A Brief Overview of National Windsurfing Week 2008

The inaugural year of National Windsurfing Week proved that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There were sixty-seven events throughout the week, ranging from free taster sessions to National Windsurfing competitions and a 250 seat London cinema screening of the classic “Windsurfing Movie”. This fantastic range of events caught the eye of the press and the imagination of the public resulting in some great publicity and a surge in interest for the sport.

The National Windsurfing Week team launched the initiative live on stage at the London Boat Show with the help of Bryony Shaw (subsequently a Bronze Medal Winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics). After this, launch, some windsurfing schools contacted the team and a number of events were confirmed.

After a meeting with the RYA a mail-shot was sent out to all of the RYA schools and more and more came on-board and confirmed their activities for the week. On top of this the UKWA agreed to support the initiative and finalised plans for National Competition events on the first and last days of the week.

By now many windsurfers had started to help out in any way they could. There were countless posters downloaded for company notice-boards, adverts were placed on e-bay and the National Windsurfing Week logo and hyper-link started to appear on countless websites. Some people started a campaign to put their old windsurfing magazines along with National Windsurfing Week fliers in Doctor and Dentist waiting rooms and others contacted national newspapers with lifestyle articles.

Meanwhile our Facebook group extended to more than 350 people and ideas kept rolling in. Offers of assistance from inside the industry were also gratefully received and four competitions were run to increase awareness of National Windsurfing Week and encourage people to help and participate. Prizes included a Turfdog Land-board, Two DaKine Camera Bags, a Tushingham Sail and a Sunsail holiday for two!

To our delight, the BBC was keen to get involved and listed the week on numerous websites and ran a two page article in the May 2008 edition of the BBC CountryFile magazine. In addition there were numerous mentions of windsurfing on National Radio stations (including Radio 1 & 2 ) along with in-depth reports on local stations culminating in a five minute long piece on Radio Solent’s H2O show hosted by Robin Knox Johnson

Simon Bornhoft was also able to use his contacts to create a three minute TV piece which mentioned National Windsurfing Week no less than three times and was aired on Meridian, Anglian and probably Central (although we never had the final confirmation that the last one was actually shown)

The week itself was blessed with mild sunny weather and gentle wind, almost the perfect conditions to take up the sport. Many centres contacted us with updates explaining that the interest was significant and people reported being fully booked for the whole week. As well as individuals, school and scout parties participated and membership of some clubs was described as ‘thoroughly invigorated’.

As the dust settled the National Windsurfing Week team breathed a collective sigh, relaxed with a beer and thought to themselves;

“That was good, shall we do it again next year?”