Minutes of 2025 AGM
Date: Friday 11 July 2025 at 6pm
Venue: Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club – Dinghy Section
Present for the Committee :
Ed Tuite Dalton : Chair
George Love : Vice Chair
Jenny Ball : Events Secretary
David Ball : Training Rep.
Nigel James : Treasurer
Liam Thom : Webmaster
Yvonne Pike : Magazine Editor
Paul Tanner : Committee Member
Present representing Windsport:
Alex Metcalf
Also present:
Approx. 37 active members
Apologies for absence were received from ctte members:
Liam Bunclark : Ctte. Member
Fraser Manning : Technical Rep.
Bob Carter - Historian
MATTERS DISCUSSED
The meeting commenced with a ‘Welcome’ to all attendees from Chairman Ed and thanks
for attending the AGM in the 47th year of the Class.
1.00 Minutes of 2024 AGM held on Friday 7 June 2024 at 18.00 hours at the Spinnakers
Suite : Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy.
1.01 The minutes of the 2024 AGM had been previously published on the website for all
members to review.
1.02 All in attendance accepted them as a true record of matters discussed. The motion to
accept was proposed by Mark Aldridge and seconded by Ray Gall. The motion was carried
nemcon.
2.00 Matters Arising from 2024 AGM
2.01 Ed confirmed that he was going to stand down as Chair and the Committee had secured
a new Chair to be put to the membership later in the meeting.
.
3.00 Chairman’s Report
3.01 Ed noted with pleasure the full calendar of events that had taken place over the last
twelve months with good attendances at both summer and winter events. The present
attendance of 42 boats at this weekend’s nationals was a superb turnout and it was very
good to see a number of competitors attending their first nationals.
3.02 Ed offered a vote of thanks for the support received in the past year from:
- George for arranging the class’s exhibition stand at the RYA Dinghy Show and being
someone who would pick up matters that needed action.
-Yvonne as our superb wordsmith and the production of informative and artistic magazines.
-Webmaster Liam for managing a website the envy of many sailing associations.
-Events Secretary, Jenny, for the tireless hard work in organizing superb events at great
venues with brilliant management and all the associated publicity via social media and
regular e-newsletters.
-Treasurer, Nigel, for keeping the finances in great order and providing spare parts support
at events to keep sailors on the water.
-David managing the class training days and looking forward to working with Seaford in the
coming months.
-Andrew, Secetary for returning and picking up the role again.
3.03 Ed noted the Dartfest event that had taken place and had been organized by Windsport
in May, the purpose of which was to bring Dart sailors (both 15s and 18s) together for more
fun and social sailing and to include those outside of the racing sphere. The event was
successful and a request for the members to attend and enjoy the event
3.04 Ed thanked the rest of the committee for their support and the membership for the
trust shown.
4.00 Secretary’s Report
4.01 The current membership details were summarized:
- 182 Active members (paid up to date)- increase on 2024
- 5 Inactive members (recently lapsed and not rejoined- still showing on tye database
waiting for approval to remove)
4.02 Clubs. Class members are spread over 42 UK sailing clubs. The top 5 clubs by
membership were:
-Marconi (23)
-Shanklin(20)
-NDYC (17)
-TBYC (13)
-Draycote (11)
There are a further:
-5 clubs with 6-9 members
-6 clubs with 4-5 members
-5 clubs with 2-3 members
-20 clubs with 1 member
5.00 Treasurer’s Report
5.01 Nigel presented a summarized table of accounts and confirmed that the Association
was in good financial health to the tune of £16,796.00. This represented an approx.. slight
decrease on 2024 due to an additional magazine.
5.02 Nigel advised that, in view of the current status of membership subscriptions, he would
be taking steps to close two redundant bank accounts (TSB & Santander) and assimilate all
funds into the present live NatWest account.
5.03 The overall position represented a stable financial year in difficult times and confidence
in the future financial viability of the association.
5.04 It was not necessary to consider any increase in membership subscriptions from the
current £20 per annum.
6.00 Election of Officers and Committee
6.01 All current serving members had proposed to restand for election apart from Ed, It was
propsed that a new Chair would be elected with the re election of the committee.
A show of hands from members present unanimously carried the proposal.
6.02 The committee members re-elected were as follows, proposed by Charles Watson and
Seconded by Keith Persin.
-Chair : Paul Tanner
-Vice Chair: George Love
- Secetary: Andrew Berisford
-Treasurer : Nigel James
-Technical Rep. : Fraser Manning
-Webmaster : Liam Thom
-Magazine Editor : Yvonne Pike
-Events Secretary : Jenny Ball
-Training Rep. : David Ball
-Historian & Archivist : Bob Carter
-Ctte. Member 1 : Angus Cook
-Ctte. Member 2 : Liam Bunclark
6.03 Paul thanked Ed for his excellent work over the 7 years as Chair is some difficult times
for the Association. The membership gave Ed a round of applause for his excellent work.
7.00 Windsport Update
7.01 Alex advised that Windsport were in a good business position to maintain support to
the class in terms of new boats and spare parts. This was largely as a result of developing
new business streams.
7.02 Sales of new boats were currently slow and a suggestion from Mark Aldridge on a
discount for a number of boat sales was discussed and Paul Tanner will pick this up with
Windsport.
7.03 A number of supply chain issues around low volume items were being resolved to
maintain Windsport expectations for new parts, in house manufacture is being investigated.
7.04 The ‘Dartfest’ week had been a great success and it was hoped more boats would
attend in 2026 and the timing would be confirmed but it will be similar timing to 2025.
8.00 Proposals to the Association
8.01 None tabled
9.00 Events Secretary’s Report
9.01 Jenny offered thanks to all clubs that had hosted events throughout the year and
expressed a wish that said clubs encourage more home sailors to take part.
9.02 Attached is the full report from Jenny on the Events in 2025/2026 and beyond.
10.00 Any Other Business
10.01 Yvonne made a plea for more magazine articles on any aspect of Dart 15 sailing from
club members.
10.02 The Peter Mayne Trophy was presented to Ed after all the committee had voted
unanimously that he was a most worthy recipient for all his diligent work as chairman. It
was presented by Jenny who was the current holder. The trophy is an award given at the
discretion of the committee to any member, and not necessarily a ctte. member, who in
their opinion has made, quote “an Outstanding Contribution to the Dart 15 Class”
unquote. It is not an annual trophy and only awarded from time to time.
Meeting closed 18.45 hours
Distribution:
-Dart 15 Committee Members
-All members via website publication
- Windsports
EVENTS REPORT
Winter Series: 2024/5
We are still the only cat fleet (and possibly dinghy fleet) to have a dedicated Winter Series.
This year was a challenge weather wise - three of the five events had to be rescheduled and
one had to be cancelled after two attempts. But still managed to get four events in – thanks
to flexibility from our hosts and competitors..
Total of 23 competitors down 7 on last year. 10 competitors did three or four of the events
to qualify for the series vs 13 last year.
10 sailors only did the one event – perhaps they could give a couple more a go this year!
Our Winter Series for 2025/26 is all booked in – to be hosted at Stewartby, Rutland,
Draycote, Datchet and Grafham respectively.
Summer Series 2025
Total of 44 competitors – down from 53 last year – although still one event in hand in
October at Grafham and we unfortunately were not able to complete our Draycote TT due
to circumstances beyond anyone’s control.
11 sailors sailed 3 or more events last year – only 4 so far this year but we lost one event and
still have one event in hand.
We have welcomed a few new members to the circuit this year – and its great to have them
on board. However, we really do need to encourage some more people to take part in
events if Dart 15 circuit is to be viable going forward. Sailors don’t need to commit to all
the events – but doing a 2 or 3 per year and/or encouraging 1 or 2 more members from your
club to come and give the circuit a go would make a big difference.
Nationals:
42 entries this year – vs 45 last year. Pleased to welcome three sailors to their first Nationals
and a couple returning after being away for a few years!
2026 Nationals – will be at Stone (just downriver from Marconi) from Friday 26th to Sunday
28th June.
2027 Nationals – will be at WPNSA from Friday 9th to Sunday 11th July.
2028 Nationals will be at Restronguet. This will be our 50th Anniversary year and we would
love to have a turnout out of 50 boats. Please mentally put it in your diary for that summer
and we will communicate dates once we have them! | |
