Regular donations are invaluable for small charities like the BSRA because they allow us to plan ahead with confidence. So when we received a donation from the Seavets for the ninth consecutive year, BSRA CEO Sally Bird reached out to their Chair, Steve Fletcher, to find out a bit more about these veteran UK windsurfers.
Seavets is a club for the ‘not-so-young’ that was set up in 1983 on the premise that windsurfing would be a relatively safe sport for people as they age. It instigated a racing class for Seniors and in its heyday had about 200 members. Numbers have since dropped off, in part due to the popularity of new water sports that require less equipment, but they still retain a core of 70 members who enjoy the team racing and an occasional cruise around Hayling Island.
It turns out the founders of the club were right, as the Seavets are an excellent advert for healthy ageing. Steve estimates that the average age of current members is 75, with the oldest member still competing (when he’s not skiing or – as at the time of our conversation – walking the Amalfi coastline) at the age of 89.
From the outset, the club was committed to raising money for research into ageing, firstly through the charity of that name, and then through Age UK when the two charities merged. It has been supporting the BSRA since 2016, after Age UK took the decision to reduce its focus on research.
In 2025, the membership subscription remains unchanged, and after expenses the club donates the remainder – along with any funds raised over the course of the year – to the BSRA. Each year this donation is enough to cover one, two or even three of our travel grants for early career researchers. These opportunities to attend or speak at a conference can be a catalyst for launching a successful career, when research gets noticed and connections are made leading to future collaboration. In the 9 years that the Seavets have supported the BSRA, their donations will have allowed us to fund over 20 of these grants, and for this we are profoundly grateful.
Members of the club are largely based in the south east of the country, with weekly races at Farmoor reservoir near Oxford. So we hope that BSRA members will be able to meet some of our veteran windsurfer supporters at our next Annual Scientific Meeting in Oxford in 2026. In the meantime we wish the Seavets a very successful – and healthy – end to the racing season.
Do you know of a veteran sports society that might like to support the BSRA? Contact us! We’d love to hear from you.