After sustaining a spinal cord Injury in February 2008 and during his rehabilitation in hospital at Headley Court, Major Phil Packer decided to embark upon numerous physical challenges to raise funds for charity and raise awareness of the charities he supports.

His three main challenges in 2009 included rowing the Channel with Al Humphreys, walking the London Marathon over 14 days and hauling himself up El Capitan with a support team of some of the country’s best climbers. Phil inspired millions and gained unexpected National recognition, including Fundraiser of the Year at the Pride of Britain Awards and the Helen Rollason Award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

Inspired in turn by those he has met on his journey, Phil is embarking on a new life to dedicate his time and energy to supporting young people and young people with disabilities. Working with the advice and partnerships of Disability Organisations and Charities, his intent is to provide an opportunity of hope for young people with disabilities between the ages of 16 and 25.

RYA Sailability is the governing body of disabled sailing in the UK and because of its good work has gained the support of ambassadors around the UK including Phil Packer, Geoff Holt, Helena Lucas and Keith Harris.

The charity operates through 200 sites in the UK and helps over 25,000 disabled people to participate in the sport of sailing at various skill levels. This includes the ‘Beginner to Winner’ initiative that takes people from novices through to elite sailing and for some onto Paralympics level. Making all of this possible is a team of over 6,000 volunteers.

RYA Sailability has grown in recent years while managing still to keep administration costs below 5% meaning that nearly all donations go directly to the front line. The charity in the last two years has recruited new trustees who have been hard at work securing new sponsors, grants and expanding personal giving opportunities. All of this has had a dramatic effect of the activities the charity supports.

It has also been fortunate enough to continue to gain financial support from donors. There are many people who have become inspired by the amazing work carried out at the sites and have consequently become regular donors as well as in some cases becoming involved in volunteering.

One of those people is Phil Packer. Phil will begin his latest challenge at 10am on 25^th April and is due to finish at 12pm on the 26^th April.

To continue his intent to aim and inspire young people with disability, deprived young people and to support injured service personnel, he will walk each mile with a support walker between the ages of 16 and 25. The support walker for each leg will be nominated by each charity and the support walker for RYA Sailability will be Alexandra Rickham who is a paralympic SKUD sailor.

For more information on Phil’s remarkable challenge, visit www.philpacker.com

Alternatively, to donate direct to RYA Sailability please visit www.justgiving.com/rya

At the RYA Volvo Dinghy Show, held at Alexandra Palace, London over the weekend (6-7 March) lucky visitor Brenda Scovowich from Felpham ended up going home with her very own boat when her winning ticket was picked from thousands of entries in the RYA Sailability raffle.

Leading up to the show a team of dedicated experts from the Marine Trade Association, Boating on a Budget and Activate for Laser came together to lovingly restore a Laser 1 sailing dinghy, which was to be raffled off at the show and raise money for RYA Sailability, a charity that supports and enables disabled sailing in the UK.

Visitors to the show were able to see exactly what the team did to restore the boat to its former glory with a photo board of their progress and see exactly how much it cost them to do the project, provoking many enquiries about boat restoration and RYA Sailability.

In front of an excited crowd the winning raffle ticket was drawn by Andy Ash-Vie of Harken and Pat Dodd, chairman of RYA Sailability.

A total of £1,128 was raised over the weekend for the charity.

Pat Dodd commented:  “ We are very grateful to the MTA and their friends for this fantastic opportunity to help our charity raise funds, the support we received from the show attendees was fantastic and I believe a rewarding weekend was had by all involved.

For more information about RYA Sailability visit the RYA website www.rya.org.uk and click on the Sailability link at the bottom of the home page.

The RYA Sailability National Conference 2008 was held on Saturday 1^st November at Rutland Sailing Club. The purpose of the conference is to inform and educate delegates about the achievements during the year of both RYA Sailability and its parent, the Royal Yachting Association.

Demonstrating Sailability's integration with sailing’s National Body, the Conference was opened by the RYA Chairman Richard Langford, who welcomed nearly 100 delegates representing 32 disabled sailing groups and praised their efforts to promote disabled sailing, pledging to continue support from the RYA for what is an increasingly important part of our sport.

The meeting continued with an operational update by Sailability Manager Debbie Blachford, who outlined all the new initiatives that have been started since the last conference.

There is new publicity material, including a DVD and Sailability TV, which will be starting in March 2009. Many new partnerships have been forged with disabled organisations, such as RNIB and the “Sailing On” project that is spread over 13 sites and has special tactile achievement cards for blind sailors. There are other new schemes in development, like the Deafwave project and the Volunteer Recognition scheme, with Andy Fell’s Awareness Training and the new Sailability Award Certificates to support them. Dedicated children’s’ projects are finding lots of new young sailors and there is at last a full complement of Regional Organisers plus four new Trustees, to support the Operational Plan.

Trustee Robyn Griffith Jones highlighted some notable fund raising events, including a £90,000 anonymous gift, Duran Duran lead singer Simon LeBon attracting media attention at the Sailability Sunsail regatta and Geoff Holt helping to raise £25,000 at the Skandia ball. Sailability is the Charity of this year’s Earls Court Boat Show, who have made an ‘opt-in’ 50p donation of every ticket sold.  There will also be a Sailability stand at the show, raffling a Bug that Laser have donated. To make donating even easier, it will soon be possible to give online through the new website www.ryasailability.org.uk
Sailability Trust presentation.

From the RYA, John Thorne, the National Sailing Coach gave an update on the National sailing Scheme and Gillian Wright, Windsurfing Development Officer, reminded us that disability doesn’t always mean lack of mobility and disabled people do want a choice. There is windsurfing equipment adapted to suit peoples’ disabilities and the Team 15 scheme can be tailored for use by disabled groups. Gareth Brooks explained the function of the RYA Regional Development Officers, which is to set up training schemes and centres, run the Onboard scheme and help clubs with development. To find out more, the details of all these schemes are available on the RYA website.

George Barker, the Sailability Race Development Coach, outlined his role and introduced a new booklet called“Beginner to Winner” which describes the pathway from starting to sail right up to racing in the Paralympics.

Mike Gallon, a Rotarian who organises the Rotary-Sailability Collaboration Project, gave a detailed outline of what Rotary is and how they can supply management & expertise to groups, as well as fund raising. Rotary gave vital help to Geoff Holt during his Personal Everest circumnavigation and Rotarians from the Peterborough & Waveney groups described to the conference their experiences of starting and managing disabled sailing groups.

Finally, John Harris-Burland of Mindworks Marketing told us what to think about if you want to effectively market your group or club. The advice about doing all the research and identifying exactly what your product and market is before any promotion or selling begins is priceless.

Delegates then split into forum groups chaired by their Regional Organiser and this was followed by a final question & answer session with the panel.

In the evening an excellent dinner was provided by Rutland Sailing Club and, between courses, the RYA Sailability Volunteer awards were given to those present who had made Significant, Outstanding or Exceptional Contributions for service to disabled sailing. Each volunteer nominated in the categories were presented with a recognition certificate and gift.  The award winners for each category were, Rory Morrison – Exceptional Contribution, Rosy Meadow - Outstanding Contribution, Carol Bloyce - Significant Contribution

This was followed by a (free) raffle courtesy of Sailability.

On Sunday the Try-a-Boat session was less well attended than the dinner due to the miserable weather but most people agreed that it was a valuable chance to compare the different models on display.