The Westerly Owners' Association - South Coast Group

South Coast AGM

5 November 2011 at Portsmouth Harbour Yacht Club, Port Solent

The meeting commenced at 10.30 am with a warm welcome by the Chair Person, Jan Wise. This AGM was a change from the normal format of an evening meeting followed by a dinner, to a morning meeting and a lunch.

The minutes for the AGM held on the 13th November 2010 were proposed by David Symonds and seconded by Ray Thompson, and we were glad to learn that we have a healthy current and savings account.

Many events and rallies were organised last year starting with the winter walk at Boulderwood. A description of these may be seen in the 2011 WOA magazine.

As Jan Wise (Chairperson) and Geoff Witt (Treasurer) had come to the end of their term of office, a new Chairperson, Ray Thompson, and a new Treasurer, Conrad Coburn, were elected.

Business over we all relaxed and sat back to enjoy the first of our two speakers, Mark Tugwell, who entertained us with a very interesting and amusing talk on Boat Bottoms. The trial and tribulations of having your boat treated for osmosis was particularly interesting to those of us recently undergone this trauma. Some very valuable information was learnt by us all.

After a very enjoyable lunch, we settled down again to listen to Pete Yeoman who gave us a talk entitled “Around the world on Lively Lady”. Some years ago a young tear- a- way called Alan Priddy visited Sir Alec Rose’s grocery shop and was inspired by him to learn to sail. Sir Alec donated Lively Lady to the City Council to enable disadvantaged youngsters to learn to sail. Alan Priddy set up a charity with a view to taking a group of youngsters from a Youth Club in Hilsea, and sail around the world in stages, dropping off and picking up others in various places on route. After the talk several of us walked to the Lively Lady for a look around her. Sadly, money having run out, she is now deteriorating. However, the training scheme is still in operation using Claire Francis’s boat Robertson’s Golly. The Charity is called ‘Around and Around’ and currently planning to sail around the UK. WOA members donated £96 to the charity. Bringing an enjoyable day to a close was the photographic competition, won this year by David Symonds with a cute photograph of his cat. Runners up were Paul Walker and the meeting closed at 2.15p.m.