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ICS
Courses in 2012:
All courses run from 10am to 6pm each day
Easter Courses
at Papercourt Sailing Club, Ripley, Surrey.
Course 1 Monday 26 March - Friday 30 March (5 Day course)
Course 2 Monday 2nd April
- Thursday 5th April (4 Day Course)
[Easter Weekend:
Friday 6th April
- Monday 9th April]
Course 3 Tuesday 10th
April - Friday 13th April (4 Day Course)
Course 4 Monday 16th April
- Friday 20th April (5 Day Course)
Eligibility:
No minimum sailing or swimming experience is required, and there is no
requirement to belong to a sailing club. Age minimum 8, maximum 14. Maximum
weight (for beginners only): 55 kgs. (See
Policy on age and size).
There are up to seven ability
groups on each course accommodating children with little or no sailing
experience (usually about half are in this category) where the emphasis is
on developing basic skills, those with one or two years’ experience where
good seamanship is developed and racing introduced, and a ‘top group’ where
more advanced racing techniques are taught.
Syllabus and awards: The standard course duration is five days. The four courses are the same except that because of the four-day Easter holiday when we do not have use of the club facilities, the courses either side of Easter are squeezed into four days. The syllabuses are moderately intensive and include 'homework' each evening. It is therefore inadvisable for parents to schedule other evening activities during the week of their child's course. Two award schemes are run concurrently: the Royal Yachting Association Junior Award Scheme and the Optimist Class Association Award Scheme. The syllabuses include a capsize exercise. In addition to any RYA or IOCA certificates and badges earned, skippers in the top (racing) group who pass the ICS comprehensive ‘rig, launch and sail efficiently single-handed’ proficiency test, will be awarded the ICS ‘Copper Oppy’ award. All awards are given only when required levels of skill or competence are reached. We do not give ‘attendance certificates’. The courses are highly structured and we cram in as much as we can during each week but we are strict about giving awards. If you simply want your child to get an RYA or IOCA certificate please do not send him/her on an ICS course. There are lots of sailing schools that have a ‘relaxed’ policy on awards. We are not one of them. A certificate awarded by ICS is well earned and highly regarded. A skipper who has reached IOCA level 2 or 3 who has no experience between courses will struggle to regain their level from one year to the next.
Instructors and Staff: Jae Willis is now the Principal of ICS. We draw on a corps of experienced ICS instructors and senior instructors who are conversant with our teaching methods. For the typical number of 56 children on a course there is a staff of 22 including fourteen instructors. Two instructors are allocated to each group, at least one of whom holds the qualification 'RYA Dinghy Instructor'. There are, on average, eight children in each group.
Boats: An Optimist dinghy must be provided for each child. A trolley is useful but not essential. To help parents of beginners who cannot provide a boat, ICS offers the use of Royal Yachting Association regional ‘Oppies’. These abrasion resistant boats are slower and heavier than real Optimists but are eminently suitable for beginners. They are not suitable for a skipper with more than 13 months experience (e.g. an ICS course, one season's sailing and a second ICS course). A charge of £57 (for a 4 or a 5 day course) is made to cover maintenance and transport payable when first accepted on to a course (cheque payable to ‘ICS’).
Transport: The map shows the location of Papercourt Sailing Club. Parents bringing a boat are requested to ensure that it is delivered, complete but unrigged, by 0930 on the first day of the course, or left during the weekend (either afternoon) before the course. Children should be delivered each day by 0950 (staff are on site from 0920) and collected at 6pm. Before the commencement of each course we distribute addresses of parents of children on the course so that parents can arrange to share the burden of daily transportation.
Last Day: Parents, family, and friends are invited to attend on the last day of the course at 3.45 pm to watch the sailing and attend the presentation of awards, after which tea is served.
Clothing: To wear: warm clothes and soft-soled shoes (e.g. trainers or sailing boots). To bring: complete change of clothes and shoes, buoyancy aid (we have some available for loan - no charge), windproof anorak or splash suit. Wet-suits are useful if the weather is cold, but are not essential (only about 20% of the children attending bring wet suits). See kit list.
Meals: Elevenses, lunch and tea are provided each day. Fresh fruit, yogurts and squash are always available.
Course fee:
Five-day Easter
course at Papercourt Sailing Club: £375.00
Four-day Easter course at Papercourt Sailing Club: £340.00
Four-day Summer course at Wraysbury Lake SC: £235.00
Four-day Summer course at Papercourt Sailing Club: £340.00
There is no VAT. The course fee includes instruction, meals, T-shirt, a CD
containing digital images taken during the course, log books, awards and
badges where relevant. Children do not require pocket money. No deposit is
required. The course fee becomes due for payment when requested
approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the course.
Images CD:
We take at least 4 digital images of each skipper (alone or in a group) and
an all-skipper image, and put all in .jpg format on to a CD, which is sent
to parents as soon as we can after the end of the courses. The images can be copied or printed. Most images are high
definition of 3mb or more (to allow cropping) but of course they can be
reduced.
Registration: Applications can be accepted only by using the ICS website registration application facility, which will be enabled on the 18th of October. Please complete carefully and accurately. The most popular weeks (usually around the Easter week-end) are usually oversubscribed. The difficult task of deciding which applications to accept is detailed below:
Selection Criteria: The selection process is NOT based on a first come first served policy.
1) Suitability of
age (Oppy Age 8 – 14).
Oppy Age 8 means that the skipper turns 8 at some point in that year, so
they may be 7 at the time of the courses but will turn 8 later in the year,
this means they are Oppy Age 8.
2) Suitability of age in relation to experience. Older beginners may
find themselves in a group with younger, smaller skippers: This is not
usually appreciated by the skipper in question and should be made clear to
them that it may be unavoidable. Some older skippers aren’t bothered by it,
in which case Jae should be informed of this as it will effect the likely
hood of them getting a place.
3) Priority will be given to those who have attended an ICS course
before. This does not mean that if your child has not been on one of our
courses before they have no chance of being accepted, it’s just a loyalty to
previous skippers. We do generally have anywhere from 50 – 100 new skippers
each year.
4) Priority will also be given to sibling of skippers who have attended
ICS courses before.
5) Skippers who have achieved several grades but have had no
in-between-course experience will be given a lower priority. Skippers
who have achieved Level 2 or above in either Logbook but have not had any
experience in the last year will have a lower priority because it’s very
difficult for skippers of any age to progress further once they have
achieved L2 unless they get some experience on the water in between courses.
Otherwise they spend most of the course re-learning what they have forgotten
from the year before. This fine and not a problem, but if there are other
skippers who have shown a keener interest since the last course, they will
have priority when it comes to being allocated their first choice course.
6) A certain number
of places are reserved for ARG – Advanced Racing Group. We have now
introduced a specific race training group on certain weeks*. Therefore, on
these weeks up to 12 places are reserved for skippers who are looking to
refine their racing skills and achieve their racing grades. Only skippers
who are racing very regularly and seriously should apply for this group.
*For
2012 ARG is likely to take place on Course 2 and 3, but it will depend on
the level of interest for it.
If you are interested please notify me and I will keep you informed.
7) A number of places are reserved for Papercourt Sailing Club
members. If the number of PSC members applying exceeds the number of
places reserved, acceptance will be deduced using the above mentioned
criteria.
Please note: If you are unsure whether your child is likely to get on
a course, the best thing to do is apply anyway. Usually the majority of
people will get a place on a course, it just might not be your first choice,
or you may end up on a waiting list, but as we do have cancellations each
year due to an inevitable percentage of unforeseen circumstances, places do
become available.
Also: It is often the case that we are oversubscribed on the two most
popular weeks, usually the weeks either side of the Easter weekend, though
for 2011 it looks like it will be the two weeks prior to the Easter weekend.
As a result of this a number of people will find that they won’t get their
first choice. This is unavoidable as we have a safe limit of numbers on each
course that we cannot exceed. It is very helpful to us if applications do
have a second and third choice as this enables us to get that skipper on a
course rather than put them on a long waiting list.
Residential Facility:
Accommodation can be arranged for children who live far away, or whose
parents cannot arrange the daily transportation, with parents who have a
child on the same course. Simply indicate on the registration application
form if accommodation is required. The address and telephone number of the
host family will be advised shortly before the course. The recommended
charge is £8 per night (usually 4 nights for a five-day course or 3 nights
for a four-day course) to include evening meals, breakfasts, and transport
to and from the sailing club. However, payment must be made directly to
hosts, not via ICS. Unless some other arrangement is made with the host
family, children staying with a host family should be delivered to the club
on the first day of the course, and collected from the club after the awards
ceremony on the last day of the course.
Insurance: Accidents on ICS courses are rare. We emphasise to the skippers and staff the importance of safe practices, and caring for boats and equipment. However, collisions do happen (especially in the beginner groups) and this sometimes results in damage. Insurance to cover the cost of repairs is therefore important. In addition, every boat must be insured by its owner with adequate third party indemnity. Although there is normally no further premium due*, owners of boats being lent should inform their insurance broker. [*No further premium is due if insured through the Royal Yachting Association recommended insurance broker: Bishop Skinner & Co., telephone number 0207-566-5800 email: insurance@bishopskinner.com, or through the International Optimist Class Association recommended insurance broker: Noble Marine Insurance Brokers Ltd, telephone number 01636 707606 email: dinghy@noblemarine.co.uk] The RYA Thames Valley Region’s ‘Oppies’ are insured by the TVR. ‘Personal accident’ insurance is not arranged by ICS.