Please note that voting will be held entirely by electronic or postal vote; in person voting will not be held at the Annual General Meeting.
Rhys Cooke (nominated for GC, 1st term)
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rachelle.turk Administrator Posts: 60
17/03/2026
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I'm Rhys Cooke, I'm 31 and I am standing for nomination for a General Committee seat. I have been sailing from a very young age with my family, we were members of an active cruising club (Tollesbury Cruising Club) and this greatly influenced my introduction to sailing. Here my family went through several boats, each getting bigger as our trips expanded from coastal day sails to many trips across to the European mainland. At the age of 13/14 I was recruited into the RYA Recognised Junior Catamaran Squad sailing Hobie Dragoons, and then later into the Youth Squad racing Spitfire catamarans. From the age of 17 I’d take my parents boat out with friends, until I bought my own yacht Valkyrie with my partner Romy in 2022. We have since sailed approximately 9,000 nautical miles together, from the UK to the USA, and are currently in the Bahamas where we are making plans to run an OCC Cruise in Company February 2026.
As part of the General Committee, I'd like to support the Club’s goals to expand the membership, particularly looking at how to bring in younger members. When we were getting ready to leave it would have been great to have known about the OCC and the different ways the Club could have supported us. So for me, helping the Club work out how to reach potential members before they have done their qualifying passage, and how to support them on their journey is in my opinion, a vital part of achieving this. An idea for this is to seek partnerships with organisations such as the Tall Ships Sailing Trust, where we can offer young sailors a pipeline through the Youth Sponsorship Programme and then on to become ocean cruisers on their own vessels. I believe my experiences as a young sailor coming through these systems will help the club in achieving these goals.
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Daria Blackwell Posts: 771
27/03/2026
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Hi Rhys,
It will be interesting to have two members named Rhys on the General Committee, both of whom are interested in attracting young members to the OCC. Do you have any ideas about how to accomplish that?
Kinds regards,
Daria
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Daria Blackwell - Past Vice Commodore and Port Officer, West of Ireland
s/v Aleria
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Rhys.Cooke Posts: 1
31/03/2026
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Hi Daria,
So with the advent of starlink many more younger sailors are now able to set sail while maintaining employment. So we know this is a growing group within the cruising community.
I think there are two types of young cruisers, people like me who have been sailing their whole lives and always wanted to do this and people who are completely new to sailing who have often be made aware of this life style though social media influencers.
For the people that have been sailing for a long time, I think seeking partnerships with organisations like the tall ships youth trust (to name one off the top of my head) to provide awareness of our organisation to young people before they might buy their own boat and what we can provide like the youth sponsorship program.
And for the new to sailing people I think working on how we can make the club more present in the minds of younger sailors is going to be vital, ideas for this could be, teaming up with some YouTube/Instagram channels to promote the OCC. I think many people that are turning to cruising have been influenced to do so by these channels.
Thank you,
Rhys
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