Sailing clubs in lockdown..

[dankilb]

Won’t name the club just in case... but all facilities have been open to members (since March!) - keys/entry codes are required and ‘the public’ aren’t involved (or interested) in any way. No racing, no food, no staff (but that’s how it is anyway). There’s a tattered RYA notice pinned up somewhere but I’ve not read it. I follow all Covid-secure guidance in my day job so I just apply this too when I’m there. Advantages of a small club, I guess?

I drive a van and am registered self-employed, so as everything I own are technically business assets, I’ve decided that includes that boat, and so in the very unlikely event I’m ever pulled over (or confronted through the yard fence) and asked what I’m doing when lockdowns-proper hit again I’ll just be ‘working’ (or testing my eyesight or, at a push, breaking the law in a very specific and limited way).

Our city is going into ‘nightlife lockdown’ on Tuesday but our ultra-conservative government kindly organised us a mass rave-street party-carnival-fiesta for all the newly arrived students, young people and anyone who just fancied letting off a bit of steam (and aerosol droplets) beforehand. It’s been going on since Thursday and set to continue for a few more days yet.

I don’t think there’s anything more our club could possible do to help the government control C-19 - aside from a lock-in in the showers for the people of Bolton. One truly despairs. ?

 

[Iliade]

Our club bar and restaurant are open to some extent. Exactly how open I couldn't say because I don't want to go into such a crowded environment to find out. Just looking at the deck full of people is scary enough!

Is your bar subcontracted? Maybe the contractors don't wish to risk their staff or cannot make a profit with the limited customer numbers permitted by the facilities capacity under social distancing regulations?

Personally, we have a cafe as a sideline to our main business; its doors will remain firmly shut until social distancing is a thing of the past. We are struggling enough just trying to get students under instruction to remain in separate groups and not to merge & mingle.

 

[Tomahawk]

same here. We have no employees, so we need volunteers to do all club work and could not really oblige the old volunteer list to continue, so we opened up teh lounge under limitations with new volunteers. We have had 2 weekly covid meetiings on zoom to deal with the latest changes and risk assessments ad nauseum. We have a volunteer barman and now a volunteer supervisor to check the members stick to our covid rules to protect the committee and the members from those who dont care or are more interested in their members rights than the safety concerns. Our T's and C's and rules were not written with a pandemic in mind so most of our members are sympathetic to the limitations. Tomahawk would not be getting any support if he were in my club, and I am one the most vocal in trying to get open.

Chewi,
Seeing as you say I would not be getting any support, may I ask what is the purpose of a club?

Under the new regimes it seems to have become, to prevent its members meeting each other in a sociaL setting which they pay for the use of. It what me winder what is the point? We have not had the use of the clubhouse this year. Yet we have paid for membership to allow us the the clubhouse. The committee have opened an outside bar where members can sit on the pavement on the road. They are selling bottled beer out of plastic glasses. I can buy the same beer for 1/3 of the price from Morrisons and drink it in on the road .... I have to ask again what is the point of the clubs existing?

 

[Tomahawk]

Heres a starter for ten...
Restaurants, pubs, bars and takeaway services - Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19) - Guidance - GOV.UK

Another aspect of the decision on whether to open is the number of staff or volunteers now required to operate a service. My club are operating as table service only for bar/food, we have 2-3 x the people to do that and be 'Covid-Secure' than we used to. The question is really how much is that costing and how long can we continue doing it. ......

..

Let me ask the question the other way round.
How muchnwould you be making if you lay off all the staff and close the club to members ... and they decide not to renew membership next spring? My club has lost a number of members to the extent that the admin staff have been laid off. First Officer wants to resign at the next membership renewal because we are effectively members of a non club at the moment. I don’t want to give up on the club, but under present conditons there is no point in continuing to pay for membership.

 

[TernVI]

I'm pleased that I've found clubs to join where the members are not dominated by those who just want food and drink.
Our clubs are all about Sailing.

I think it could be very bad news for a club long term, to open the bar for the benefit of a faction in the club who tend towards covid-scepticism. It could be very divisive among the members.

 

[Tomahawk]

Tern,
Who is saying anything about scepticism? Plesae do not try and imply I am being sceptical about the risks. I am very aware of the risks and implications of this virus.

What I am questioning is why clubs seem to have interpreted the regulations in the most draconian way possible so as to destroy any social activity. Last week folks were going to the local pub for a drink and chat about the race ... as most sailors I know will always do... because the club bar is shut.

 

[Birdseye]

Tern,
Who is saying anything about scepticism? Plesae do not try and imply I am being sceptical about the risks. I am very aware of the risks and implications of this virus.

What I am questioning is why clubs seem to have interpreted the regulations in the most draconian way possible so as to destroy any social activity. Last week folks were going to the local pub for a drink and chat about the race ... as most sailors I know will always do... because the club bar is shut.

It’s inevitable that different clubs will interpret the rules and the law in different ways. One of my clubs is run by an ex public sector employees and is run as you would expect with obedience to the rules and no concern for the cost. The other is not really run at all – it just happens.

I suggest that you simply leave your club.

 

[duncan99210]

Tomahawk, you seem to be ignorant of the processes laid down for deciding how or if to reopen social venues.
The first part of the process is to assess how many people are allowed to be in the venue at one time: they must be provided with seating, clear routes to maintain social distancing to and from that seating, you have to establish covid safe methods of service and payment. As part of that, you have to revisit all of the health and safety risk assessments someone on your committee carried out before the premises opened under normal rules and impose a covid overlay on them: this is not a trivial task.
Having done that, you then need to look at the staffing levels and the equipment needed to preserve the safety of your staff, be they volunteers or paid. Do you opt for table service only or can you go to the bar to order? If you’re going to do table service, you’ll need to train your staff in how to do that safely. Do they wear masks or do you put screens in place? Do you accept cash with its inherent risks or do you go cashless, with its increased costs? Do you use disposable glasses or do you invest in a glass washer to sterilise the glasses? How often will you instruct staff to empty the bins containing empty bottles or disposable glasses? Do you need to change your waste disposal contract to reflect an increased demand due to using disposable glasses? Does the club have the reserves to pay for these investments? How will you pay for them? Increase subs? Increase bar prices? I can’t answer these questions but I suspect that your committee has asked them and come to the conclusion that that the outlay doesn’t support the return to the club.
You constantly ask questions on this thread, have you actually addressed any of these questions to your committee and asked what you could do to help your club out in the current situation? The point of belonging to any club is that it’s a mutually beneficial organisation. It provides facilities that you need/want to pursue your hobby: you pay subs to support that. However, it is not like a pure business such as a marina. A club relies on subs but it also relies on volunteers to run the club, not least being on the committee and helping to take the decisions that make them club function. Asking questions like the ones you’ve been asking on here seems to suggest that you’ve got little grasp of how much work goes on to keep any club functional and how few people within that club actually do any of the work. I’d humbly suggest that if you want your club to reopen the bar, you offer to do the ground work to get it open again: you might then understand why the committee has decided not to reopen.
Final point. Remember that groups of more than 6 are now forbidden to meet: that means that you cannot meet up after a race to discuss with other crews what happened unless you keep to groups of 6 or less. If you’re seeing larger groups congregating on pub terraces, the they’re not following the newest set of restrictions. The tables on the outside terrace at the bar in our holiday village have had to be rearranged so as to provide for no more than 6 person groups and we’ve lost a number of tables to preserve distancing.
Welcome to the new normal.

 

[Newboy6458]

Chewi,
Seeing as you say I would not be getting any support, may I ask what is the purpose of a club?

Under the new regimes it seems to have become, to prevent its members meeting each other in a sociaL setting which they pay for the use of. It what me winder what is the point? We have not had the use of the clubhouse this year. Yet we have paid for membership to allow us the the clubhouse. The committee have opened an outside bar where members can sit on the pavement on the road. They are selling bottled beer out of plastic glasses. I can buy the same beer for 1/3 of the price from Morrisons and drink it in on the road .... I have to ask again what is the point of the clubs existing?

If you have a choice of other clubs in your area then move on. Otherwise get on the committee in order to change club policy or resign and get some value for your fees.

 

[oldharry]

There seem to be two fundamental problems behind all this: one is the Draconian nature of the government's regulations and advice, together with potentially stiff penalties for anyone caught ignoring it. Few committees will want to risk their necks to that extent. Along with this is the level of staff/volunteer input required to manage a Covid Secure Environment. The huge variation in clubs responses reflects the complex and contradictory nature of govt advice, alongside how easy or otherwise it is for a club to adapt it's premises to comply, and whether they have the resources to do so .

The second issue is the balance between taking sensible precautions to avoid infection, and overreaction fed by rational or irrational fear. That is an imponderable which varies with every single one of us. We each have to make up our own minds, and what's right for you isn't likely to be right for me. In the meantime, HMG has to take decisions about something they still don't really understand. Nothing new in that, but right or wrong this thing is not going to go away in a hurry.

 

[TernVI]

The other thing with a club is that there are no shareholders apart from the membership. There is no overwhelming profit motive.
Our motivation is the long term promotion of sailing in our town. That's in our club rules and that's what the members want. The bar is just a means to that end.

Nobody in our club has a fat salary to compensate them for taking responsibility for members getting ill.
Some clubs may be more like pubs, with a manager paid to take responsibility.
The majority of our membership was right behind the committee in deciding not to open when it looked like an option. Even those who are happy to sit outside the pub after sailing.
Being a bit of a 'locals' club, the membership are kind of friends and family. The fallout from somebody being put on the spot if things went bad could be terrible. I don't expect my fellow members to carry that responsibility just so we can have a drink. We did some drinking last year, and we hope to do some more next year.
We also have some junior members sailing, so there is an extra layer of responsibility.
We also have a long term responsibility to maintain the good name of the club and the sport, we're somewhat visible to the general public and it's good to be seen to be as safe as possible, while fulfilling the goal of boats on the water.
If a pub makes the front page of the local rag as the centre of an outbreak, worst case it probably re-opens with a new name and management. My clubs could be wiped out by that sort of reputation damage. There's no reward for taking that risk. Looking at the pubs etc, it's not hard to see breaches of 'best practice', it would be easy to point fingers. That's one thing when it's some random oik off the street, a bit loaded when you know their family or their business.

The other practical point is that if say a member of bar staff were to test +ve, would that shut down the sailing side of a club as well as the bar? I suspect it would. Involving the minimum number of people physically in the building maximises our chance of continuing to sail.

 

[oldharry]

The other practical point is that if say a member of bar staff were to test +ve, would that shut down the sailing side of a club as well as the bar? I suspect it would. Involving the minimum number of people physically in the building maximises our chance of continuing to sail.

Assuming your club is keeping its Track and Trace records, and its niw mndatory to do so, everyone who has visited the club will be required to go into 14 days isolation. This a good enough reason in itself to minmise contact between members. This new legislation has only just arrived, but if cases increase its going to bite hard in my view, with many 1000s of people in isolation because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, without ever actually meeting the person who tested positive. They might have been at the far end of the room. T&T doesnt discrminate. if your name was on the list for that day, thats it for the next fortnight.

And in case you're thinking you would just ignore it , they say T&T will be checking up that you are staying home, with penalties for anyone who does not. I dont know, but it seems likely premises would be forced to close, and that could include the dinghy compound? Public Health has the power to issue 'Improvement Notices' to non comp-liabt premises, and to close them. I said the new rules were draconian!

 

[TernVI]

Assuming your club is keeping its Track and Trace records, and its niw mndatory to do so, everyone who has visited the club will be required to go into 14 days isolation. This a good enough reason in itself to minmise contact between members. This new legislation has only just arrived, but if cases increase its going to bite hard in my view, with many 1000s of people in isolation because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, without ever actually meeting the person who tested positive. They might have been at the far end of the room. T&T doesnt discrminate. if your name was on the list for that day, thats it for the next fortnight.

And in case you're thinking you would just ignore it , they say T&T will be checking up that you are staying home, with penalties for anyone who does not. I dont know, but it seems likely premises would be forced to close, and that could include the dinghy compound? Public Health has the power to issue 'Improvement Notices' to non comp-liabt premises, and to close them. I said the new rules were draconian!

Our clubs made their choices before the latest restrictions and announcements.
But causing all your fellow members to isolate would be galling.
It's good that the activities of sailing and drinking are separated.