Committee Meeting held at Gloucester Boathouse

on Monday 3rd April 2006

 

Present: Mark Pollard (Chairman), Deirdre Squire, Caroline Joseph, Laurence Boakes, Phil Cheeseman, Clive Pendry, Gill Ragon, Brian Nelson, Rich Woods, Zoe Mandeville and Stephen Rose.

 

Apologies: Helen Russell and Chris Widden (CLC)

 

Treasurer’s Report

 

Membership fees have been received from Gloucestershire University and Cheltenham Ladies College but the latter has still to supply a list of names. Bath University had paid for the use of our boating facilities and the Round Table for our help at their fireworks event.

 

The repair to the Roger Stephens had cost £1000+ and £885 has been spent on spares. The insurers have paid £2000 to write off the Roland Whitney. There is money available to spend on new equipment. Action 06040301: The Rowing Committee will decide how best to spend the money for new equipment.

 

We are roughly keeping to this year’s budget. Last year’s accounts will be finalised this month. We need to have them audited.

 

Captain’s Report / Rowing Committee report

 

The University is now self-sufficient. They need a set of keys.

 

There are lots of beginners in training. Despite a short training period the women’s 8 came 165 at the WHORR. The men’s 8 were 187th at the HORR – 39th of 87 S3 crews. Four crews have been selected to represent WAGS at the Junior Inter-regional Regatta: WJ14 1x (Leigh Bowdler); WJ14 2x (Laura Springham, Josie Ashworth); MJ14 2x ((Hayden Sansum, David Pollard); MJ15 1x (Will Jones); MJ16 4x- (Richard Sansum, Lyndon Cook, James Brown ) [composite with Avon County]

 

Wins at Gloucester Head were: VD 2x (John Squire and James Dorer); S2 2- (Aaron Squire and Graeme Hill);

OJ13 4x+ (Amy Voysey, Becky Coates, Natasha Cook, Leanne Phillips and Marcus Bicknell); WJ14  1x (Leigh Bowdler); MJ14 2x (Hayden Sansum, David Pollard); MJ15 4x+ (Sam Thornton, Lyndon Cook, Will Jones, Tom Chew, Patrick Pollard); WJ18 2x (Becky Sammon, Alex Hall)

 

05101706: Deirdre to obtain costings for external boat racks. (Laurence had passed some comments on the designs and these will need to be accounted for in the revised costings.) Closed – there are no funds for this at present.

 

06020602: Phil to get prices/parts for launch fuel tanks/spares. Done. £45+VAT each. It was agreed not to purchase these (unless we can get them through sponsorship.)

 

06020604: Laurence to speak to kit manufacturers regarding prices, as soon as possible. Done.

06020605: Deirdre to find out from Debs how many members have bought the new kit. Done

Laurence reported that the design of the vest has no effect on the price. Deirdre reported that 12 members had purchased the new style kit. Action 06040303: Deirdre to organise a ballot of members to decide which kit to adopt as the preferred racing strip.

 

06020608: Caz to come up with figures re boat buying. Done

Laurence and Deirdre had circulated some boat prices before the meeting. These will be passed to the Rowing Committee for consideration.

 

06020609: Chris to ask Julian to look at Au Pair on Wednesday. Closed.

 

06020610: Caz agreed that parts could be ordered (e.g. riggers) which were damaging boats.  Deirdre to order parts. Done. This almost exhausted the “spares and repairs” budget but it was agreed to extend this by £500 to allow purchase of further spares as required during the remainder of the Club year.


Secretary’s Report

 

05071806: Mark and Deirdre to complete the ClubMark process. Ongoing. Deirdre reported that the process is almost complete.

 

To help Clubs take advantage of publicity surrounding the World Rowing Championships, the ARA will be placing  ARA advice / guidance on running introduction to rowing schemes on their website in June.

 

Membership

 

05101705: Gill to produce notice of duties and get a copy to every member. Ongoing The draft notice was approved by the Committee.

05101709: Gill to add a note on the rules for paying subscriptions to the notice that she is preparing for members. Done Included in the draft notice.

05121207: Gill and Caz to develop a list of email addresses for Senior members. Ongoing. Almost complete.

 

New Members approved by the Committee were: Evelyn Richardson, Brendan Goss, Chris Morrill, Peter Barnes, Annette Barnes, Andrea Waldeck, Simone Spencer, Harry Schmidt, Stuart Cheers-Berry, Steven Surch (all Senior), Steph Bailey Cooper (Cox/Coach), Niklas Middleton, Jodie-Hannah Barnes, Dan Wolsk (all Junior)

 

Safety

 

Clive reported that most of the Club’s boats have buoyancy compartments. The exception is the old eight for which we have buoyancy bags but they have not been fitted. We also need to organise a capsize drill for all members. These matters were passed to the Rowing Committee to deal with.

 

Since the last meeting, the Risk Assessments, Emergency Services Letters, Safety Plans etc have been completed for: Head; Regatta; Long Distance Head; and Pubs and Clubs Regatta

 

Very few incidents have been recorded in the incident book – probably because they are not being reported rather than not happening. We need to encourage people to report even minor incidents so we can guard against any potential problems.

 

The Club Risk Assessment has been completed and is ready to be submitted via OARA.

 

05101710: Gill and Deirdre to write to Chris Widden confirming the agreements that had been reached with the Ladies College. Ongoing. The letter has been drafted.

06020601: Clive to look into safety practices for canoe clubs on the canoe union website. Done. A lot of information had appeared on the BCU website on the day of the meeting. At first reading it appeared to be very similar to that for rowing but with some more flexibility. [Post meeting note: Clive has reviewed the BCU documentation and identified areas where the Canoe Group need to develop their own procedures.]

06020612: Mark to add the buoyancy ring to the checksheet. Done.

06020614: Phil to buy the prop guard as soon as possible. Done. Waiting for it to be fitted.

 

Fund Raising

 

06020603: Helen to discuss sponsorship with Russell (who has provided his ideas to the committee). Done. Helen is to take the lead in putting together some firm proposals.

 

It was reported that Chris Richardson has identified some possible sponsorship. Mark will put him in touch with Helen.

 

05121202: Caz to get a giant cheque (for the proceeds from the sponsored erg). Done

05121203: Mark and Gill to contact Nicki Ross and arrange a date for the sponsored erg cheque to be presented. Done. Handed over on 18th March

 

This year’s sponsored ergo has been postponed until later in the summer.

 

Futures

 

The City Council believe that they are close to reaching an agreement on compensating the current tenant of Netheridge Farm and they now expect to put the full proposal for developing the land between the canal and the bypass to Council members during April. Once that is done we should be able to complete the purchase of land for the new boathouse quite quickly.

 

Action 06040304: Stephen to start planning a presentation for members of the land purchase current proposals.

 

05121208: Deirdre to ask Adi Dolo, at the WAGS AGM, about the possibility of a joint boathouse development with Wycliffe. Closed. Adi Dolo has left Wycliffe and the school is currently looking for a new head coach.

 

Regatta Committee

 

Clive noted that we should ensure that members know how to prepare their boats for racing and not leave safety checks to the last minute. Otherwise, there were no issues arising from the Head.

 

Application for this year’s remaining events have been sent to BWB, they will only charge us 1 fee for considering all 3.

 

Preparations for the Pub&Club regatta are in hand, some entries have already been received. Maintenance work on the boats has yet to be organised.

 

Long Distance Head: We need to book the field at the start. Action 06040305: Caz to ask Laurence whether he has booked the field at the start of the Long Distance Head.

 

05101712: Stephen to write to ARA cc WAGS to affiliate the LD Head for 2006. Done. Completed form received back and sent on to the ARA.

06020606: Gill to discuss (Regatta) options with Ross. Ongoing Ross contacted. Gill and Stephen will meet Ross Regatta Committee on 9th April.

06020613: Laurence to send the pdf (of Head poster) to Clive (to put on web). Done

 

Publicity/website

 

06020615: Helen to talk to Martin re possibility of helping out with the website. Done. She will supply some articles for the web site.

 

WAGS

 

A new Executive has been elected. A new constitution for the Region has been submitted to the ARA for approval. The Club is required to update its annexe of the WAGS Strategic Plan by the end of August. Consideration is being given to the purchase of radios for use at Regattas in the region.

 

Premises

 

05121206: Gill to obtain a new sign for the front of the Club. Done. Ready for collection, cost £45.

06020617: Clive to liaise with Phil re positioning and use of the bike rack. Done.

06020619: Caz to bring own whiteboard in if possible. Done

06020620: Deirdre to arrange a spring clean day. Done. Deirdre thanked all who had helped.

 

Progress on objectives / future plans

 

In introducing this item, Mark reminded the Committee that they have to do more than manage the Club’s current business, they also have to prepare/plan for the future. He felt that the key element is to get a Strategic Plan in place: the Committee needs to decide what should be in it, accepting that it will not be possible to please everybody. It was noted that Sue Jones had offered to help prepare a Strategic Plan.

 

There was a discussion of the issues that the Club should be concentrating on. The suggestions included:

  • Training and coaching: stick with squads which work well for most people; getting enough coaches is difficult; focus on rowing; build Club spirit from the bottom up.
  • Membership profile: decide what kind of club do we want to be; probably need to cap the number of Juniors because it is impractical to have large numbers.
  • Boat profile: what do we need to fit with the membership profile; consider age and experience of projected membership.
  • New site
  • Increase membership: we have a lot of Juniors but no more Seniors than a couple of years ago; we get plenty of people in but fail to retain many (which is an expensive use of coaching resources); produce a brochure for potential members – use Reading’s as a model?; get the message out beyond Gloucester.
  • Fund Raising: re-launch 200 Club as a fund raising mechanism for the new building.
  • Induction pack; add 200 Club and Club events to the induction pack.
  • Bar: get it open regularly; Committee to make clear to members what is expected of them; get the Saturday/Sunday rota working again; seek volunteers to man the bar during the Pub&Club training.

 

Action 06040307 Deirdre to check whether Nicki Ross still has the time to lead the Fund Raising Committee.

 

Action 06040308 Stephen to present initial ideas for raising money for the new boathouse to the next Committee meeting.

 

Action 06040309 Stephen to write a summary of the land purchase negotiations for Gill to circulate to members.

 

AOB

 

05020707 Gill to pass details of errors to Laurence and ask him to make the corrections.  Done.

 

Brian noted that launch drivers are not recording outing times which makes it difficult to know when the engines need to be serviced.

 

Deirdre reported that the winch on the Cat trailer is dangerous. Gill thought she had the spare parts needed to fix it. Action 06040310 Gill to check whether she has the spare part for the Cat trailer winch.

 

Mark reported that the jockey wheel on the old big trailer needs fixing. Sponging is required to protect boats on the trailer and he asked that members look after it so that we do not run short of sponge later in the year.

 

The 200 Club winners for March were: Brian Nelson; Roger Stephens and Gill Ragon.

 

Resignation of Treasurer

 

Caz tendered her resignation as Treasurer saying that she could not continue to devote the necessary time to the job because of work pressures and pending exams. Mark thanked her for all that she had done for the Club. The Committee can appoint somebody to fill the post for remainder of the year, a candidate was mentioned and will be approached by Deirdre.

 

Date of next Committee meeting: Monday 22nd May 2006 at 7.45pm.