Chair’s welcome

In the course of shaping our strategic plan, we spoke widely with our members, stakeholders and partners. These conversations confirmed People, Places and Communities as its main thematic leads, and cemented Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Sustainability as fundamental priorities underpinning all we do, and how we do it.

We set out to measure our progress not just in numbers and reaching narrow targets, but the difference we make to the lives of people, the places and communities – as told by their own stories. We would demonstrate meaningful impact across our activities through the narrative beside the numbers.

Finally, it must be stressed that this is only year one – we have only just begun to reframe our work to this strategy, and much remains to be done. Yet we are confident we are on the right track, as the voices and stories in this report demonstrate.

In April last year, we were delighted to introduce People, Places and Communities, our strategic plan for the three years from 2022 to 2025. It represents a substantial re-imagining of RYA Scotland, introducing an entirely new regional and local approach to how we support and develop the breadth of boating across Scotland today.

Our strategy iterates our intention to radically change the understanding of the positive impact boating has on Scotland’s people, places and communities – including health and wellbeing, personal achievement, training and learning, employment, community spirit, environmental awareness and other wider societal benefits. And of course, the pure thrill of it.

The strategy aims to reframe and target our work and activities closer to where boating happens, through a regional planning approach that facilitates engagement, support and training as close as possible to the point of need. To solidify this approach, we set out to grow our regional planning functions for the East, West and North and Islands regions.

Now, just over 12 months on, this report explores and celebrates progress in our first year of working to this fresh and re-imagined strategy. In keeping with our undertaking to make greater use of the narrative beside the numbers to demonstrate meaningful impact, we showcase inspiring people, places and communities around Scotland.