We encourage anyone in the community to come and have a go at sailing on the Witham. Our membership is around 40 people, but most of those have family membership, allowing their families to make use of the club facilities.

We also allow Boston Sea Cadets to use the facilities.
For the past few years the club accounts have been struggling to keep our heads above water (sorry for the pun!). We have not been paying any sort of rates but Boston Borough Council has now decided to charge us £1,400 business rates.

This would add £35 on to each member's annual fee. At present our membership fee is £60. We own the freehold on our clubhouse on Witham Bank West, but we lease a small section of river bank off the Environment Agency (EA). The EA also want to increase our annual bank rent.

With the current economic downturn I can't see our club surviving for much longer. We have a full set of audited accounts for the last 50-odd years which shows how we could not survive with these increases.

We hold several regattas on the Witham during the summer months. We also sail on most Wednesday evenings. The club owns a few sailing dinghies that our members try and maintain (as well as their own boats). These are old wooden boats the club has begged, borrowed or bought. These club boats are open to use for members, so you do not need to own a boat to sail on the Witham. We also allow people to come and try sailing a couple of times for free, with the hope they enjoy it and pay the £60 membership fee.

We do charge people to store/moor their own boats on the riverbank. Depending on the type of boat it ranges from £20 for juniors with a dinghy to £170 for a 26-foot keel boat. The club is in desperate need of a safety boat in the form of a powered, stable dory/rib type boat.

Our clubhouse is over 40 years old and has not been altered much in that time and is in desperate need of updating. The club has had used safety equipment donated over the years such as life jackets etc. This, also, needs to be replaced.

We have looked into grant funding but found there are so many hoops to jump through which we are slowly working through: risk assessments, child protection, insurances, long-term lease, club constitution and rules etc.

All our committee work full-time and want to be sailing during their spare time. We are finding it hard to get these vital things in place.
I can't understand why the council would want to end up closing down a club such as ours in Boston. I have looked through the proposal for Boston Town Centre once the barrage is in place.

The pictures with sailing boats in the river look very nice, but will there be a sailing club? It also includes a footbridge over the Witham around the rowing club area. How are sailing boats going to get under this bridge? Some of our boats need 30 plus foot of air draft.
This letter is my personal view and has not come from the Witham Sailing Club committee.

Paul Burton
Commodore
Witham Sailing Club