Commodore's Note
For those who were not at the AGM last week I will give
an overview of how I see the next year.
Firstly it is a privilege to be Commodore of this great
club. Secondly thanks go to Roger Day for leading the club over the last three
year.Membership and sailing participation has grown over this period whilst we have also gained Sport
England funding for a new clubhouse. The club has also had a period of
stability that mean day to day activities run well, whilst club finances have
been strengthened.
Moving forward, we are hopefully entering the most
exciting period in the club's history and we have a very strong executive
committee that can lead us through this period.
The Sport England (SE) funding gives us the opportunity,
with our own money and effort, to build a new clubhouse that will incorporate
all our requirements in one structure - female and male changing facilities,
bar, kitchen, storage and a large social area that can cater for 70 plus people.
Whilst still "seaworthy", we will also retain the current clubhouse,
although the exact purpose is still be decided. The new building will thus
provide modern changing facilities, better facilities for those watching
sailing, attract more family members, improved our training area and allow us
to hold more and larger social events.
This will however change the nature of club a bit and we will need to engage more with local schools, etc. as one of the grant criteria is that we
increase sailing participation at the club.
Roger Day gave an update a few months ago and at the AGM on progress and I have summarised this below. The new committee now have a number of key
decisions to make before Christmas. To
gain the grant we need our current break clause removing by our landlord.
Unfortunately a strategic review by them has caused delay in getting this
removed. At the moment it may not be until 2016 that we get clarity and the clause removed,
although I do believe we will have a new clubhouse, just the timing. We should
have started work this September, but Sport England have been very
understanding and funding is currently not at risk. In addition we are
currently pursuing Planning Permission so we can start work once we get the go
ahead from SE.
Over the next month the committee will review our options
and get more clarity on timing. We also want to maximise use of the winter
working parties, on potential ground preparation and other club developments as member availability may be less
in the spring/summer period. We have a strong project team in place, led by Dave
Bexson and Rob Corner, and their plans are well advanced. Clearly to make this happen, we will also need
a large number of volunteer hours by members and the project team will be
shortly circulating their requirements. The intention is to also hold a meeting
in late December, maybe at the social event after the Christmas race, to update you on current
position and what we propose for 2015.
On more mundane matters, we will continue to push sailing
participation and I am sure Gary Cawthorn will have some good ideas, although a
number of major events have already been arranged and we will be hosting open events
for the Comet, RS300 and Supernova classes. Training is also thriving, although will
need to see how we can meet the increasing demand for training, demand which will
rise even more once we have new facilities. Both these sailing activities are led/delivered using
sub-committees and I would like something similar, or at least more membership
participation, on the social side and in general housekeeping and maintenance
of the club. I think we should have more social events but we do need to be arranging
events that members wish to support. Thus, linked to this, we will be undertaking a club survey in early 2015
covering all club activities and I hope you can all find the time to fill it in as ultimately this is your
club and need to be involved in setting its future direction.
I intend to produce a short update each month on club
activities, but meeting minutes will still be posted on this site and the
excellent Telltales will continue to be produced on a regular basis with Roger
Day as editor. If you have stories, etc. you would like to share then please
send them to Roger as it would be good to get more member content, especially during
the sailing season. Facebook is not to
everyone's taste but we do have an active site which can be found via the link
on our homepage or by link on RHS of all our web pages.
Mike Pritchard Commodore 7th November 2014
