Reply To: Musings
MY TURN
Oh Dear Oh Dear where do I start.
Firstly please remember your committee work jolly hard in keeping the British OK class alive and active and sometimes that means doing OK stuff late in to the night and i was even doing OK matters on christmas eve last year. Yes improvements can be made and i do get informed from people outside the class that our website is good and as a class we are a pleasure to deal with. So we must be doing somthing right?
I read people want more quality open meetings and less sailing on ponds??
Please remember South Staffs and Upper Thames are the only 2 clubs in the country that offer class racing for OKs every weekend now if you don’t wish to support their open meeting that’s fine. Please remember that the 2 clubs alone produce around 30% of our membership. Both clubs have young talent coming through which I believe is the future for our class to survive.
This brings me on to fixtures, firstly Andy’s question Hunstanton contacted them twice by email last year and got no reply I say move on. Snettisham went there 2 years ago Sunday start time 4.00 in the afternoon due to tides sorry that’s far to late with a 4 hour drive home afterwards.
Sea events 5 boats turned up at Felpham about 4 years ago I was totally embarrassed ! We only had 7 boats at Dabchicks not long ago? Weymouth next week only 10 people signed up so far with a week to go. So unfortunately we are not in a position to add new big sea events that are a long way for people to travel to. Costs of a weekend away sailing is not cheap and we have to bear this in mind when organising events but don’t get me wrong we do need new venues from time to time.
I have contacted many clubs requesting that they may consider ourselves for a open but I get told sorry we can’t help you we only hold open meetings for classes we have within the club. This is the reason that the calendar is based around clubs that have a large or small nucleus of boats.
Nationals – Now this is where we should be looking at for great venues to go to. Dabchicks again this year that’s the 4th time in 15 years with all due respect is it necessary?
Ken’s question on World Q Now this is just my opinion some we agree some will disagree. I would like to see the Worlds as open events I know that may not always be possible. 10 years ago Parkstone Andy phoned me up the night before the worlds started and said I had moved up the order and I could now take part. Unfortunately too late in the day to take a week off work. Poland 2007 was my first Worlds because it was an open event and I never forget windy Wednesday. When you have to qualify you never really know if you going or not so its hard hard to plan ahead. So I am not a fan of them I will add again just my personnel opinion.
I will leave this with some good news we have a new venue for the inland championships 2015. After a long absence we are going back to Graffham Water date to be confirmed.
Deryck
