SPRING EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING
Friday, 24th April, 2015

An Extraordinary General Meeting of the Social Sailing Fleet took place in the Main Bar at HISC at 11-45 am, chaired by Mike Baker.                        There were 43 members present.

Mike opened the meeting by expressing everyone's sadness at Richard's illness that had caused him to resign as Fleet Captain and had also prevented him from attending this meeting. Then he explained that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss the selection of a new Fleet Captain and Treasurer.

Apologies had been received from John and Marilyn Blake and June Tong.

Mike Baker announced that Gary Gledhill had offered to stand for election to the post of Fleet Captain. His nomination was proposed by Paul Cook and seconded by Barbara Glasby.  There were no other candidates proposed.  The assembly was asked to approve the appointment of Gary Gledhill as Fleet Captain, and the appointment was accepted unanimously.                               Mike Baker then asked Gary to take over the meeting.

Gary expressed his thanks to everyone who had encouraged him to stand for the post and hoped that he would be able to live up to their expectations.  He thanked Richard for four years of exceptional leadership and said that Richard was irreplaceable. Gary said he hoped to continue to run the Social Sailing Group in a way that Richard approved, and in the same spirit.

The next item on the agenda was the election of a Treasurer following the resignation of Cathy Rayner. Gary asked the meeting to join him in thanking Cathy who had been treasurer for three years.                              Mike Tong was the only nominee for the post of Treasurer and his appointment was accepted unanimously. Mike had offered also to act as Deputy to the Fleet Captain which  Gary had considered and accepted, as apart from the general support and spreading of load it meant that there was an immediate replacement should the Fleet Captain be unavailable for any period of time.

Gary then reviewed the positions of those helping with the running of Social Sailing.
 Secretary -                                     Barbara Beck
Treasurer and Deputy Captain - Mike Tong;
 Membership Secretary -              Judy Cave;
Publicity and Reporting -              Jane Blaydes;
Welfare -                                         Angela Wright-Anderson.
Gary thought it important to recognise that the Treasurer would  have the most up-to-date membership list allowing Judy to concentrate on members contacts, their boat details and other aspects of the membership profile. There are also organisers for individual events on whom the Membership relied for their enjoyment. More organisers are however needed.

Gary welcomed the emergence within Social Sailing of the Topless group of sailors whose sailing is focused on Chichester Harbour. It is organised by Mike Durrant and Gil Carter.

Gary then stated what he believed had been agreed at previous meetings of the Group as regards subscriptions and charging for events: there should be an annual subscription, as   apart from being our main source of income it defined belonging (or not) to Social Sailing which he regarded as a serious step. The subscription should be maintained at £5 per head for as long as possible and each Sailing event should be self-supporting financially. Generally if external payment was required for an event and members had to cancel, then if the external didn't offer a refund the payment would be lost. Cancellations due to adverse weather both by individuals or the organiser was a grey area which had never been fully resolved.

Future events: Friday July 17th. Although several weeks away a decision had been made to revert to 66 Sea View Rd (Gary and Rosemary's) for the BBQ of Social Sailing Week as there would be extensive building works taking place at White Lodge at that time. The BBQ would be held at lunchtime (12-30 p.m) rather than in the evening.

The meeting closed at 12.20 p.m.