The Minutes of the Classic and Vintage Racing Dinghy Association Annual General Meeting.
Hon. Life President Ed.I.Bremmer.
Held at Clywedog Sailing Club, Sunday 28th August 2022 , 11:30am.
1. Apologies:
Apologies from Peter Vinton, Alan Williams and Vanessa Weedon-Jones.
2. Minutes of 2021 A.G.M:
The Minutes of the 2021 A.G.M. were accepted as correct. Proposed by Chris Barlow, seconded by Jon Rawson.
3.Election of Officers:
The Committee was re-elected without change. Proposed by Roger Devereux, seconded by Gavin Goodall.
4.Commodore’s Report:
Pat (Jones) stated-not much to report this year. A steady year with events back to “normal”, including a new one at Llangorse which gave us both feast and famine of wind and some challenging sailing. It was nice to try somewhere different
Turnouts aren’t high but if everyone spreads the word at their clubs and tries to encourage at least one other boat to come along to an event we can build things up. Boats don’t have to be beautifully varnished and immaculate, just old and preferably original. Other, more up market, classic events have been cancelled for the third year in a row which shows that our low budget, down to earth approach is more viable in these difficult times.
I’d like to thank Peter Vinton for collating the fixtures and the rest of the committee for just being there in support on the internet or at events. Also I’d like to thank all the event organisers for their hard work without which we wouldn’t have our sailing.
5. Treasurer’s Report:
Lois (Barlow) referred to the accounts for 2021/22 she had prepared. It compared 2020/21 accounts, in the left column, with the current year’s accounts in the right hand column. This showed that the current year’s income did not cover expenses. CVRDA was £163 down.
The website was the most most expensive item and maybe it could only be afforded for the next 2 years. She suggested that the membership fee should be raised from £10 to £15 and non members could make a donation of £15. Sam Barker stated the easier it was to pay the better. PayPal was suggested. (At present it’s by standing order going into the bank account.) Gavin suggested Go Cardless. The proposal to increase the membership/donation to £15 was made by Pat Jones seconded by Pat Kuenzler.
Lois said anyone who wanted to pay the extra £5 this year was more than welcome to do so.
Philip Wilson asked ‘how can we widen the net to increase income?’
Pat (Jones) said RYA dinghy show leaflets, the Forum and Facebook had possibilities, and added that not much P.R. had been done since COVID.
Rosie Wilson suggested sending articles to Yatching magazines.
6.Web Report:
Webmaster Pat (Jones) said we’ve changed a few things behind the scenes this year and it’s still having knock on effects. In January, the look of the site was altered by changing the WordPress theme to one which allows more flexibility of layout, more use of images and uses modern methods.
More recently we have updated to php 8 which requires a complete change to our contact forms since the old form software is no longer supported. This, together with a server move by our hosts has had some odd effects on recent event reports which sometimes show as unavailable. Work is ongoing to sort out these issues.
The dinghy database continues to have information added. Web stats show that this is often the first point of contact with CVRDA as someone searches for information on a particular dinghy class so is a useful resource. Please email in any photos or information that you feel is relevant to record about a class.
The forum has again seen less use than the FaceBook group but I’d like to give thanks to the moderators who keep things spam free and polite and especially to Neil Witt who, as well as moderating the Facebook group, has updated the forum software this year.
7.Fixtures:
Sam Barker said Nantwich would welcome an event. Ian (Marshall) said despite the low turnout this year he’d be happy to still hold an event at Bowmoor. Pat (Kuenzler) hoped many would come to Banbury on the 24th September. Tim (Bury) said we’d be happy to welcome everyone to Banbury next year too.
Ian (Marshall) said we need to talk about Roadford. Facilities were not clean, there was no hard standing and ground was swampy, the rescue provision was poor and the charges were high. Roger (Devereux) said the lack of club house wasn’t good too. Roger (Oliva-Knight) stated he wouldn’t go there again.
8.AOB:
Pat (Jones) said we have been invited to join an event (actually two events) in France next year.
From: David Balkwill
‘I’m English and live in Nantes in France. I came over to the Moth lowrider Nationals last year with a Duflos I had just restored, and have been talking with them about events here in France where classic and vintage dinghies could compete. Several people are interested in coming to sail at La Rochelle since we organise a bi-annual event there. Although the lowriders are mostly too recent to comply with our usual limits, we feel that there’s enough common ground for it to be worthwhile (with separate starts). And of course this has got me thinking about your members and your boats which will fit exactly with the age and originality profiles we are working with.
So this is a brief note to start a discussion with you to see if we can attract you over here next year.
There are two events that fit. Firstly the Rendezvous de l’Erdre festival, a long week-end event where “la belle plaisance” (classic boats of all sorts) sail on the beautiful Erdre river just north of Nantes, with live jazz and blues music both on shore and on barges that move around with the fleet.
Then a week later and slightly further south at La Rochelle we hold a week-end regatta for classic and vintage dinghies and keelboats. Many of the boats from the collection at the museum there are brought out and raced along with visiting boats.
For anyone coming over from the UK it would make a lot of sense to come to both these events, with a few days to explore between the two. Access is easy from channel ports.
The dates are probably 25 to 27 August at Nantes, and 2 and 3 September at La Rochelle.
Anyway, I’d love to hear back from you and to work on liaison to make this work well.
Regards’
Pat (Jones) said the 2023 AGM would be at the Nationals and asked Ian (Marshall) if they could be held at Bowmoor. Ian stated the larger boats couldn’t sail there. Keith (Rollinson) said we could hold them at Clewedog again, but maybe not over the Bank Holiday if we do the French events.
Pat thanked Keith.
The meeting ended at 11:53am.