All at sea: SAP was barely out of the port when it sank its 'social responsibility' voyage Making a company's ethical image all shipshape and Bristol fashion requires careful navigation of choppy waters – so perhaps SAP should know better. Enterprise software's top dog has launched a corporate initiative in which it promises to direct 5 per cent of its own "addressable" spending to social enterprises and another 5 …
Now, The Register may be wrong, but yacht racing is not a sport known to be easily accessible to inner-city welfare kids or impoverished Guatemalan coffee farmers.
Wrong ! In an episode of Dharma & Greg the divine Miss Elfman explained to her not-at-all well depicted California hippy parents that the Country Club ( American thing ) was holding a function raising money to teach inner-city kids how to yacht...
When I lived in London there were 4 or 5 sailing clubs on the Welsh Harp alone, including a dedicated youth sailing base. Plus another 30+ within the M25.
Birmingham has Midland SC on Edgbaston Reservoir right in the middle of the city, which has a junior sailing section. Plus another 40 odd within as many miles
Picking out some random googles..
Salford Junior Sailing Club
Nottingham Sailing Club
...
Sea Cadets & Sea Scouts
And same for other cities worldwide. It doesn't need to be much more than a puddle to let kids loose in oppies or a topper.
You get my drift.
And for the most densely(*) populated city in the UK ...... Portsmouth, we have the Mengeham Rythe Sailing Club!
https://www.mengeham.org.uk/
(*) I meant highest population density .... though I would not argue against anyone using the other meaning!
It is a reminder, if ever one were needed, that selecting software vendors inevitably puts you between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Selecting software vendors initially puts both you and the devil in munificent sees. The eventual inevitable resultant product of that bifocular binocular pairing is the stuff of legend.
You do realise that millennials are between 20 and 40 years old, and therefore make up the bulk of the workforce right?
Not to mention that announcing a grand sounding plan purely for PR purposes, (that will be quietly forgotten in a year) is hardly a modern business invention.
There are at least 6 sailing clubs (excluding Cadets, who dont race much) in strangford lough, northern Ireland.
Racing boats varies from toppers - 9 ft plastic boats for kids, which can be picked up (if you are careful) for 100 quid, Lasers and wayfarers dinghies, and we even have one of the UKs largest leisure 17 fleets which sometimes races (you can pick up a pocket criuser for less than 1000....
Many boats are coowned to spread the cost of buying and maintenance - I know some classes have limits on how much can be spent per year, to maximize participation.
Racing yachts does not necessarily mean Americas Cup. There is a thriving race community in old, 1970's built fibreglass boats... They usually race on one of 2 handicap systems, so first across the line on a new high performance boat does not mean winning.
Many clubs have members host the races. While I don't race myself, I take my shift.
As one who has sit freezing my arse off on an old raft as a start line with pencil, paper and stopwatch, I can certainly see the benefit in an app based scoring system....
As for annual spend, its not necessarially that high - I used to spend more on cigarettes per day than I ever spent on boating. It is a discretionary spend - though I know I have got a lot more kids out of inner city Belfast and onto the water each year (with the Sea Cadets) than many other 'Activity centers' with significant budgets...
back to the point, though, 90% or more of racing yachts is not high budget Ellison type than usually assumed yeah for the app - I will take a look at it...
"toppers - 9 ft plastic boats for kids,"
Still loads of fun for adults too! Nothing better to learn in than something that's basically unsinkable.
(You can fit at least eight people on a Topper. Admittedly the deck was half a meter underwater, but it still sailed. Just.)
At this juncture it is probably a good time to mention the amazing
https://scaramouchesailing.org.uk/ a project at the Greig City Academy (GCA) - a state school in Inner City North London - which does exactly that!
Founded in 2014 by the Outdoor Activities Teacher at GCA (Jon Holt)- he appears to have raised his head above the usual education based risk aversion and come up with the idea of taking the pupils out of their usual inner city life and going sailing, initially in small dinghies, and then later hatching the plan to do the Fastnet race with them!
If anything is deserving of SAP's cash I reckon it's this project!
So I take you point about yachting often being a world of privilege, but Greig City Academy has shown what can be achieved with truly inspirational leadership - I'd bet the kids on the project are too busy preparing the boats, learning how to maintain them, and sailing (and learning maths, engineering and teamwork skills to put it in educational language) to be out getting involved in what appears to have become traditional city yoof activities of drug dealing, stabbing each other etc.etc.
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