HISC - Under the skin

Andy Nicholson meets Tim Hancock, the commodore who talks the talk, and who also walks the walk.

Tim Hancock has a list of achievements as long any arm I have ever seen. The newly opened Hayling Island Sailing Club ranks pretty near the top of that long list.

As Commodore of the club for the past three years, it has been Tim’s task to drag the membership, at times kicking and screaming, into what is without question one of the premier dinghy venues in Europe.

When The Daily Sail managed to snatch some time with him on the official opening day he was buzzing with enthusiasm with what had been created. No shrinking violet is Tim, and like modern successful managers in business he doesn’t hesitate to ensure that all people involved in the work get the recognition they deserve. He is also very comfortable with putting his hand up and saying ‘I did that’.

So why the development, why now? Tim explains the vision: “When I came into power we set ourselves out under the slogan of ‘Chosen Venue of Champions’. We want this to be the premier, the top, the best, chosen dinghy racing club in the UK and Europe.

“The building project was agreed by the members to go ahead just before I came into power in July 99. It was felt by the membership that the program was stalling and that the existing commodore was stalling and having trouble in comes to terms with the scale of the development”.


Demolition work nears completion

The original clubhouse was built in 1935 and was ‘modernised’ in the 1950’s. Along the way all sorts of additional buildings and structures have been built and removed. It was the implementation of the RYA World Class Performance Plan, which paved the way for a complete ground up solution to the woefully outdated facilities. As an RYA selected Centre of Excellence a new proposal was put forward to Lottery Sports Funding in 1999, following a failed attempt a couple of years earlier, which succeed in raising £3m of the required £4.2m for the redevelopment. Hancock details where all the money has come from:

“Off the top of my head, a total spend of £4.2m of which the membership has had to raise circa £800-900,000. The lottery grant was just over £3m. On the way we have also had funds coming in from Havant Borough Council, which is very generous. Also through various other sporting bodies over the years, you can claim £1,000 here a £1,000 pounds there. So it all adds up, to about £50,000. And on top of that we have had a lot of sponsors come in and offer equipment to us, so for example Raymarine have supplied the electronics for the committee boats and the race control. LDC Racing Sailboats have given us free equipment such as Toppers and Oppies. Wedgewood have given all the crockery to us for free and that has come through one of our members.”

With a membership in the region of 1,500 a lot has been asked of them to raise the additional money, this is one aspect of the project that Tim has taken on, “As you can imagine the size of the operation I can only work through committees. I certainly haven’t done all the work myself, but what I have led is the membership fundraising element. Which has at times seen to be controversial.”

Members have had to dip into their pockets for an additional £420 each. Only twelve members voted against the re-development and Tim faced a situation in which reality differed from the proposed:

“What happened was a lot of people said they would donate but didn’t actually come around to donating. Because the money from the donations was coming in very slowly I then set about deciding who should pay, who shouldn’t pay depending on the type of membership. Also we spent a lot of time looking at the taxation liabilities and obligations because there are different forms of donations and trusts and the tax implications. What I was trying to do was to fundamentally clear all the debt, many sporting clubs like this have a ten or fifteen year debt and spend all their time servicing the interest on that debt. So we evolved the strategy to try to pay off the whole lot in five years. What we have done for members is created a number of different ways in which they can pay. They can pay one lump sum of £420, or you can £9 a month pay over a four year period, which is not like an onerous obligation.”

Alongside the funding issues, and the building issues, a considerable amount of work has gone into the re-development of how the club is run. There are eight permanent staff, to this will be added another 40 at the height of summer, plus all the traditional member volunteers:

“We have changed the way run the club fundamentally. We have in our plan to host three or four major championships a year. To service the club of this size we have had to increase the number of staff and to run it like a business. We absolutely need members and member volunteers to run the racing, but what we have done is to change the committee structures. So we have a Policy Committee (brought in last year), which I chair and we set the policy and strategy of the club. We then have a Management Committee which has staff and members on it, these are elected posts.”

Additional sub committees of Sailing, House, Training, and Youth for example help organise all the different directions the club needs. For Tim this has been another challenge, “The staff work very closely with the committees to deliver what we ask them to deliver. That is quite a big shift in the ethos and thinking of the club and we have driven this through in parallel with the development of the club.”

The building itself is superb and Tim is eager to explain that there has been a huge amount of work been put into the design of the building. This includes a full people flow study, how the kitchen operates and caters for different requirements, IT cabling and underfloor heating. A fully integrated race management suite enables them to display race results and video footage in different locations around the club, in short everything has been thought out to the Nth degree.

It all adds up to a very comprehensive package, from an excellent sailing venue through to the 200 seat restaurant with panoramic views over the water. “This new club matches anything in the world,” states Tim.


The view up to Race Control and out over Chichester Harbour

The club is charging headlong into its first ‘new’ season. There are three major championships to be held this year. The first, at Easter will be the RYA National Youth Championships with 250 boats racing on three or four course areas. In June the International 14 Class will hold their European Championships and POW and July sees 200 plus 420’s turn up for their World Championship. The RS700s and 800s have their National Championship in August, with another 100 plus boats expected. In addition to these are the 505 Nationals and 22 other open meetings.

Club racing will continue week in week out and is central to the development of the club: “We have to make sure we have very strong club racing,” says Tim, “strong training facilities and the right environment. What we are trying to do is raise the level of professionalism within the structure of the club. What we are now doing is forward planning the next five years with three or four major championships each year, while running club racing every weekend in the harbour and in the bay.”

It is this balance between delivering good club racing alongside catering for the massive demands of hosting several championships, which will mould the future shape of the club.

There is no doubt that a large majority of the club members will be jumping at the chance to get fully involved, but there will also be some members who feel that that club has now moved in a direction that they no longer want or have the money or time to invest in.

With annual membership fees at about £220 for an individual Tim admits that it’s at the top end: “A member here, yes they pay more than other clubs, but tell me where they get the same facilities. You are comparing a leisure centre with a private health club. “

Hayling Island Sailing Club is one of the first dinghy racing clubs to pitch itself at this level and we will be watching with interest as others around the world attempt to follow their bold and determined leadership.

For the photo gallery of the opening of the new club, click here .

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