Welsh Rowing WSA Membership Testimonial
Helen Tan has explained why the matter of renewing Welsh Rowing’s membership with the Welsh Sports Association (WSA) hasn’t really been a debate since she became CEO of the organisation.
When I arrived, we were members already, so I’ve been the one to renew our membership. This year, the biggest factor in renewal was the support that the WSA has provided throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic.
That support has just been of a level that we didn’t get from anywhere else. And I think, as a company, they’ve continued to widen their services and increase their influence within the political landscape – so from our point of view, we needed to be a member to know what was going on.
During the Pandemic, we all felt a bit lost, but the WSA helped everyone feel a little less alone. They provided a structure, a timeline, and a way of ensuring that we weren’t out on our own and isolated while desperately trying to deal with a situation in which nobody knew what to do or what was happening.
They were absolute lifesavers; they just guided us through it in a way that we really, really needed. They’ve done an absolutely amazing job in that respect.
Helen also detailed how the WSA has supported Welsh Rowing in other ways:
We’ve had training through St John Cymru, which we’ve rolled out to our community. It’s been a quick, uncomplicated process to get that done – a case of a central email and then off we go.
We’ve also previously made use of the WSA’s partnership with Acorn, utilising it for our board recruitment.
And we use the WSA’s DBS Checking Service, which is just ridiculously simple! It’s really quick (so quick, in fact, that most people can’t believe it!), simple to use, and it enables us to get the process done in a very efficient manner. It’s saving our staff time, and the fact that it’s a digital system just means that we’re not carting anything around with us.
When talking to WSA staff, everyone has been very helpful and quick to respond. Even if I come to them with a sport-specific question, they’ve done the research and helped me answer it – even though they’re there for the entirety of the sector as a collective voice.
We then asked Helen what the impact of membership has been, and whether she would recommend the WSA to others in the sector:
Membership pulls us, as quite a small governing body, in to places we wouldn’t be able to get to on our own and gives us information that we wouldn’t be able to access individually. So, being a member has amplified our voice and our contribution to the sector.
I’d recommend the WSA hand down – 100%. If you’re a smaller governing body, they’re a link into the bigger picture, a lifeline in terms of support, and they allow you to access resources and do things that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.
For more information about the benefits of membership, click here.
To find out how to become a WSA member, click here.
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