Fireball AGM October 16th 2004

 

Minutes

 

 

Date:                6.30pm October 16th 2004

Venue:             Lough Derg Holiday Village,Killaloe,

Present:           70 approx

 

 

 

 

Item

Description

Action

1

Stephen Oram welcomed everybody to the AGM. He thanked Ciaran Murphy and Jim Ryan for all their work in organising the excellent Munster Championships under way at the venue.

 

2

The Minutes for the previous year’s AGM taken as read, having been distributed well in advance.

Acceptance proposed by Mike Murphy
Seconded by Glen

 

3

Mike Murphy presented the accounts for 2004.

Some financial headlines - 

             * Subscriptions up on prior year but International subscription cost up due to extra cost of sterling versus prior year.

             * No Merchandising Expenses was undertaken in 2004

            * Total Net Training Cost was €183

            *Profit from 2003 Christmas Party was €116.

The practicality of the class insuring trophies was examined and found to be messy and expensive and members were asked to ensure that trophies were insured under their house policies.

Overall state of finances was quite healthy.

 

Acceptance proposed by John Walsh

Seconded by Louise Mc Kenna

 

 

4

The committee was elected as follows:

Chairman:                     Stephen Oram (No change)

Treasurer:                    Mike Murphy (No change)

Secretary:                    Frank Miller (No change)
DL Class Captain:         awaiting nomination from Dun Laoghaire

Silver Fleet C.:              Will Moody (no change)

Clontarf Captain:           awaiting nomination from Clontarf

Killaloe                           Jim Ryan

Committee member      Cormac Bradley (proposed Mike Murphy, seconded Frank Miller)

 

Tributes were paid to Ian O’Gorman for his five years service as DL Class Captain and to John Walsh, outgoing Clontarf Class Captain)

 

Frank Miller stressed that the DL and Clontarf Class Captain positions needed to be filled promptly.

 

 

5

The meeting then went into Any Other Business –

Cormac Bradley questioned if it might have been more appropriate to have more events at coastal venues next season in view of the
2005 Worlds being sailed at this type of venue (Teignmouth, UK). The
committee admitted that this had not been considered in planning the
calendar.

A clear and fair mechanism of communicating the class wishes re number of races to be sailed will be worked out with ood's at events.This will be done only by a representative of the committee.

There was general consensus that the agm shold take place at a regional event, rather than mid-winter in Dublin.

Frank Miller assured membership that Mid-Gold trophies were being made and it was expected they would be ready for presentation end of year dinner

 

FM asked people to seriously consider going to the combined Europeans and Worlds in Teignmouth 6-19 Aug 2005, stressed the need to book accomodation immediately and pointed out that much accomodation was already booked out.

 

FM outlined regional and open event dates for 2005.

 

David Field suggested West Cork as a regional venue, felt by some to be a very long distance for driving. DF asked criteria for event locations and felt prices were sometimes too high and standards low. FM explained rationale to move around country with resasonable time space between venues but also to locations which might promote the class for future expansion.

 

On the question of training Will Moody assured meeting that there would be training in the lead up to worlds but exact format and dates not yet finalised.

 

Broad support for possible team/match racing event in Swords, committee to explore for late summer/september.

Stephen Oram explained that he was revamping the website but would need help and material from membership.

 

 

6

More AOB

 

Cormac Bradley felt that SI’s should allow 4 races on day one of an event; it would help get more races in if day 2 was curtailed by weather, also allow people to get away earlier on day  2. FM strongly agreed but Mick Creighton strongly disagreed pointing out that at the current event people were very cold coming in and Leinsters in Clontarf had same problem. General discussion from floor – Louis Smyth felt that if someone had damage in a four race day their event would be effectively finished on day one. Cormac stressed motion was to allow the possibility, FM felt that PRO should be briefed to turn races around as quickly as possible and to watch for signs of tiredness in competitors and exercise common sense – 4 race possibility agreed by strong show of hands.

 

7

AOB –

The regatta super-series was discussed, generally felt to be a good idea but those travelling to Dublin for regattas felt it was a long way to go for one day’s racing, when two days racing were on offer it was much more attractive. Possibility of DL ”regatta week” (thurs, fri, sat, sun) was outlined to meeting, felt that this might be very attractive and would be something worth travelling to.

 

8

The vexed question of promotion/relegation in the traveller series was raised by Ciaran Murphy. Stephen Oram explained that for calculation purposes a sailor remained in one band for the series before possible promotion in they had won an event in their band. FM felt that previous AGM’s made it clear nobody wanted to be demoted down to Silver. Glen took exception to this and explained that very many people were very happy to sail in silver, possibly due to having an older boat or sailing on a budget. FM apologised if he had offended any silver fleet sailors, that was not his intention, he felt that most sailors liked to think that they were continuously improving and would not want to be put back into silver. Alan Murnane made the suggestion that the most likely place were people could or should move up or down was between Gold 1 and Gold 2.

 

Noel Butler felt the silver fleet should meet and decide their own criteria.

 

Stephen Oram explained the difficulty in calculating the travellers series but said the committee would be perfectly happy to examine any better or fairer method of calculation that people might come up with.

 

10

Joe O’Reilly proposed removing the bonus points scoring system and also changing the ”weighting” of the Nationals which currently scores double within the travellers series. After much discussion it was felt that 1.5 was enough weighting for Nationals (provided that this could be calculated by the program) -  both suggestions were passed by a clear majority show of hands with 5 voting against.

After the vote however Louis Smyth made the point that such a serious matter deserved deeper consideration and felt that the vote was somewhat rushed (the bar was closed during the meeting !). Committee agreed to examine the proposal carefully before implimentation.

 

 

 

11

David Field was critical of the level of hospitality from some clubs at events. FM suggested that we vote with our feet and not return to venues where we had not been well treated.

 

Cormac Bradley pointed out the value of good PR for the class and proposed a vote of thanks to Joe O’Reilly for his excellent reports on Irish FB events which appeared on the ISA website and in Yachts and Yachting, and won a prize for his contributions to the latter. Round of applause for Joe who took the opportunity to appeal for extra volunteers to write reports.

 

 

 

Meeting ended 8.10pm