Leadership and a lot of volunteers is a given for success.
We really have no way of knowing if the brand made a difference.
I believe it had to help some.

One of my favorite authors is Napoleon Hill. In his 17 principals of success book he discusses a clearly defined definite major purpose as a key to success.
Right or wrong, we have chose to make Hobie's and more specifically the H16 as our definite major purpose.
I feel like we have been successful, others may disagree with our goal, but it's hard to argue with the results.

I enjoy following what is happening with F16,17,18, A cats, waves,N20 and the Tybee race. There is strong leaders in each of those groups.
The trouble with strong leaders is we (ME) are usally single minded and hard headed(guilty) (look Chris, I used the face thing)
I hope all the groups promoting those classes and events also find the success they have defined.