Duties
Dell Quay Sailing Club is organised, managed, and run by its members on a purely voluntary basis. It does not have any employees. For example many members support the club by volunteering as committee members (have a look a the Who's Who page here ), maintaining the sailing and rowing club boats, and running training sessions both on the water and off.
Volunteering for duties is vital to the continued success of our club and provides many opportunities to engage with different aspects of club life. It reduces membership costs, and enables members to become more involved in the club and to meet others.
Every young adult and adult DQSC member is expected to support the club's event calendar by volunteering for at least 2 duties during the season. This is a condition of membership.
As from 2023, members involved in dinghy racing are expected to volunteer for at least 3 duties (racing is an important element of the club's culture and is also volunteer 'resource hungry'!).
Members of the volunteer team supporting Open Meetings and the DQSC Regatta in various capacities should note that this does not count against the expected 2 duties. There are two exceptions to this:
- Galley Supervisor & House Duties still count toward the 2 expected duties.
- For a member of the racing community, volunteering for an Open Event or the DQSC Regatta will count as a duty. The Firefly Open Event, which runs over two days, would count as 1 duty per day.
Junior members are not expected to perform duties. A Junior member is someone who has not yet reached 18 by 1st September in the year prior to the current year.
Duty Exemptions - Power Boat Instructors, Senior Instructors, and Dinghy Instructors are exempt from performing duties as long as they continue to give time to training sessions through the year.
At an individual level, if health issues are keeping you away from the club and preventing you from performing your duties, then the Duty Coordinator should be contacted - duties@dellquaysc.co.uk - and they may apply a temporary duty exemption and reorganise any duties already in the member's name. Requests for permanent duty exemptions will be referred to the General Committee. All requests of this nature are treated with discretion. Being unable to do duties because a person is too busy is unlikely to be met with much sympathy.
There are several types of duties, some requiring specialised training or experience (Event Coordinator, Patrol Boat Helm, Race Officer, Duty Officer, Galley Supervisor, Lift Team) and some needing no previous experience (Patrol Boat Crew, Assistant Race Officer, House Duty). An outline of duties and qualifications required can be found here.
Roughly speaking each duty lasts around 5 hours.
Volunteering for duties - the duty roster opens for members to volunteer from late January and throughout February. This is the best time to select duties to suit personal preference and availability, especially if trips away from home are planned. Details of how to volunteer for a duty can be found here.
Allocating duties - in early March, members preferring a pot-luck approach will be allocated any 2 duties by the Duty Coordinator. If the dates or duties are not suitable the member must arrange a duty swap.
Duty Swaps - if a member finds themself unable to perform a scheduled duty for whatever reason, at the earliest opportunity they must swap the duty with another member. Details of how to do this can be found here.
Any questions regarding duties can be directed to the Duty Coordinator using email address duties@dellquaysc.co.uk.
Useful documents:
