NECRA AGM
Tuesday 14th November 2006
SYC

* Larry Wilkinson opened, he welcomed delegates to SYC and thanked them for attending

* Apologies from Colin Jackson, Harold Usherwood, John Allan, Matt Simms, Nick Spurr and Alan Cooper.

* Minutes of 2005 meeting agreed

* Treasurers report presented by Larry on behalf of Harold Usherwood.
NECRA have a healthy bank balance, mainly due to Northern Rock share prices increasing. Some problem with the bank crediting money to the account that Harold is currently trying to resolve! Treasurer feels NECRA are in a sound financial position and can afford to actively encourage people to attend events - free food etc

* Chairman's report (see in combination with season statistics in report of meeting September 2006)
On paper 2006 has been a sucessful season; 50% increase in registered members and boats competing on the water. However, this is not the whole story. Larry feels that feeder races have not been successful, in line with previous years. There are also some boats registered that have not raced. With regard to management; NECRA have run a full season without a vice chairman and lack of volunteers for various tasks has made life more difficult. There are some nagging doubts over the fleet's commitment to NECRA as it stands at the moment.

* Election of officers
Chairman Larry Wilkinson (proposed by Colin Jackson and seconded by Ian Lynch),
Treasurer Harold Usherwood (proposed by Larry Wilkinson and seconded by Colin Jackson).
There are vacancies for vice chair and secretary.

* AOB
David Matthews commented that communication has greatly improved, Lisa Groves agrees that there has been a great deal of positive feedback, particularly with regard to newsletters.

David feels that NECRA's objectives, laid out at the beginning of the season have been met but Larry still feels that there is a great deal of room for improvement in terms of publicity and generating a positive NECRA ethos.

Meeting closed at 8.30pm





NECRA Open meeting
Tuesday 14th November 2006
SYC

* Input of information
Jim Williamson suggested the NECRA committee members try to recruit someone from their club to give input. Lisa suggested e-mailing members the day after an event and ask for a short paragraph of input. Jim wondered if all members could have the e-mail list so that they could communicate with each other.

* Programme
Discussed at length and several suggestions made. Only last weekend of spring series should count, we should try 'homer' races instead of feeder races. Turn feeder races into more informal cruise in company to encourage cruising class. Local clubs to encourage cruising class to meet at host club. NECRA should part/fully finance social activities at clubs.

Anthony Cooper suggested 2 separate inshore events; 1 for big boats and 1 for sport boats. Lisa commented that NECRA could attach to the RNYC sport boat event of they wished. Gerry Firth commented that this would avoid the problem of shared crews

* Classes;
All happy with current class situation. Larry points out that very poor turn out in Div II inshore despite the fact that there are 13 registered boats.

* Ratings
Dave Wheldon admits there are some anomalies, but this is improving. Main NERR objectives are to reduce difference between NERR and IRC over winter maintenance period. Some complaints at THYC about lack of communication, RNYC and SYC feel that this is not a problem.

* Safety
Anthony suggested ISAF adopted as read. Lisa commented that several boats would be disqualified as the ISAF regulations are based on structure. Dave Wheldon explained that NESS tried to find a happy medium between ISAF 4 and 5. Cat 3 regulations were upgraded for safe and sensible overnight sailing. Part of the problem of what seems like a massive increase was the lack of a proper review for 4 years.

Anthony wondered about litigation problems if we downgraded the regulations. Dave commented that we are not saying don't carry things. It was also agreed that it was not satisfactory to have big boats and sport boats sailing the same race, on the same water, under different regulations - hence it was felt that ISAF cat 5 for sport boats was not adequate.

* Encourage more people to participate in NECRA
Lisa suggests alternating location of meetings. It was also suggested that the southern triangle is resurrected, alternative years if necessary. Lisa informed that RNYC will be running both the Bass Rock race and the Farne's race in 2007. NECRA will need to decide which or both they want to put on the 2007 programme