Your Club Committee met via Zoom last Monday evening and a number of decisions were made. Some of these are detailed in the following information.
Club development plan working group and member survey
At the last AGM back in December 2019 we made an undertaking to members to initiate a development planning process for the Club. I am very pleased to be able to let you know that this process is now live. We have a working group with 6 members (Chris Taylor, James Dargie, Marisa Astill-Brown, Ollie Bull, Richard Jenner and Sandra Hogg) actioning the process using the RYAS Club Development Framework.
Club development is all about looking at our Club and asking ourselves ‘Could we do better?’, ‘What should we do differently?’ ‘What are the Club’s priorities?’, while aiming to preserve the best of what we do now while making the club sustainable for the future. Making a commitment to improve what we do now can make a massive difference to life at the club.
The working group are focussed on understanding wants and needs; we have already undertaken a fact gathering exercise producing a ‘where we are now’ analysis of membership, activities, people, facilities and access, equipment, good governance and social.
The next especially important step is for the working group to engage with you and find out what your wants and needs are. The first step of our conversation with you is going to be an anonymous member survey - this survey will go live on Friday 20th November and will remain open for two weeks until close of play on Friday 4th December; we will send a link to the survey by email using the email address you have set in Dutyman (if your email address has changed use the “Update your contact details” function in Dutyman).
The views of every member are important to us and we look forward to hearing from you irrespective of how active you are; if you have a family membership, we would ask that each individual in the family completes a separate survey response (if the under 18s are very young you may wish to help them complete their response from their perspective). This really is your opportunity to have your say – please use it.
This is the start of our conversation with you and we want to take you all with us on this journey, we will share an analysis of the survey responses with you in early January, and we will likely be seeking further engagement with groups of members following up on themes that emerge from survey responses. Once we better understand the wants and needs of members, we will take them into account as we shape the Club development plan.
James Dargie, Commodore
Pre-AGM information.
The Chanonry Sailing Club AGM 2020 will take place on Friday, 11 December at 7pm. This year will be different and here is some important information on how the meeting will be run so please take the time to read it. Please do take the time to take part in the meeting too. This single meeting will serve as the AGM for both the current association and the SCIO as transition is still on-going.
Under current restrictions on social gatherings we cannot hold a physical meeting. The RYA and the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) have advised that, in the current circumstances, it is acceptable to hold “virtual” meetings therefore this year’s AGM will be held by Zoom.
The formal calling notice for the AGM will be sent out on or before Wednesday 25 November and will contain a link to the Zoom meeting. Many Club members will already be familiar with Zoom. If you are not, it might be a good idea to have a practice before 11 December, perhaps with a friend or family member who already uses Zoom. You do not need a Zoom account to join the meeting but will need the Zoom application downloaded on the device you will use for the meeting, this can be a desktop or laptop computer, tablet/ iPad or smart phone. Although the meeting won’t start until 7pm, Zoom will be “open” for you to join several minutes in advance so that the meeting can start promptly so it would be good if you could “join” about 10 minutes before the start please.
As always nominations will be invited for the Committee, if there are more nominations than vacancies it will be necessary to hold a vote. Nominations must be received no later than Friday, 4 December, either by email or post. We owe thanks for all they have done for the Club in recent years to our Sailing Secretary, Richard Evans, and Social Convenor, Janet Witheridge, who are not seeking re-election. If you feel able to take on either of these roles or any other, please ask members to nominate and second you! If you know a Club member who may be willing, please ask them! There will be information available on these roles and other AGM matters including the Commodore’s and Treasurer’s reports available in good time at chanonry.org.uk/agm-2020.html; you will probably need this year’s password for the members’ area of the website.
At the suggestion of OSCR your SCIO Board is proposing an amendment to the SCIO Constitution to allow for the possibility of “virtual” board and members’ meetings in future. The motion will be included in the AGM calling notice. This will need a vote! We have tried out polling in Zoom for members. It should be easy; at the appropriate time, a voting box will come up on your screen, you just need to tick the appropriate box, the Club Secretary will be able to see the result immediately. Where there are two members eligible to vote (18 years old or over) you should, if practical, join the meeting from different devices, either without a Zoom account or with different accounts, so that each of you will each be able to vote. If this is not practical, one of you could vote by show of hand and the Club will trust you not to have voted electronically as well!
If you have queries about the AGM process please send them to [email protected] and I will do my best to answer them.
Helen Jenner, Club Secretary
Cold Turkey & Race Marks
The final event of the year will be the Cold Turkey on Sunday 27th December with a 12:30 start. Weather permitting we will hold 2 sailing races and the rowing skiffs will be out. The Clubhouse will still be closed apart from one toilet and the Race Office and there will be no social/catering provided. You will probably want to bring along a flask of soup/drink to help keep you warm!
We need volunteers for Race Officer and Safety Duties for the Cold Turkey and for the last Autumn Race Series on the 22 November - use DutyMan to volunteer. Anyone else wishing to participate must Signup using the TEAMUP calendars for sailing or rowing. We also need volunteers for a work partry to lift the race marks after the 27 December. If you think you might be able to help then please let me know via [email protected] and say when you could be available.
While mentioning volunteers the Committee thanks everyone who has done so. Without volunteers the club activity can't function. Thanks too to those who have supported me over a number of years on the the Sailing Subcommittee; most recently Ben Yeats, Peter Smith, Chrissie Lane, Diarmid Hogan and Calum Pearson.
Richard Evans, Sailing Secretary
Club development plan working group and member survey
At the last AGM back in December 2019 we made an undertaking to members to initiate a development planning process for the Club. I am very pleased to be able to let you know that this process is now live. We have a working group with 6 members (Chris Taylor, James Dargie, Marisa Astill-Brown, Ollie Bull, Richard Jenner and Sandra Hogg) actioning the process using the RYAS Club Development Framework.
Club development is all about looking at our Club and asking ourselves ‘Could we do better?’, ‘What should we do differently?’ ‘What are the Club’s priorities?’, while aiming to preserve the best of what we do now while making the club sustainable for the future. Making a commitment to improve what we do now can make a massive difference to life at the club.
The working group are focussed on understanding wants and needs; we have already undertaken a fact gathering exercise producing a ‘where we are now’ analysis of membership, activities, people, facilities and access, equipment, good governance and social.
The next especially important step is for the working group to engage with you and find out what your wants and needs are. The first step of our conversation with you is going to be an anonymous member survey - this survey will go live on Friday 20th November and will remain open for two weeks until close of play on Friday 4th December; we will send a link to the survey by email using the email address you have set in Dutyman (if your email address has changed use the “Update your contact details” function in Dutyman).
The views of every member are important to us and we look forward to hearing from you irrespective of how active you are; if you have a family membership, we would ask that each individual in the family completes a separate survey response (if the under 18s are very young you may wish to help them complete their response from their perspective). This really is your opportunity to have your say – please use it.
This is the start of our conversation with you and we want to take you all with us on this journey, we will share an analysis of the survey responses with you in early January, and we will likely be seeking further engagement with groups of members following up on themes that emerge from survey responses. Once we better understand the wants and needs of members, we will take them into account as we shape the Club development plan.
James Dargie, Commodore
Pre-AGM information.
The Chanonry Sailing Club AGM 2020 will take place on Friday, 11 December at 7pm. This year will be different and here is some important information on how the meeting will be run so please take the time to read it. Please do take the time to take part in the meeting too. This single meeting will serve as the AGM for both the current association and the SCIO as transition is still on-going.
Under current restrictions on social gatherings we cannot hold a physical meeting. The RYA and the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) have advised that, in the current circumstances, it is acceptable to hold “virtual” meetings therefore this year’s AGM will be held by Zoom.
The formal calling notice for the AGM will be sent out on or before Wednesday 25 November and will contain a link to the Zoom meeting. Many Club members will already be familiar with Zoom. If you are not, it might be a good idea to have a practice before 11 December, perhaps with a friend or family member who already uses Zoom. You do not need a Zoom account to join the meeting but will need the Zoom application downloaded on the device you will use for the meeting, this can be a desktop or laptop computer, tablet/ iPad or smart phone. Although the meeting won’t start until 7pm, Zoom will be “open” for you to join several minutes in advance so that the meeting can start promptly so it would be good if you could “join” about 10 minutes before the start please.
As always nominations will be invited for the Committee, if there are more nominations than vacancies it will be necessary to hold a vote. Nominations must be received no later than Friday, 4 December, either by email or post. We owe thanks for all they have done for the Club in recent years to our Sailing Secretary, Richard Evans, and Social Convenor, Janet Witheridge, who are not seeking re-election. If you feel able to take on either of these roles or any other, please ask members to nominate and second you! If you know a Club member who may be willing, please ask them! There will be information available on these roles and other AGM matters including the Commodore’s and Treasurer’s reports available in good time at chanonry.org.uk/agm-2020.html; you will probably need this year’s password for the members’ area of the website.
At the suggestion of OSCR your SCIO Board is proposing an amendment to the SCIO Constitution to allow for the possibility of “virtual” board and members’ meetings in future. The motion will be included in the AGM calling notice. This will need a vote! We have tried out polling in Zoom for members. It should be easy; at the appropriate time, a voting box will come up on your screen, you just need to tick the appropriate box, the Club Secretary will be able to see the result immediately. Where there are two members eligible to vote (18 years old or over) you should, if practical, join the meeting from different devices, either without a Zoom account or with different accounts, so that each of you will each be able to vote. If this is not practical, one of you could vote by show of hand and the Club will trust you not to have voted electronically as well!
If you have queries about the AGM process please send them to [email protected] and I will do my best to answer them.
Helen Jenner, Club Secretary
Cold Turkey & Race Marks
The final event of the year will be the Cold Turkey on Sunday 27th December with a 12:30 start. Weather permitting we will hold 2 sailing races and the rowing skiffs will be out. The Clubhouse will still be closed apart from one toilet and the Race Office and there will be no social/catering provided. You will probably want to bring along a flask of soup/drink to help keep you warm!
We need volunteers for Race Officer and Safety Duties for the Cold Turkey and for the last Autumn Race Series on the 22 November - use DutyMan to volunteer. Anyone else wishing to participate must Signup using the TEAMUP calendars for sailing or rowing. We also need volunteers for a work partry to lift the race marks after the 27 December. If you think you might be able to help then please let me know via [email protected] and say when you could be available.
While mentioning volunteers the Committee thanks everyone who has done so. Without volunteers the club activity can't function. Thanks too to those who have supported me over a number of years on the the Sailing Subcommittee; most recently Ben Yeats, Peter Smith, Chrissie Lane, Diarmid Hogan and Calum Pearson.
Richard Evans, Sailing Secretary