Welcome from the Commodore
Last season was good we saw many new members. It was a delight to see fresh faces growing in confidence and joining the racing. Now there are more people to help with the safety boat and race officer duties we can look forward to better and more enjoyable racing taking more advantage of the bay. Listening to members interests I feel that Mini-cruises and pursuit racing are alternatives to develop. As we grow in numbers it is going to be more important to be ‘Ship-Shape andBristolfashion’ with our equipment. Also I will introduce written sailing instructions, guidelines for duty officers and what ever it takes to familiarize novices to the rules and protocols of racing at open regattas by using simplified versions as we train at the club, including a start sequence using flag signals.
The program of events will be much as last year with an extra regatta for visiting boats. The main emphasis will again be to facilitate training and development to encourage more people into the racing.
We have been able to attract sponsorships including the prestigious Eric Twiname/RS initiative for modern training boats. However we do need to increase our level of fund raising. If every one participates it need not be onerous though.
The progress we have made towards the cub development plan is significant and the updated version will be posted on the web site before Easter. We are indeed fortunate in having the solid experience past on through the generations of sailing at Berwick and the support provided by the RYA. I am advised that it is a good time to capitalize on grants being available now because of the Olympics. And more importantly the sources are predicted to have dried up by next year.
Another improvement initiative, supported by the Harbour Master and the RNLI is that we make more use of VHF radios in safety management and keeping clear of commercial shipping.
We aim to make a greater use of our web site to publicize events and communicate results. It can become a major supplement to the year book.
Enjoy your sailing
