Class Politics Wanted: Fanatic YOUNG Class Management

gouvernail

Super Opinionated and Always Correct
Maybe there are none of you out there. Maybe one of you would love to run the NA Laser Class and you have no idea others would love to have you.

The NA Laser sailors been willing to pay real dollars to a hard working fanatic who will simply run the class for us since Allan Broadribb proved he could "make a living while running the class."
Most of us have no interest in doing a damn thing. We want our regattas scheduled. We want big fat regularly published newsletters. We want a kick ass website. We want personal support and coaching setting up events and running the events.

If you believe you have enough people skills, charisma, knowledge of journalism, sailing, management, accounting, and an undying love of Lasers and sailing...
SELL US ON YOURSELF!!!

I have no idea whether anyone else will support a bid by an enthusiastic young fanatic who wants to take over the class and make it the very best in the world, but, if I am convinced you can do it...I will bust my butt to get you in a position to go for it.

The job can easily pay $1000 every week in the first year. If you actually are a decent salesman and work your butt off, you could make more.

I believe the Laser Class in North America could have 4,000 members by mid 2008 if we get the current old tired folks out of the way and let you roll.

If you think my numbers are conservative and want to be the new "Laser person" for all of North America...

If you think you could do a lot better job than anybody else we have in charge of anything...

If you understand no human could possibly do enough individually...

If you feel personally responsible for the game of Laser and driven to make it prosper...


Sell us!!!

Write five of the next ten postings in this thread!! Take over from all the worn out old farts who can't seem to do what YOU BELIEVE MUST BE DONE!!

If you want a thorough description of all the things I understand must be done, search the Laser email archives. If you can't come up with a bunch of things I left out, you are not the person for the job anyway.

Sincerely,
Your New Biggest Fan!!!
 
OK, so I have bothered some good people with the above post. I am sincerely sorry I communicated so poorly that people were upset rather than happy for the help.

Simply, I am 53. I started holding office in various North American sailing associations when I was in high school. Many of our other officers, secretaries, and fleet captains started working in the management of sailing when they were in their 20s. As teenagers and twentysomethings we made the game of sailing boom. We introduced our same age friends and we all had a kick butt game.
Currently 3/4 of the Laser Class is the same great fun folks who sailed in the seventies and eighties. The problem? We are all old farts and we cannot successfully recruit our twentysomething running buddies to the game because WE DON'T HAVE TWENTYSOMETHING RUNNINGBUDDIES.

The game and the sport is wallowing without the "WE ARE COOL" that only enthusiastic youth can bring. We need to recruit that enthusiastic youth. We need to welcome the enthusiastic youth as MANAGERS just as we were welcomed as managers 30 years ago.
In fact. we need to stick the youth with the job and EXPECT them to do the job.

I am simply announcing to the kids what the old farts keep saying in private all the time.
IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO TAKE OVER AND RUN THIS SHOW. We have run the show for 30 years and we never should have run it past about the fifth year.
Allan Broadribb ran the show in the seventies. He quit.

The class died.

That was when the twentysomethings should have taken over.

They didn't.

Allan came back. The class worked "sorta" for another nine years. Allan was older and less full of enthusiasm but we didn't have a replacement.

Allan quit again.

I ran things so horribly I was canned.

Some old men took over and didn't have either the time of the enthusiasm to run the class.

It died.

We got some new parents of sailors to run things for a while. They lack the enthusiasm and fanaticism of youth but they are very extremely slowly restarting the class.

In 2002 Ryan Minth published an article in the Laser Sailor about the nuts and bolts being there while we lacked the management to use those tools. ( I knew nuts and bolts weren't tools so I never published his artricle ...but I digress) During the last three years, the tools to run the class were thrown out, left out to rust, or simply lost.

The association is being rebuilt by the current old people managers and volunteers with the help of Bradley and a few guys who are young enough to finish a job without falling asleep.


When the basic operational structure is back in place I believe the responsabilities of the current regime will have been almost completed.

The final step of good management comes only when the manager has recruited and trained a replacement.

My ideal vision of the transition goes as follows:

1. The old folks finish rebuilding the association into a basic functioning tool.
2. We vigorously recruit new enthusiastic youngsters.
3. We make certain they understand they MUST take over.
4. The new enthusiastic people study the situation for most of the Spring and Summer and devise a plan for taking over and running the game.
5. During the fall, the new enthusiastic people actually take over, get themselves elected to all the positions of responsability and hire one of themselves to manage day to day operations.
6. During the late fall and for however long it takes, the old guys will help in any way they can to support the new enthusiastic gang.
7. (Likely but preventable) The old guys pick up the pieces because the new enthusiastic group failed.
8. Either have the greatest Laser Class we have ever enjoyed or start over with the recruitment process until we find another group to begin at step one.

This is not personal. This is pragmatism. We either relight and pass the torch or let it sputter and die.
 
If there is any way I can afford it I will show. It will probably be at least another year before I can resume sailing all over the place.

So far, what I probably knew seems to be the case. There are not any youngsters who really really want to take over and run sailing.

I wonder, what is the psychological or sociological difference between the 20somethings of the 70s and the many generations of 20somethings who have followed us. We seemed eager to push our parents the hell out of the way and take over and run stuff and no "generation" since has felt that need.

Perhaps the cycle is thirty years. We threw out the class of forty.( plus minus five years) The kids might be due to throw out the class of seventy. (same plus minus)
 
As someone that just left their twenty-somethings and is headed into their thirty-somethings, I think that part of it is that people want their sailing, their recreation to stay in that part of their lives and not become their work. Of all the people that you have met that make a living in the sailing "business" (or whatever you want to call it), how many get to sail whenever they want? It becomes their job when sailing was always a means of escape. Not only that, but by the time you are in your twenties, your life is usually taking a course towards (gulp) a career, an education, whatever. Its hard to consider dropping all that to run a huge one-design class.

That said, I have no doubt that the person you are looking for is out there. And when they step forward, they will start a very rewarding process.

we shall see....
 
I work with young folk every day. Cool is fast, active, attractive, sexy, but most importantly new. In the 70's Lasers were all that, and new. Post-modernism has shown us that cool can be old so long as it's made new. I think we need to look at what is cool now, like kiteboarding. Also, the cost of the sport limits the number of potential participants. A kid can get a decent skateboard relatively cheaply and be cool that way. Surfing is cool still because it's relatively imexpensive, though it still requires specialized equipment and can get pricey. Maybe we need to promote "club boat fleets" development to have boats folks can use who are club member guests. I teach kids who live in Houston's most economically disadanvtaged area and none fo them could ever afford to enter Laser sailing. However, they think I am really COOL when they see the pictures of my Laser and me sailing I have hanging behind my desk. Many of them ask if they can sail with me when they see my boat trailered behind my car in the parking lot on days I want to sail after school. If we make the sport accessible to new learners and then give those participants opportunities to participate with the owners of boats (usually older people --parents own the boats they buy for their kids) in races and training.
 

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