

But then again, I did the Cape 4 times and once almost swimming

P

 

[jerram]

Dylan put together a talk on KTL tobe given free to all sailing clubs that give you free moorings for Katie L as you travel around the Uk (better than a bottle on the back seat)

 

[dylanwinter]

never had a free mooring

Dylan put together a talk on KTL tobe given free to all sailing clubs that give you free moorings for Katie L as you travel around the Uk (better than a bottle on the back seat)

never had a free mooring over the five years apart from two nights in Tetney at the bottom of the Humber

and I tend to stay in a place for several months at a time

not that many clubs have spare moorings

the economics of KTL make very little sense

but I am enjoying my sailing more than I ever have

it is wonderful to sail around a bend in an estuary not knowing what I shall see next

as for 1500 dollars and a table for 12 for one talk.......goodness gracious

Dylan

 

[johnalison]

I am on the committee of a £5 club in Essex. Most of our talks are in-house but we pay expenses for after-dinner speakers and occasionally for talks. Essex is richly endowed with yachting and trading history so we are usually spoiled for choice. We have an annual prize for the best local talk, with specified limits. Members do any kind of sailing from creek-crawling to offshore and ocean sailing and although our average age is getting a bit high, we enjoy a bit of reminiscing. I have been known to dragoon sailors met around the coast into performing for us.

 

[Searush]

I did a similar task for the Stafford Coastal Cruising Club some years back. RNLI & HMCG are usually quite good for one session a year, we also had a harbour master once (interesting to hear his side of he story), Flare demo (using old flares) from HMCG was quite good. The HM Cartographer was good too, he doled out some freebie charts. We also had some good canal talks as our HQ was in a Canal club. Call a few commercial companies - Garmin, Nasa etc, they may well be happy to promote their latest Gismo. A local sailmaker was brilliant, despite being focussed on racing dinghies, show him some slides of your boats sailing & he will tell you an awful lot about trimming your sails better!

Do you have any other clubs nearby that you could swop "member's cruise" talks with? But yes, it is hard work keeping it fresh & expenses is normally what is offered, plus sometimes an offer to put somone up overnight (in your home) if they have travelled rather far.

 

[ChrisE]

I got lumbered with running the programme for our club (£5 pa subs, no premises, monthly meetings through the winter). I'm looking at widening the search for interesting speakers beyond members and friends and wondering about fees. Up to now we have just paid expenses and a meal but are running out of potential speakers so, for those who are in similar circumstances, where do you find speakers and how much do you have to pay them?

I've run the winter talks programme for a local fishing club (even tighter than yotties ...) I used to get speakers by looking at who other clubs had talking to them and I used to get people who were writing in the magazines, the editors were happy to pass on my contact details.

My better half did exactly the ssame when she ran the talks for the local yacht club.

We always took our speaker out for a meal before hand, to get to know a bit about the speaker. It is surprising how many 'well known' writers will come down to talk for expenses and a meal

 

[glashen]

I think generally expenses and a bottle or a meal is acceptable, there do seem quite a few people happy to do talks. Our club often hears of good speakers from other groups we do a mix of members, locals and the occasional guest from further afield where the cost obviously increases. One trick which has varied our speakers is to get different sections of our club to arrange speakers, I imagine it gets tricky for one person to get 8 speakers in a year but with different groups providing one each it seems to work well.

If you are interested this is our 2012/13 programme,http://www.christchurchsailingclub.co.uk/?page_id=72

 

[Seajet]

I'd have thought you needn't stick strictly to sailors either, how about local historians, also harbour staff often have new projects in the pipeline they'd love the chance to inform people about, if only to stop us yotties piling into them !

 

[lw395]

I got lumbered with running the programme for our club (£5 pa subs, no premises, monthly meetings through the winter). I'm looking at widening the search for interesting speakers beyond members and friends and wondering about fees. Up to now we have just paid expenses and a meal but are running out of potential speakers so, for those who are in similar circumstances, where do you find speakers and how much do you have to pay them?

I think our club does some free ones and some they pay, but there is a fee to attend the ones they pay the speaker for.
If you can get £2 out of 25 people, or £5 and give them back a glass of wine, then it's viable.
Asking around local colleges seems to be a source of amateur historians, also try museums, the council may have a list of local societies.
You could approach any club which had premises, they get an event in return for you doing the work.
My old club in Bristol used to get talks from a few organisations in the winter including the CA.

 

[Turnnidge]

Have a look at our club site http://newburyyachtclub.wordpress.com/ we have had a good variety of speakers lately. Mostly we pay travel expenses, although we have payed more from time to time.

 

[Searush]

Authors publicising books is another option & let them sell/sign their books before/after the talk.

Local tech college Diesel Mechanic teacher to do a basic diesel maintenance evening.

Bring & Buy sale for members? Could be used to fund a high profile paid speaker

 

[vyv_cox]

I do a couple of technical talks per year for expenses. I am sometimes given a bottle or a meal, gratefully received but I don't expect them. For an evening talk some distance away I usually ask for a decent parking space for the camper van.