Training Courses

Training is one of our priorities at S.S.S.C. We are a Registered Training Establishment, inspected annually by the Royal Yachting Association and we are also a R.Y.A,/Volvo Championship Club.

The former allows us to run courses and issue internationally valid certificates of competence for dinghy sailing and small powered craft; the latter means that we have been judged to have reached a standard of excellence in our standards of coaching young people to improve their dinghy racing ability.

Dinghy Courses

We run two courses each year which are aimed at adults or older youths and aim at training complete beginners to the standard of competency needed to allow us to award R.Y.A. Certificates Level 1 & 2.

These are open to the general public and the Club provides necessary equipment such as training boats and buoyancy aids. We charge a small fee for this course and costs to the public are kept down by the club subsidising the course and club members giving up their time to the course for no payment.

Over the past two years we have successfully trained over 70 people on those courses, in addition, this year we have assisted the 9th Stafford Sea Scouts, who have Group Membership of the club, in training 8 of it's Venture Scouts and awarding them R.Y.A levels 1 & 2 Certificates.

Juniors

Junior training is restricted to members and is provided at no extra charge.

It's hard to believe but we had over 50 children involved in our training in 2004 and in 2005 we had to suspend new entries to junior training when there were 65 children coming on Sunday mornings for novice and improver training.

We later allowed more into the course as some of the earlier entrants gained a level of competency so that they did not require such a high level of input.

This means that in 2005 alone more than 70 children have undertaken dinghy sail training at South Staffs and around 12 of those have been awarded R.Y.A Certificates

In addition, a course for improving racing skills for our young members caters for about 12 young people each year and has shown considerable success in the results of those children in local and national competitions

In order to provide safety cover for out sailing activities we need to have members who are competent in handling power craft.

We therefore provide training so that approximately 20 members per year have been awarded the R.Y.A. Power Boat Certificates levels 1 & 2 and in addition about 12 members per year undertake our Safety Boat Course.

As well as formal training, we offer 'taster sessions' to non members through the spring and summer.

We have an Open Day each year and have more than 80 local people enjoy their first experience of sailing. We also have various groups such as local schools, Rotary Club, Round Table etc who come for taster sessions.

At present we have 20 Dinghy Instructors, including 6 Senior Instructors, 6 Race Coaches and 6 Powerboat Instructors.

These have to have regular re-validations including First Aid qualifications.

The club arranges courses to ensure that instructors are able to keep their certificates valid.

We also run occasional courses to train Assistant Instructors and have trained 6 of these in the last two years.