Just wondering if there is an Australian land sailing body and what has it to offer?

how abou giving the folks some info Test!

ALSA was formed to promote landsailing and Run national competitions. for the last few years , nothing but requests for sail no fees. would like to see some nationals andpromotion via internet.

It seems like ALSA has become a self serving organisation. From the correspondence that I have seen I do not know why I would want to be a memeber of ALSA.

Lets form our own Australian Land Sailing body or may be we could do it from the Hut Province

Well that seems to have killed this discussion! Ok I'll throw a few comments out there. I am probably the newest member of ALSA as I have been told $5 from my membership to ALYC goes to ALSA. However that said these comments are strictly as an outsider to the sport.

I have had some experience with other sporting organisations that have governing bodies like Confederation of Australian Motorsport and Yachting Australia Inc.

Just for comparison these are the objectives of Yachting Australia Inc:

1. To promote and administer the sport of yachting in all its branches

2. To serve as a national body for the advancement of yachting throughout the Commonwealth of Australia

3. To take such steps to affiliate with other international and national associations as may be required

4. To recognise as national classes such class of yachts which may from time to time comply with the requirements of the federation.

Unfortunately for us, Yachting Australia has tens of thousands of members from clubs, many of which are multi-million dollar businesses.

But that said when I was sailing I didn't even know of their existence. All of my interaction with Sailing was done through the 2 clubs I was a member of. Now I'm not saying for a minute that they don't do a great and essential job, its just it wasn't in my face.

CAMS was, but then again that's a professional organisation administering a multi-million dollar industry.

I guess the bottom line of this is we should be able to expect out of ALSA what we put into it, and I'm afraid at $5.00 p/a that’s probably not going to be a whole lot.

So what should we recommend? Change the model to take over some of the roles of the clubs and increase the price of membership appropriately or leave this role with the clubs and just use ALSA as a register of sail numbers as repository of international land yachting rules.

Personally I'm not fussed either way, I just want to sail BTW if I was administering ALSA, at my hourly rate this post has just burnt your membership fees for several years (I didn't realise it was so long until I read it back!!)

Well that's my $5.00 worth , what are your thoughts, bearing in mind people from other sports are reading this and we don't want to scare them off.

lots of people want to go off and do it themselves .but forget that an organization exists and just needs running properly. Iie if you dont have time to do it properly please dont volunteer

Hi Hills,
this is Susan (dear wife)writing not Paul - I normally lurke not write! Your right discussion is a good idea. As you are newish to the sport you have some fresh ideas which is always good. For some background info. ALSA was nver set up to administer sail numbers. Until recently this was always done by local clubs (each club had a block of numbers) and would inform ALSA annually who members were when dues were due. Each local club organises insurance as this differs state to state. ALSA would promote the sport by holding a Nationals/AGM each year (different state each year). The $5 was to go towards the costs of trophies and a 6 monthly newsletter. The ALSA committee used to change each year to the club that was hosting the next championships. This of course was in the days before internet became widespread. ALSA would also liaise with FISLY and other PACRIM countries and in theory keep the clubs in touch with what was going on. A tough call by snail mail. However it did work more or less.
However club memeberships come and go as do clubs. A National Champs has not been held for many, many years so of course no AGM and no opportunity for any changes/discussion on the ALSA committee, constitution, or even our sailing rules. Do these things need changing? probably...in my opinion... not to change the intent of ALSA but more to change the way it conducts its business in the modern electronic world so that members feel that they get something for their money. Your right $5 is not a lot of money, however with electronic communication now-days running costs should be minimal especially as everyone is a volunteer.
Have a great day.
Susan

Hi Phil,
No hidden agenda on my part. I do however have a strong interest in history and how land sailing has evolved in Aus. I believe it is important that whilst we always move forward and change with the times we should not lose our history about how we came to where we are. This was my efforts to 'capture' the Lake Lefroy LSC's history http://www.freewebs.com/lakelefroy/index.htm
The more we know about our history (the good, the bad and the ugly) the more we can learn from it so I was just trying to bring you up to speed with a quick history lesson according to Susan!

Personally I do believe that we need to make changes as an Assn to keep moving forward and attracting new people to the sport. As to historical politics. I guess you will find that in any sport however it is worth remembering that a vocal minority are not necessarily representative of the majority. Most land sailors are too busy enjoying themselves out sailing to be bothered with boring paperwork and official side of things. So I guess what I am saying is if you find the odd political discussion to full on at the moment, don't worry about it, just enjoy the sailing and the good company of other landsailors.

My thoughts on fixing things up. The only way I can see to do this, and maybe others might have some ideas here?, ALSA call a National titles, we all get together have a great weekend sailing, hold an AGM and discuss how we can make ALSA work more efficiently and actually define its role a little more clearly? For instance why not look at changing the constitution so we can have meetings via email and then decisions could be made throughout the year rather than just wait for an AGM which are currently tied to national title of which we have not had one in years?

I am sure others have better ideas on what should be done? however actually getting people to volunteer is a different matter...but isn't that the case with many organisations nowadays? No magic wand I am afraid.

Not sure if this really anwers your questions? However today I am more interested in going sailing this weekend than talking about it so I need to go and work so come the weekend I can sail ;-)
cheers Susan

Glad to see people talking . I shall now refer to my wife as "over the shoulder girl" or PROMOGIRL after her new landyacht.
Well David heres lots of suggestions so why not stop lurking and get into the discussions. After all you are president of This organization called ALSA.
Cheers Paul AUS3

tried that