The Mermaid Sailing Association’s 68th Annual General Meeting (AGM) took place on the 15th of November 2019, by kind permission at Skerries Sailing Club. The meeting was chaired by outgoing President Paul Smith and was well attended with 28 in attendance and 7 formal apologies received.
All documents from the meeting can now be viewed in PDF format from the ‘2019’ folder on our website Resources page here: https://dublinbaymermaids.com/resources/.
Key points to note from the meeting are as follows:
- Association funds are strong with an increase from 2018 to 2019.
- The 2020 Calendar of Events was agreed upon and is now available to view on the Events page of our website here: https://dublinbaymermaids.com/event/. Please pay special attention as some regular dates have changed for 2020, for example the National Championship will take place later in August and the Munsters takes place in July rather than the usual June bank holiday weekend, also Rush Regatta will be held at an earlier date.
- The 2020 National Championship is confirmed as a 4 day event from the 19th – 22nd of August in Fenit, Co. Kerry, hosted by Tralee Bay Sailing Club. There will also be a practice race on the evening of the 18th of August. The event will see the Mermaid class making a long overdue return to a club that has roots going right back to the beginning of the class, more details to follow.
- It was noted, following a highly successful Nationals event in Cork, that there is an appetite to explore new venues and a number of interesting suggestions were shared. The MSA Committee has taken this on-board and plan to proactively approach venues, the goal being to confirm fixtures ideally 2 years in advance.
- The Boat Measurer’s report highlighted the issue of unsecured led in boats and this was discussed. Special attention will be paid to the correct implementation and record keeping of this going forward. The issue of crew change at the National event has also been highlighted and will be given special attention in the Sailing Instructions of the National Championship event with correct handling of crew changes requested being flagged to the Organising Authority and Race Committee.
- A number of revisions to the blue book were voted on, full details can be found in the Minutes: https://dublinbaymermaids.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Minutes-2019-Annual-General-Meeting.pdf.
- It has been acknowledged that special attention needs to be paid to the Mermaid Specification Document, aka the “Blue Book”, in order to get it up to standard and digitised with a controlled revisions system in place. This is ongoing work for 2020 for the MSA Committee and a task force has been assigned accordingly.
- Issues regarding the correct way to measure a Mermaid Spinnaker were documented in the Sail Measurer’s report and this is an ongoing task for the Sail Measurer in 2020 in order to bring more clarity around this and avoid any future confusion.
- The new committee for 2020 was voted in and can be viewed on the contact page of the website: https://dublinbaymermaids.com/contact/. We would like to say a sincere thank you to committee members who stepped down roles as follows: Paul Smith (President, now Dublin Bay Class Captain), Roisin Mc Cormack (Captain, now President), Paul Browne (Vice Captain, now Captain), Darrach Dineen (Dublin Bay Class Captain, now Vice Captain), Pat Mangan (Treasurer), Mark Boylan (Skerries Class Captain, now Treasurer), Bev Lowes (Foynes Class Captain).
- Following an extensive and persistent search effort, led by Paul Smith, The North Bull cup, which had been missing since circa 2011 has been located, well done to all who helped solve the mystery! Unfortunately, we still have one trophy that remains missing, the Daniel Memorial trophy, if you have any information on this or ideas as to where it might be, please contact the association.
Full details and reports are available in the 2019 folder on the resources page of the website which you can view here: https://dublinbaymermaids.com/resources/. Sincere thanks to all who made the effort to attend the AGM and contributed. We look forward to a great season ahead for 2020.
Yours in Sailing,
Roisin Mc Cormack
MSA President