The Sailing Committee is a sub-committee of Council with the remit to:

  • Agree the club racing calendar and co-ordinating with Open Meetings
  • Ensure quality of race management (RO’s, courses, results, prizes etc)
  • Providing a forum for members to raise club sailing related issues or suggestions and agree any actions required
  • Providing a forum to co-ordinate between fleets
  • Flowing club initiatives down to sailing communities and help muster support as requested for big events (e.g. Evening talks, Datchet Flyer, Open Weekend/ Push The Boat Out)

The Sailing Committee attempts to cover the whole sailing community with representation covering the different styles of sailing at Datchet.  It is chaired by the Vice Commodore with a lot of the hard work being done by its Secretary!  The Start Reps and Fleet Captains provide a first point of contact for new members to help them integrate into the sailing communities.  They act as a 2-way conduit between the members and ‘the club’, stimulate a sense of community in the fleets/ starts, mobilise fleets and help connect their community to the rest of the club.  The Sailing Committee also contains a Race Management expert, who has oversight of rules (SI’s, NoR’s etc) and results, and co-ordinates with the Club RAce Team Support (CRATES) team which supports race teams.  The membership of the Sailing Committee is currently:

  • Mervyn Wright – Committee Chair
  • Jon Senior – Catamaran Start representative and Committee Secretary
  • Jeremy Bennett – Youth Start representative
  • Tony Cooper – Fast Handicap Start representative
  • Mike Clapp – Race Management expert
  • Simon Etter – Laser Fleet representative
  • Natalie Messingham – Asymmetric Start representative
  • Nick Moore – Flying Fifteen Start representative
  • Terry Rensch – Radio Sailing representative

We are conscious that we don’t have a Windsurfer or a Social Sailing representative and would welcome involvement from those groups – and any other sailing communities that feel they are under-represented.  We also recognise we are not a very diverse group.  Natalie joining the Sailing Committee in 2017 brings a very valuable fresh perspective and other new blood is always welcome…

If you are interested in learning more about how you can get involved, please do get in touch with me or any of the other SC members.

We have approximately 8 meetings per year and aim to keep each meeting to 1 ½ hours.  The agenda typically covers:

  • Progress update on actions agreed in the previous meeting
  • Review and update of the club sailing calendar and agree any actions required
  • Flow down of any relevant information from Council and identify any resulting SC actions
  • Round-table raising of issues from represented sailing communities and agree actions

We announce the meetings in advance so that you know to raise any issues or suggestions with the Sailing Committee member that represents your community.  We will also post copies of the minutes on the website.

 

Mervyn Wright                                                                                                                                                                  15th April 2017

(mervynwright@live.co.uk; 07768 921576)