Many thanks to the more than 100 people that contributed to this project.

The goal was to create an easy to follow checklist of things that every District and Fleet could do to stimulate growth. In order to do that, we had to simplify the findings and are just going to share the items marked as highest priority that are easy to do.
Once you have mastered this first step, there is a more advanced checklist that summarizes all the secondary things that Districts and Fleets should also consider. It is an overwhelming list that shouldn’t be undertaken without doing the high priority easy stuff first. Here is a link to that full checklist, including a tab for both Districts and Fleets. If you have questions, reach out to: kevin.morin@macroconnect.net.

Districts (if you help to run a District, start here):

1. Have the yearly regatta schedule locked in and on lightningclass.org six months before the season starts (in US that is second week in December). The goal is for every fleet to host 1+ District regatta each season.
2. Assign someone that will commit to weekly emails about upcoming events and to sending out results (usually a good responsibility for the District commodore).
3. Create a list of alternative activities to do if the weather is not good.

Fleets (this is stuff every club/Fleet should do):

1. Run weekly local races at your club.
2. Assign someone to be the crew finding guru.& This is a time consuming job.  Rotate the position every year.
3. Assign someone to manage post race socializing and debriefings. That person is responsible for making sure they happen and making sure that veterans and rookies are interacting.
4. Encourage females to race. Try to get at least 35% of participants to be female.
5. Encourage juniors to race. Try to get at least 35% of participants to be juniors.
6. Designate at least two events during the year where the top teams split up and crew with the teams that are struggling.
7. Offer a seminar yearly on how to pack and unpack a boat for travel regattas.
8. Create a "young professionals" program that invites interns and new employees from local companies to crew (and later skipper). Most companies you reach out to will embrace this because they love having their staff interact socially outside of work.
9. Create a list of alternative activities to do if the weather is not good.
10. Designate certain dates every year for coaching. Make sure to cover tuning, boat speed techniques, and tactics.

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