Presidents report for AGM of 12 Oct 2008.

It seems like only yesterday that I was nominated by the ex President Pat Drake and which I hesitantly accepted the Clubs President. Pat Drake declared himself as Vice President. A new Treasurer in Rob Warburton was accepted, and Rob McKenna took up the position as Harbour Master, later to relinquish this position due to health reasons.

All other positions including Secretary, Editor, Librarian and Web Master were taken up by our never say die Secretary, John Desborough.

I would sincerely like to see other people taking up these positions for the next 12 months, so that new ideas can be discussed and brought forward. A minimum of three is required in accordance with our constitution.

Our membership has dropped slightly, but is still in the vicinity of 35 to 40 members.

My first job as President, was the need to remain at the University to sail our craft. After some correspondence between the club and the local council, and the club and the University, and some time looking at various lakes around the district, we put forward our case to the University, that we were having problems trying to identify suitable lakes around the district, and would they consider us remaining at the University. To our surprise, in March this year, the University sent us a letter, with an apparent change of heart, and requesting from us a detailed Environmental Management Plan and a Risk assessment, and once these were furnished, a permit to occupy would need to be signed, and we then could remain at the lake. We provided the necessary documentation in April, but to this date, nothing further has been asked of us by the University. And to this time, the gate is still being opened for us on Sundays, so I guess no news is good news, and we continue to sail at our lake, and hopefully for a long time in the future. But I must make it very clear to everyone, that we must keep the lake clean and tidy and unpolluted, or we may find ourselves in another predicament as we were before, with no lake to sail in.

On lighter notes. Our Xmas dinner at the Nambour RSL was a great success, and the committee have decided to once again partly subsidise this year’s dinner, at the Caloundra RSL. Back in April, our first regatta was held, with a reasonable turnout, followed up with a good display at the Sunshine Coast Plaza in May. We also had a good (long) day at Cotton Tree Park in September for doing it proud for dads day in aid of Lifeline. For this day, we managed to get some advertising out for our latest regatta, thanks to Mark and Pat Preedy, which was held on Saturday 27^th Sep, which proves good advertising means good results, which was a testament to the numbers of other club members attending and also the amount of the general public who came for a look.

In conclusion, I would like to thank all the other members of the committee for their support and commitment over the last 12 months, and hope that other members of the club will take up the necessary positions, and not just leave it to the handful of people to do the work. I would also like to thank Pat and Eric Preedy for their tiring efforts to keep us fed every Sunday with our sausage sizzle.

Rick Mayes,

President,

Sunshine Coast Model Boat Club Inc.