NECRA
Thursday 7th September 2006

Apologies;

Lisa Groves, John Allen, Harold Usherwood.

Present;

Larry, Colin (THYC), David Mathews(SYC), Ken (WBA),

Matters arising

None

Review of 2006 Season

Larry presented some statistics comparing the current season with the previous 3 seasons. The conclusion was that registrations have increased by 50%, as have the number of boats racing in NECRA. However, there is still considerable room for improvement as some events had few or no entries.

Inshore and Offshore Series

Larry also presented the Overall Results for both the Inshore and the Offshore Series, together with a breakdown of scoring in the events. (document has been posted in the results section of the NECRA website). After some discussion about the Class 2 situation, (very low turnout in the inshore series) the winners in the various classes were confirmed.

NESS

It was felt that the current safety regulations were late in being published and not well understood by members. It was felt that the application of the ISAF safety regulations without modification would be both better understood by competitors as well as place organising clubs in a more defencible position in the event of an accident. Some aspects of the design elements of ISAF regulations could be relaxed, on application, for older boats if necessary.

The NESS committee have yet to meet to review the season, but it is hoped that a decision for next season is reached soon.

NERR

Whilst ratings for the 2006 season caused concern amongst some competitors, in general they resulted in close racing. However, it was strongly felt that information about how NERR works is not readily available to competitors. Communications/ information about what is happening on the ratings front and why is felt to be absent. In part, this is believed to be related to the ongoing problem NERR has in making available public access to their website. NERR will be again invited to make a contribution to the next NECRA newsletter in the hope that they may provide some feedback to competitors.

From a NECRA management perspective, it was felt to be rather unsatisfactory that ratings lists are made available to Clubs, but that NECRA has to request them when it comes to our attention that rating have changed.

Another concern was that clubs do not always seem to use the most recent ratin; thus occasionally results published by NECRA differ from those published by the clubs. This is not helped by the fact that ratings certificates are not always issued, despite NECRA regulations requiring that a copy is carried onboard at all times.

Prizewinners

Some discussion took place regarding the Club Championship. It was pointed out that currently only the points scoring races have been counted. Members felt that the North Sea Race should also be counted giving THYC the 2006 NECRA club championship.

NECRA Yacht of the Year

It was felt that whilst results and consistency are important facets in selecting the winner, such yachts usually reap due reward regardless. For this season it was decided to look slightly wider. A unanimous agreement was reached on the recipient.

Website

This was felt to be functioning well, with many members accessing it almost daily. The site statistic show between 40 and 70 unique accesses per day.

Newsletter

A newsetter will be circulated before the AGM/Open meeting. It will include a review of the past season. It was also suggested that both NERR and NESS again be invited to make a contribution. Contributions are also welcome from anyone else!

Publicity
This has probably been the weakest aspect of NECRA's organisation this season. See below for further discussion.

Prizegiving

Confirmed that this will take place at SYC on Sturday 7 October. NECRA will provide a subsidy to maintain the price at £10 again for this year.

Multihulls

NECRA has been approached to ask if we would consider allowing multi-hulls to join in our racing. It was felt that because of the very different characteristics of the boats it would be very difficult to deal with multi-hulls in round the cans inshore events. There was also a question of how many are available to participate at this time. Nevertheless, it was felt that NECRA could cope with such boats in offshore events.

For next season, as an experiment, the committee agreed to provide a multihull start in the Sunderland- Whitby and the Whitby -Hartlepool races. This start will be 15 minutes before the main start for the monohull boats. The multihulls will be required to carry the same safety equipment as all other boats.

Functioning of NECRA Committee

This season NECRA functioned without a Vice-Chairman, Press/Publicity Officer, Results Officer or Trophies Officer. Club representatives felt that they were there to represent the clubs because of their wider roles in their own clubs. This made it very difficult for them to find time to undertake additional roles within NECRA. As a consequence, most of the workload was borne by the Chairman and Secretary.

It was suggested that, as this was likely to continue to be the case in the future, volunteers from the wider NECRA community should be sought to provide additional support and expertise to the committee. A notice to this effect will be placed on the website and reps are encouraged to 'sound out' suitable candidates.

Nominations for NECRA Officers

Forms will be sent out to members over the next week asking for nominations for all positions to be sent to the Hon Sec.

AGM/Open Meeting

To be held at SYC on Tuesday 14 November. Immediately following the AGM will be an Open meeting where members will have the opportunity to question the NECRA Officers and put forward their views on how the organisation should function. A light buffet will be served at the conclusion of the meeting.

2007 Programme

Whilst the programme will be set by the new committee, ideas for improvement were requested. Although turnout has been an better than in recent seasons, there have still been poorly supported events. A number of suggestions and alternatives to the previous programme were put forward. The discussions covereded whether there should be more or less offshore racing, whether racing should take place on consecutive weekends, the role of the Spring series, whether another bank holiday should be used for a pair of offshore events, races to return yachts to their home port after another event (homers as opposed to feeders?) etc. . It was agreed to present a range of possibilities on the web-site and ask for comments from members to be posted on the discussion board.

AOB

Next meeting to be arranged by Chairman after AGM.

MEETING CLOSED 22:15

Larry Wilkinson



Review of 2006 season's statistics

Registrations
year sp/bts class 1 class 2 class 3 class 4 CYC RNYC SYC THYC TSC WYC Tot
2003   13 10 5 1 2 6 9 8   4 29
2004   14 11 5 1 2 5 12 6   5 31
2005   11 8 9 3 0 3 12 9   7 31
2006 8 12 13 8 4 4 16 11 7 2 5 45


Registered Boats Racing
  Spring Farne /BR S-W W-H RR BR Total
2003   5 10 12 11 6 44
2004   few 11 11 16 8 50
2005 4 6 13 12 11 9 55
2006 14 11 13 10 18 16 82

Summary