[Sailingclub] Drinks this Thursday...

[Garrick Larkin]

Hi,

This email is firstly to mention some upcoming events and secondly to outline some developments which mostly the committee is aware of (like what we are planning to spend money on). 


Drinks this Thursday:

Its time for sailing club end of semester drinks this Thursday (3rd June) 8pm at the Uni Bar! The plan is to have a few drinks at uni followed by a fairly quite night out. If your interested give me an email or a text (0404 292 691). If you can't make it to the uni bar but want to meet us after I can give you a text when we decide where to go.

Something I would like to point out is that some people have the impression that the Sailing club is run by a group of close friends. This couldn't be further from the truth and some of the most active members (including committee members) only just joined. If you turn up to a couple of social events this will become obvious and you will quickly get to know a lot of people.

Other Upcoming Events:

- For anybody who is interested (which is probably nobody due to exams) the Brass Monkey regatta is on again at Gosford on the June Long Weekend. When it hasn't clashed with exams it has always been an excellent winter regatta.

- Todd Loydell is trying to arrange for a small group to crew on a Yacht in the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia Winter Series. This would be an excellent chance for members to sail on Syndey Harbour in a large yacht out of a famous Yacht club (the organisers of the Sydney to Hobart). While naturally positions will be prioritised on skill given that it involves 6 weekends in Sydney it is likely that most weeks Todd will need an extra crew or two of any standard to beef up the numbers.

- Melbourne University will be hosting a teams racing competition in Semester 2. I suspect that like most uni sailing events it will be open to everyone regardless of skill and the social events will be just as important as the racing. I think the last event in Melbourne was in 1998 so it will be a good chance to sail/party somewhere totally different.

- We are planing to host Mini IV in Semester 2. This will give us a chance to defend our win at Uni Champs last year and of course the social events will be bigger than the sailing. Hopefully this year ANU can bring home the Fish for the first time in many years by winning the drinking competitions!


Committee Developments

For those interested in knowing a bit more about the club below I have outlined some issues that mostly only the committee are aware of. Members who want to know a bit more are welcome to come to the next committee meeting (this Thursday 3rd June 7pm at Sullivans Cafe) or add themselves to the committee email list http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/admin/sailingclub2 . 

What we want to spend money on:

The committee has discussed what our limited money is best spent on and this is the discussion in a nutshell. The overall plan is to consolidate into the university classes (Lasars, Tasars and Sharpies) with a couple of other vessels such as windsurfers and cats to ensure we have something for everybody. The priority at the moment is general use / training boats because they are the boats which are receiving the most use. In prioritising toward general use boats we are trying to tailor the clubs spending to the needs of members. This is all flexible and if there is an increase in the number of active racing sailors, windsurfers or trailer sailor enthusiasts the priorities would change.

What we plan to spend money on...
- First priority is a trailer which can take multiple boats inorder to simplify regattas and coast trips.
- Second priority is improving the Lasers by replacing the oldest with newer boats.
- Getting Laser radial rigs which make it easier for lighter/ less experienced people to sail and women to compete in regattas.
- Replacing Hobie 16 with 2 x smaller catamarans (Hobie Wave or 14") which are better for general use, training and trips away.

What we don't plan to spend money on (or spend less on)...
- Windsurfers. This is just because we spent a lot in recent years and currently have 5 working.
- Trailer Sailor (Yacht). The old trailer sailor didn't get enough use and was to much of a maintainance burden to justify replacing it
- Racing boats. Given that the general use Lasers and Tasars are getting many times more use than the racing boats they are the priority.

All members are encouraged to organise events:

Subject to commonsense safety any member who wants to organise an event (sailing or social) is encouraged to do so! Simply contact a committee member like myself or Grant Warner. We will assist you by getting you a key and enabling you to advertise your event by posting to the club email list.

An example of this is Ben Jeffares organising Winter Series sailing. Ben only recently did a beginners course and so if he can organise a sailing session so can you! Any ideas that you want to organise from as simple as meeting for drinks to entering a regatta in Queensland just let us know.

Non-Member Boat Use

The University is cracking down non-student / SRA member use of SRA resources. The ANU line is that SRA sporting facilities are only to be used by Students / SRA members because students paid for the facilities with their GSF. This affects the Sailing Club because we have always allowed members to take friends with no relation to the ANU sailing. This is not going to change and the Sailing Club wants to encourage members to take their friends sailing. However in line with ANU policy the Sailing Club is going to place a fee of $10 on taking friends sailing who are not ANU student or SRA member. The will be a fee of around $2 for taking ANU students / SRA members who are not sailing club members sailing. 

Boats in the Clubhouse

If any current members own or know somebody who owns the old boats in the boatshed contact Boatshed Officer Toen Castle ( toen_castle at yahoo.com ). The old unclaimed boats will be sold or dumped.



cheers

Garrick Larkin

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