The long-planned “voyage into the unknown”, or rather exhibiting at the “virtual” RYA Dinghy Show was judged a considerable success by the Club after a weekend like no other for everyone involved.
As the only club from Scotland present, members had to man the stand in two-hour shifts, or watches to put it in nautical terms, meeting and greeting visitors by using the “chat” function, either in exchanges of text or by video and audio conversations. Visitors were able to view different aspects of the Club’s activities from video clips, photographs and documents, all posted on the stand with the members present guiding them round.
The stand, built so skilfully by Nicola McColm (19), was praised by the RYA organiser and many others and was a credit to the Club. As well as new visitors, old friends were also able to get together and chat, something that could never have happened if it had happened for real in London. Over the weekend more than 5000 people visited the exhibition virtually and while it is now closed and unmanned, it remains accessible to everyone via the RYA website until the end of March. The graphics that the Club included will be useful for much more than just on the stand, being ideal for future Club communications. Social media was a big part in the Club reaching the intended audience, led by another young SYC member Ross Kennedy. He is also one of the Kippford RNLI lifeboat crew, and his pager went off just before his watch on the stand. There was absolutely nothing virtual about that call, a real “Shout”, certainly not chat, virtual or otherwise. However, despite dropping off stand duty and dashing to the lifeboat station, a full crew had already arrived so, on this occasion, he wasn’t needed so was able to re-join the stand team.
Without doubt, the Club, Kippford and our beautiful area is now better known among the wider UK and Scottish sailing community than it could have been otherwise. Hopefully the glorious early Spring weather also helped. We’re looking forward to the season getting underway, hopefully before too much longer, Covid permitting, with Cadet Week in late July and Kippford Week, including the Kippford RNLI Regatta, in early August.
