Commodore John Nash takes up the story. “Our duty roster management was all done
by hand on bits of paper. It turned into quite a complex process and a lot for our
duty co-ordinator to manage properly.”
When the post changed hands a couple took on the role. “They found out about DutyMan
and introduced it to the club. It was quite groundbreaking for members at the time.
They were more familiar dealing with printed lists and not a little disorganisation.”
Dell Quay was among the first sailing clubs to try DutyMan in February 2006 and
has never looked back. In the words of John Nash “I don't know what we'd
do without it now.”
Resistance - then benefits
Initially there was some resistance. “In the early days there was a lot of doubt
among members but we persisted and early benefits of DutyMan soon began to flow,”
John adds.
“For example, duty rosters were printed in our Year Book but, not everyone renewed
their membership and with new members coming on board during the year, the duty
rosters information was quickly out of date. At the same time members were swapping
duties with the result that nobody really knew who was going to turn up on the day.
All this changed with our use of DutyMan.”
The pre-DutyMan days were stressful for the duty roster co-ordinator, but great
news for his phone provider. “With the old system, he received phone calls from
members who had been allocated a duty, saying they couldn’t do it. He then had to
phone around to see who could. But now, thanks to DutyMan, nearly all swaps are
arranged online by members themselves.”
“Always accurate, saves time”
John says “DutyMan is great. Why? Because it’s always accurate, saves time, doesn't
lead to stress and piles of paper, and is always in place and working with minimal
human intervention. It has given us a process that is successful for us regardless
of who is in charge of duties.”
“And, like most computer programs, it delivers order and imposes a discipline without
upsetting people. More and more members are at ease with these aspects of computers,
which can only be good for the club.”
Automatic reminders
A key feature of DutyMan – and often the most popular with duty co-ordinators -
is that it sends reminder emails to members automatically. “That is great because
it saves us a lot of time and is another load taken off our shoulders,” says John.
Already, over 90% of the membership have email, “and this percentage can only increase
with time”, John adds.
“Brilliant”
John describes DutyMan as “brilliant– I can’t praise it enough. It's a perfect
system for a sailing club, enabling it to handle duties with minimum effort and
the greatest degree of accuracy.”
Further information about Dell Quay SC can be found at www.dellquaysc.co.uk
