Volunteering with the Ocean Cruising Club

I've been a volunteer with the OCC since about the time we returned from our Atlantic circuit in 2010. I joined OCC after our third Atlantic crossing, having finally met a member who could sponsor me. It would have been much better to have joined before we sailed off, as some of the difficulties we experienced might have been ameliorated. But that didn't happen. It wasn't as simple to join then as it is now, with online applications and global referrals. There were serious obstacles then, one secretary in particular.

So I joined when we settled in Ireland, and Alex joined several years later when the joining fee was waived for joint membership applicants. Soon after I joined, I was co-opted by John Franklin onto the Strategy Team led by Beth Leonard. Our purpose was to determine how the OCC could alter the profile of the organisation from stagnation to growth. For years, the OCC had barely enough new members to make up for those resigning and passing. Beth and I worked together with a few other team members to conduct a survey and membership analysis and formulate a strategic plan for the OCC's future. We presented that plan to the Committee and got approval for a strategic vision that identified the ethos of OCC, something we could weave into our story and that would appeal to cruisers worldwide.

In the meantime, the OCC's website was creating serious problems. It was way over budget and not fit for purpose. Joomla as a platform was not something that volunteers could easily work with and the Cruising Information website, which was separate but integrated, was not workable for members to use. It almost tore the Club apart. I got involved after getting co-opted onto the Committee and managed to come up with a solution that kept it from becoming a major downfall. We 'simply' migrated the Cruising Information to the Forum, a major undertaking but it cut our annual costs significantly.

From that time on, I have been the web editor for the OCC. The storyteller and promulgator, together with the PR Officer role that I took on when I realised the OCC sent only one press release each year. They had sent a release only about the awards and only to one publication in the UK despite being a global organisation. No wonder so few knew about the OCC. I was co-opted onto the Awards subcommittee as PR Officer and brought my own Northern hemisphere media list to bear, expanding it to include antipodean publications. I then began a concerted effort to get the word out about OCC to the world. I formulated a communications plan to get OCC greater recognition among cruisers and coerced Alex into creating new art for all our logos. I then wrote a Standards Manual for how we all must communicate about the club because people all over the world were creating their own resources and not maintaining any of our standards. Slowly I started to build a relationship with media outlets. both print and digital, and slowly they began to trust the OCC as a partner in good reporting.

Then, I took on coordination of the social media effort which was growing uncontrolled and becoming a potential liability. Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, ActiveCaptain, and so on were being reviewed and reported on to the Committee so we could keep the messaging coherent. Eventually, the eBulletin came under me and I became responsible for the PR and Digital Communications Subcommittee. I instituted a digital version of Flying Fish and the Newsletter on issuu so members who were out there could access their benefits. My role kept growing, as it always has in paid positions, but this was a volunteer effort and a lot of it. I started to re-examine my motivations. I suppose I just can't help improve things.

True, I got reviews of our books in Flying Fish. The titles I held elevated my credibility with media around the world. As we were publishing as a business (not that it ever made much money), it was a way to enhance our status in the cruising journalism community. And as we could only sail locally (family issues kept us close to Ireland), it was a way to maintain sanity and mental acuity. Long ago, I recognised that I have an altruism gene and I need to exercise it. But why sailing? Why is that important on the global scale? Why not help those who are suffering rather than those who are privileged to be able to lead an alternative lifestyle? And why didn't I stay in pharma? I do know the answer to the latter.

I will continue my examination of what I have done with OCC and why I did it in the next edition of this blog. I think I have learned a great deal, and still have a lot more to discover. The people I have met, and the stories I have learned and retold, have made it all worthwhile.

Random beautiful photo from Antigua