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Club History 1956-1965
| 1945-1955 | 1956-1965 | 1966-1984 | 1985-1988 |
| 1989-1995 | 1995-1999 | 1999-2005 | 2005-2010 |
CONCORD & RYDE SAILING CLUB INC.
Tracing the Club’s history from the beginning.
2005 to 2010.
The start of the 2005/06 season saw a change in the Editor of our Up The River magazine with Nicole Williams accepting this challenging role. She brought her own ideas and a new look magazine appeared with her first issue – it had photos in colour on the cover. It brightened up the magazine and issues regularly now have 40 pages of news and information. The Presentation Day issue of May, 2009 had 56 pages of articles, whilst the last one of May, 2010 had 52 pages, so it is now a huge task preparing this worthwhile publication. This magazine is still definitely one of the best sailing club magazines around.
Some of the original members of the old Skate Class had been having regular get-togethers over the years and in 2008 one remembered that 2009 would be the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Class at CRSC. It was decided by these sailors that on 8th February, 2009 a Skate Reunion would be held at CRSC to commemorate this anniversary and asked the Management Committee for the co-operation of the Club which was willingly given. On the day eight current members of CRSC prepared barbeques and meals for some 120 former Skate sailors and there was much reminiscing about ‘the old days’ of sailing on the Parramatta River. Many of these Skate sailors were now in their late sixties and seventies but still showed the same enthusiasm as they had 50 years ago. On hand was quite a number of photos and other memorabilia which revived memories and there were even a couple of Skates on hand to take some of the old salts out for a sail, they thoroughly enjoyed being back on the Parramatta River. There was plenty of talk with tall stories told by these fellows and even after the Club House had been locked for the night there were still many who remained until dark still chatting. This event underlined the spirit and camaraderie that has been evident over the years with CRSC sailors.
For the commencement of the 65th season of racing a new badge was arranged reverting to the correct Club colours of dark blue background, light blue cross with gold lettering. This was available from the start of the 2009/10 season.
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Over the years the Management committee has encouraged a number of social events as well as tutorial sessions. In the latter category regular Rules Night discussion are held to instruct new Club members in the rules of sailing as well as updating general members on any rule changes that take place. Also for a few months the Club had the loan of a sailing simulator which saw many members taking the opportunity to hone their sailing skills.
The social events are more varied now than in the early years when Presentation Day Balls were organised and on another occasion a Country & Western Hodown night was held. These days the more regular events include Crazy Whist nights, Trivia nights and Wine & Cheese tasting evenings and of course the Christmas Parties and Presentation Days both now held on Kissing Point Park. For many years a barbeque has been held after each Club Championship heat during the season and in recent years the Cat Class has been holding a Happy Hour in their rigging area each Saturday after the racing.
Additional funds came to the Club’s coffers from the various social events as well as raffles which have included prizes for meat trays, cameras, binoculars, photo albums, wine and beer, potted roses as well as handcrafts made by members. Another fund raiser over many years was the 100 Club Competitions which had a lot of interest from members. Also for many years the Club has had a variety of T-Shirts, Caps, Hats and fleecy lined Jackets emblazoned with the Club’s pennant and name available for sale through the canteen with the profits from these sales going into revenue.
CRSC has always supported the Concord Council and the Ryde Council by participating in a number of public events organised by them. Support was given to Concord Council for its centenary celebrations in 1983 by holding Centenary Regatta with gold plated commemorative medallion being presented to the winning skippers by the Mayor of Concord and a week later by participating in the Centenary Gala Day Parade with a fully rigged Manly Junior towed behind a suitably decorated utility piled with kids decked out in sailing gear. Then in conjunction with Ryde Council Club members sailed their boats in a race as part of the 1986 Ryde Municipal Games and for a few years participated in the Ryde Council’s ‘Granny Smith Festival Carnivale’ with members displaying a rigged boat from each class in Ryde Park, a good promotion for CRSC in drawing interest from the public..
Another community event that CRSC participated in for some years was the Ryde Aquatic Festival held in Kissing Point Park where Club members in their sailing boats gave demonstrations of racing. This activity was dropped after a few years due to the lack of the public’s interest in the racing as other displays were on at the same time which captured more interest than sailing races.
On occasions the Club has been involved with co-ordinating sailing activities with schools, in 1968 and 1969 both the Meadowbank and the Macquarie Boys High Schools pupils had sailing as a sport. In 2006 and 2007 the Sydney Adventist School at Strathfield also asked the Club to run an introductory course in sailing for pupils. The latter was supervised by Club Members on Wednesday afternoons for an hour’s duration over 11 weeks some children were quite interested and learned the basics of operating either a Sabot or a Spiral. It was a huge task for volunteers who had to rig and unrig 10 sailing boats as well as launch and retrieve 3 rescue boats, this taking up some 3 ½ hours each week.
For some years CRSC ran a programme to give quite ill children the opportunity to experience the joy of having a sail through the Starlight Foundation’s ‘Make a Wish’ programme. This ran for a few seasons and made these children very happy young people as well as being very rewarding to those Club Members who volunteered their time to run it.
Since the 1994/95 season CRSC has supported the annual Sail for Cancer setting one race aside each year for this worthwhile cancer research programme. Skippers and crew are requested to make a donation of $5 and $2 respectively and some also gain sponsorship from family and friends. Since this commenced a total of $9,000 has been raised up until the 2009/10 season.
As will be evident from what has been written in the history of CRSC training has played a big part of its activities. For quite a few months during the early part of the 2005/06 season the club was offered the use of a ‘Virtual Sailing Simulator’ which was developed by a team which included Frank Bethwaite, the designer of the Tasar Class. This could be set up to give one practice in starting procedures, sailing flat in gusty or constant wind conditions as well as a wave sequence could be activated to make it more trick and much more. Many members took advantage of the availability of this equipment to undertake three 3 hour sessions to become acquainted with the equipment and to refine their sailing skill in many areas. Most participants felt that they had gained some refinement of their sailing skills from this course.
More recently school holiday camps have been run by the Club; these first started when the Training Officer was helping to hone the skills of some of the young Heron sailors to take part in Association events. In 2010 Yachting NSW in conjunction with CRSC ran school holiday camps in January and April with some 25 youngsters taking part enjoying the 4 days of sailing. Official YNSW Instructors ran the courses with meals being catered for by Club volunteers. These camps were very successful with some of the trainees joining the Club for more sailing. It is hoped to continue these camps with some of the Club’s younger members doing the training after they obtain the necessary instructors’ qualifications.
Our Open Days have been continuing and for some years has been run in conjunction with support from the Yachting NSW and The Boating Industry Association who widely promote this programme which is now run by many Clubs. Because of this further publicity has been gained with promotion on the Television programme “Sydney Weekender” where the presenters have come to our Club, alternating with other Clubs, and were filmed being taken out for a sail. On the last Open Day held on 1st November 2009 over 200 people registered with CRSC to try sailing with some 270 rides being undertaken as some folk backed up for seconds. It was a big logistic exercise with some 20 boats on the water and at least 50 Club members taking part with the water activities and on shore registration and barbeques etc. This day resulted in at least 63 children and adults being registered in our training classes over 4 courses with many continuing sailing with the Club. Over the years it has grown into a large Club activity with our Club being recognised as having the most interested would be sailors for Open Day each year.
Currently in 2010 the Club’s training fleet has grown to 3 JH8s, 10 Sabots, and 13 Spirals with the possibility of 8 Optimists to be added. These are put to great use for both training classes and early afternoon racing in the Cadet Class and Intermediate Spiral Class where the training class members get practical experience in racing.
The season just completed showed that the membership of the Club was 248 with total registration of 101 boats however in addition to these boats on the water some of the ex-training members used boats from the Club’s fleet for racing. So at the end of the season which completed its 65th season of activities Concord & Ryde Sailing Club Inc is in a strong shape for the future with many keen young people being strongly involved in sailing and helping with the training of new sailors. CRSC has always promoted itself as a family orientated Club and this can be witnessed during its activities where a number of families have 3 generations involved.
To complete this history I would like to reprint some words from an article from the November, 1981 issue Up The River written by Don Melrose, Foundation and Life Member:-
“Throughout its history, the Club has run its own affairs as an amateur sporting group. Committees serving the membership have undertaken their responsibilities for the overall management, the conduct of races, the training of novice sailors and the running of social activities. The Club has continued because of these many volunteers who gave up their time (and sometimes their sailing) to carry out some vital job necessary to keep things going. They are the champions every year.”
These words are just as pertinent today to CRSC Committee Members as they were almost 30 years ago and his comments from then still sum up the aims of the Management Committee.
Ron Burwood
CRSC Archivist – August, 2010.
