PENINSULA CANOE CLUB

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

TUES 9 MARCH 2010

MINUTES

  1. Opening and Welcome:

Mark Torrington opened the meeting after the time trial and welcomed everybody.

  1. Present:

Mark Torrington, Peter Calitz, Veronica Jones, Gerfried Nebe, Mike Monson, Mike Miller, Ommund Sivertsen (Siv) David Waddilove, Johan Van Blerk, Tom Thring, Rob Hart, Lis Hart, Paul Joubert, Doan Richards, Roy Lindley, Colin Miller, Mike Miller, Gregg Goddard, Brett Steyn, Greg Bellairs, Natashe Bracale, Jemma Hofmeyr, Rebecca Newson, Garth Watters, Nick Rockey, Graham Rowe, Barry Penn, David Cade, Nick Pickard, Ian Trautmann, Quinton Miller, Peter Unite, Costa Dimopoules, Romy Findlay, Ken Findlay, Ian Glass, Shaun Butler, George Willis, Rob Maclean, Gary Kroukamp, Phil Mc Innes, Neil Bailey.

Apologies:

Peter Cole, Rory Cole, Sean Rice, Athol Surtees, Barry Coltham, Alistair Glass, Vanessa Hope

  1. Minutes of Previous meeting:

Presented by Mark Torrington and seconded by Mike Monson.

  1. PCC Chairman’s Annual Report:

Welcome and thank-you for all coming tonight.

2009 and was once again a busy year for PCC.

During the course of the season, we held 33 timetrials starting from Feb 17th to September 2009.

In 32 of them, every paddle’s time and position was recorded – only once did we not manage to have a time keeping system place.

  • The results of 30 of them are published on our PCC website.
  • We had an average of 60 paddlers per to timetrial.

I would like to thank the team of Tracy-Leigh (and her helpers Natasha), Johan van Blerck and Sean Rice – without whom we would not be able to boast that PCC currently host the largest and longest running timed timetrial series in the country! We have identified that the weekly timetrial is PCC’s biggest and most popular event and plans are afoot to make this event even better this year!

At the end of last year during our PCC awards evening, the following received awards:

  • PCC Timetrial K1 Champion – Male 2009: Sean Rice
  • PCC Timetrial K1 Champion - Female 2009: Bianca Beavitt
  • PCC Timetrial K2 Champion – Male 2009: Patrick Birkett
  • PCC Timetrial K2 Champion - Female 2009: Natascha Bracale
  • 2009 Time Trial Maestro award – the most Timetrials completed – Gerfried Nebe (28)
  • Awards for overall outstanding performances in 2009:
  • Rob Hart - 1st in the Presidents Trophy Vets Category
  • Ian Glass - 1st in the Presidents Trophy Master Category
  • Liz Hart – 3rd in the Presidents Trophy Ladies Vets Category
  • Sporting Achievement of the year 2009: Rob Mac
  • He holds the WP and South African K1 and K2 mens sub grand master marathon titles for 2009.
  • Got a gold medal (Andre Rabie (Snr) ) in the Masters K2 category at the World Canoe Marathon Championships, in Porto, Portugal.
  • Most notable Performance 2009: Georges Willis
  • Top Novice Female Paddler 2009: Natascha Bracale
  • Most Improved Paddler 2009: Sean Rice:
  • Top Female Paddler 2009: Jemma Hofmeyr.
  • Top Male Paddler 2009: Graeme Solomon

Other notable events were held in the course of the year

  • The Swartland Marathon: PCC successfully organized this event again last year, even managing a profit at the same time! The Swartland Marathon still remains as one of PCC biggest challenges during the year in terms of viability and workload of organization. Verbal confirmation by WCCU of the strong possibility of the Swartland Marathon getting SA K1 status in 2011, raises stakes even higher.
  • Marina de Gama – superbly organized by ADT and Dave Hitchcock with unbelievable sponsorship and innovative new idea’s to increase the spectator value, this race has fast become THE race of the season in the WP canoeing season (outside the big 3: Berg, Breede and Swartland).
  • Masque Theatre – Rob Mac and his team again came good to the R 7000.00
  • Boat Auction – Peter Calitz manage to sell approx R 2100 worth of boats

Security remains a HUGE challenge for the club. Numerous thefts took place over the course of the year so we are all obviously very keen to monitor the progress of the security fence. The next phase (starting next week) is the installation of the two motors to automate the gates along with the installation of the first phase of the new access control system. As has been our plan for the last few years, once we have successfully secured the premises our attention will turn towards the changing rooms.

Unfortunately, Sean has sent his apologies and cannot make it tonight - I will now read Sean’s development report:

Sean Rice is employed by PCC to run the club manager and development paddling coach portfolios. Thank you Sean for all efforts. Been able to rely on your support has been invaluable to me over the past season. We have recently been informed that our application for 10 K1’s from the lotto has been granted as well as further R 1000.00 per month towards a coaching fee.

To my committee, Siv, Veronica, Traut, Peter Calitz and Rob Mac – thanks once again for everything you have done. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with you all.

Finally, after chatting to a number of members, it has come to my attention that there is a fundemental differing in what the goals and aims of the club wrt to the relationship to ZSC and the role ZSC plays in determining the future of the club.

I would like to propose the following:

  • In the General section of this meeting tonight, Mike Monson be given the floor to state his case after which Dave Waddilove may state his case
  • No debate shall ensue over the issues raised tonight
  • Thereafter, I would like both to submit their cases in writing to the Club Secretary not later than Friday 12th March. Both cases will be posted on the website and advertised to the members for their perusal. We will hold a Special AGM on Tues April 13th (after the Timetrial) to debate the issue and hopefully come to some resolve.
  1. Club Managers report:

PCC Club Manager and development report back:

2009 was a interesting year for me. With my paddling commitments suddenly becoming a bit more serious with some overseas racing as well as the club needing more and more attention with races, development and just general maintenance has been putting quite a bit of pressure on me.

I feel like with every race that goes by I seem to be sussing out how to run and manage all the nitty gritty little things. Twilight 12 and guppie sprint champs before hand was in my eyes a very successful evening. Even with the weather we had loads of newbie's pulling in and a lot of them being students and kids (not old geysers with nothing to do).

When I stopped and had a look around at the peoplein the club afterwards the normal Tuesday time trial crowd was few and far between. It was a well attended event but from a PCC club member participation side it was pretty tired!

We can still rev it up more and get those missing members involved.

I still think the core to a good race is the reward to the paddler for finishing, never mind time keeping and all that boring stuff butPRIZES!!!!! Good prizes always put a smile on peoples faces and makes it worth while. We have to reward a person for paying his R50 for entry and they would be a lot more likely to come back again.

For me running the race and organizing is pretty much straight forward, but being a one man band and walking around trying to hussle sponsorships is a painful experience.

A Sponsorship committee needs put together so that that responsibility can be spread out.

Development:

Last year we had a great squad of development guys from MuizenbergHigh school. Unfortunately as the year went on and winter, exams and other distraction came by we lost numbers and were eventually down to between 3 and 7 kids coming to a lesson. Coaching the kidsfrom Muizenberg came with lots of challenges such as transport, school not fully supporting sport and the kids had other social distractionswhich we all know about. As much as i gave my time and energy if i was not there for just 1 lesson guaranteed i wouldsome of themwould loose interest and i wouldn't see them again. The kids need to have that independent "drive" to do the sport because i can only do so much to help them. This prompted me to get onto some of the other schools again.

Bishops has a very well run sports program. I now have 6-8 boys coming down every week. In a matter of 4 weeks i had them at their first sprint carnival and they did well considering their experience. 4 of them have already bought boats and gear which shows huge commitment. The major factor being that a lot of theirparents actually paddle and the kids know what it's all about and have their parents pushing them from the side. With the bishops guys i still have some from Muizenberg and about 6 home schooling kids all at one lesson. Bishops school supplies transport and a teacher to supervise and keep them in line which makes life so much easier for me.

They have now attended 3 sprint carnivals and seeing reward.

As for club maintenance I'm sure a lot will be said tonight but i think we all have a general idea of what needs to happen.

Sorry again for not being able to attend

I would be prepared to sit another year as club manager.

Sean Rice

  1. PCC Treasurers Annual report:

I’ve spent a fair bit of time tweaking the already well-organised format of the traditional presentation of the Club’s accounts as some of the types of revenue have evolved over the years and I tried to make it a little easier to compare like with like. Producing a set of accounts with the Security Fund removed was quite time consuming, as doing so had repercussions in other areas of the Spreadsheet and again I had to try and maintain consistency with regards the figures of earlier years. I’d be very grateful for any input from the members on any improvements in the presentation which they may feel can be relatively easily achieved.

Moving on to the numbers, I’d say that 2009 was a year of prudent consolidation of finances coupled with major investment in Development of future paddlers and the ongoing Security Fence project.

Our net loss for the year was a whacking great R62, 000; however, if we take the Security Fund out of the equation as requested in the AGM last year, you can see we made a net gain of R16, 000 with a very positive year-on-year movement of R46, 000.

R87, 000 was invested in the Security Fence, resulting in a current deficit of R48, 000 in the Security Fund. The total amount raised in the security fund over the last two years is R55, 000. Once again we all owe a huge vote of thanks to Rob MacLean for his drive in organising the Masque Theatre fund raiser, which has raised the best part of R16, 000 over the last two years. Thank you Rob and I think a big round of applause would be in order here!

Ordinary membership was down to 145 from the 188 members of 2008, with an increase of Family Members to 26 from the 15 of the previous year. Our income last year from the PCC part of your annual subs plus the Rack Fees was almost R68, 000. I believe that we should consider this figure - lets round it up to R70,000 - to be the minimum guaranteed income we can pretty much count on for 2010. I’d like you to bear this number in mind when considering the 2010 fees, future expenses e.g. changing rooms and security, and the next two topics of Development and Manager’s Wages.

Dealing first with Development, Last year we made R42,000 available for the development and coaching of paddlers and the future of our beloved sport; this is R10,000 more than in 2008 and R34,000 more than the previous year. I think we need to consider carefully how much we plan to allocate for this year while we are considering agreeing our 2010 subs.

Sean, our PCC manager, uncomplainingly makes himself available, and often at very short notice, to do a lot of general organising at the request of the Committee. My feeling, which I’m sure a number of you may share, is that although everything around the premises which Sean does as a Manager is of direct and immediate benefit to us as paddlers, a lot of his work is a service which arguably could be a shared cost with the ZSC, (of which we are also all members!). Last year we paid Club Manager’s wages of R28,000 over 8 months.

So how much did Development and Manager’s Wages amount to? R70,000! Boom! There goes all our guaranteed basic income!

So we do we get more money from?

First port of call is ALL our members’ subscriptions! I’m not at the moment referring to raising subs, but getting the R5,075 outstanding from the bad debtors. This is a separate issue from the R860 membership subs written off for the small discrepancies in members payments which were deemed by Peter Calitz and me to not be worth chasing up.

My next comments are aimed at the guilty parties who may not even be here: I appreciate people make honest oversights and neglect to make a payment, think they’ve already paid it or that someone else has made the payment on their behalf, but come on guys! If Peter Calitz, who works bloody hard enough already, has to spend more time chasing up after you, then please, please respond!

On that note, please pay careful attention to exactly how to make your payments and exactly what to send to Peter this year; Peter and I spent too much time trying to work out who had paid what last year because no boat number reference was made with the payment into the PCC account. This year there has to be a tightening up of procedure, and the onus is on the members to prove payment before membership, WCCU affiliation and access can commence.

We did well on the Swartland this year and managed to swing round from the loss of 2008 and made a profit of R14,000 with thanks to all those involved in the very much last minute organising, so this is definitely an important source of revenue.

As a cost-cutting analysis, I have also done an analysis of the Bar revenue over the last 5 years to try and decide whether it is worth all the hassle involved for those that run it. The reality is that over the last 5 years we have made an average net loss of R849 per year, so my view is this is just not worth all the hard work put into it!

Luckily all is not lost, as the ZSC has negotiated for someone to run the bar with a percentage of the proceeds going into the ZSC account which ultimately and proportionately obviously reduces the amount they have to ask for from the members as subs in future years.

In closing I would like to thank Peter Calitz for all his patience and hard work with the membership; Peter was an immense help with all of the membership collection issues. Finally thanks to Mark Torrington for his constant encouragement, support and understanding; Mark, you are the epitome of a club Chairman and an inspiration to us all, and I’d like to ask the rest of you to stand up for a great big round of applause for these two guys!

Siv.

Addendum: Immediately after the AGM, Ian Trautman indicated that the club may realise between R5,000 and R7,500 from the stock when the bar was handed over to Paul Parker. A final reconciliation with IYC and ZSC is necessary and Ian has the matter in hand.

.

7. Election of Office Bearers:

Executive Positions:

Chairman: Mark Torrington will remain

Vice Chairman: Nick Longley (also nominated Rob Hart and Graham Rowe)

Treasurer:Ommund Sivertsen (Siv) to remain

Secretary: George Willis (also nominated were Rob Hart and Graham Rowe)

Mens Club Captain: Ian Trautmann to remain.

Ex Officio Positions:

Registration: Peter Calitz to remain

Ladies Club Captain: Natasha Bracale (also nominated were Romy Findlay, Lis Hart and Jemma Hofmeyr

Guppie/development coordinator and facilities: Graham Rowe (to oversee Sean Rice as manager of this portfolio)

Media Officer: Rob Maclean to remain

Safety Officer: Mike Monson

Race Coordinator: Rob Hart

Swartland Coordinator: Ommund Sivertsen (Siv)

(Rob Maclean proposes that a written template/checklist of issues for the Swartland to be handled must be drawn up by the time trial of the 16th March – Siv to handle this)

Catering: Catering for races - Rob Hart, catering for Time Trial – Mark Torrington.

Public Relations Officer: A vital position but it is off the agenda at the moment. David Waddilove has suggested that we approach Angie Gaffney.

Time Trial Convener:

Tuesday Night Time Trials: Mark Torrington, Tracey Lee, and Johann Van Blerck.