AGM 2018

Minutes of MPBA Fast Electric Section AGM 2018

Friday 29th June

1. Meeting opened at 7:30pm

2. Members present:

Paul Upton-Taylor, Pete Barrow, Dave Harvey, Lee Heath, Paul Heath, George McDonald, Paul Heaton, Ian Williams, Keith Mallam, Liam Mallam, Rob Physick, John Croydon, Martin Harvey, Roger Graves, Robert Foss, Gary Westwood, Martin Marriott.

3. Apologies for absence: 

Vaughn Miller, Sean Bernard, Martin Morgan-Owen.

4. Minutes of 2017 AGM

The minutes had been available all year online, had been seen by everyone, accepting them was proposed by David Harvey, seconded by Barry Fatt, and were unanimously accepted.

5. Chairman’s report. 

Pete Barrow announced and clarified a members ban from the MPBA. Due to his poor behaviour we the FES removed him from our committee, then he continued and escalated things with the MPBA, and got his partner to join him, and the MPBA banned them both.

6. Secretary’s report

Paul Upton-Taylor gave a brief overview of the problems with GDPR, all present agreed that the MPBA FES could use their emails for matters regarding the FES, and that any photos with them in at FES events could be freely published.

7. Treasurers report.

Paul Heath said that the nationals is by far the biggest income generator and drain on the section funds, he also recommended we move from NatWest to another bank or the post office, as NatWest are closing branches and as we have to do banking in person it is getting increasingly hard to get to a branch.  It was also brought up that Ian Phillips is a countersignature on the FES account but he is no longer a member, Martin Harvey said that he thought he was still a countersignature and we could swap to him instead of Ian.

8. International Officer’s report.

Paul Heaton said that we have had a world championship in Hungary attended by Martin Marriott, Dave Harvey, George McDonald, Pete Barrow, and himself attended, none made any finals but a few got close.  The location for the next worlds has not yet been set, but at the moment Russia have the only bid for the next words at a lake an hour and a half drive south of Moscow.

9. SAWs Officer’s report.

Keith Mallam said that we used a new venue of Rawdon lake near Leeds the costs to hold the SAWs was £70 and £63 was made back, despite looking bigger the new lake was still not big enough for the fastest boats.  We agreed to cancel September’s event.

10. Nationals Officer’s report.

Martin Marriott agreed to take over from Jason Tooley in this post, and has been working on getting information for the nationals up on the website.

11. Public Relations Officer’s report.

Ian Williams informed us that his main outlet Marine Modelling magazine is no longer being published. He is in talks with Model Boats magazine about the possibility of getting a column there.  He said we could get some cheap boats for kids to use at other meetings, and, he suggested we have a YouTube channel.   Robert Foss suggested that we have a stand at some shows.  Blackpool model boat show, Wings and Wheels, and the London boat show were suggested.

12.Area Representative’s reports

Southern Area

Lee Heath the Southern Representative said that down south the numbers are dwindling with many members not willing to travel, Beale Park their most westerly venue has very few attendees. 

Northern Area

George McDonald the Northern Representative said that it is difficult finding new members up north too, but having a base with great facilities at Bridlington that is well worth traveling to.  It was suggested to have a joint race over 2 days in the midlands that would be worth traveling to.

13.Election of officers. 

Pete asked if the current people holding Chairman, International Representative, PRO, Area Representatives, SAWs Officer, Webmaster and Nationals Officers were willing to stand again, they were and no one else wanted to stand against them.
Paul Upton-Taylor stood down as secretary, and Robert Foss stood in his place, Keith Mallam proposed him, Dave Harvey seconded him and the vote was passed unanimously.
Barry Fatt stood as safety officer, Rob Foss proposed him, Dave Harvey seconded him and the vote was passed unanimously. 
No one was willing to stand as treasurer and it was left open.

14.Any Other Business.

As there is a shortfall in the cost of running the nationals the entry cost was increased to £8. 

  1. As NADs have spent a lot of money upgrading the timing system and we use that timing system to run the Nationals we decided to give the NADs £250 towards those upgrade costs, this was proposed by Barry Fatt, seconded by Chris Hobbs and the vote was passed unanimously.
  2. There were several proposals regarding Naviga setting their rules over winter and the FES having our meeting at the AGM in summer to decide rules for the following year, thus we are lagging behind the latest Naviga rules by 18 months.
    We decided to automatically adopt Naviga Rules as and when Naviga announce them, with the addition that we will also allow capacity limited packs of 2500mAh for 2s Mini classes, 1700mAh for 3s Mini classes, 6600mAh for full size 2s and 4s classes, and 4500mAh for full size 3s and 6s classes.
    We will also grandfather in, and continue to allow previously Naviga legal cells for 2 years after Naviga change the rules so that for example if people still have 110/280/560g cells without wires, they will still be able to use them at next year’s nationals alongside the 113/285/565g packs with wires that Naviga switched to last year, this was proposed by Roger Graves, seconded by Barry Fatt, and the vote was passed unanimously.

  3. As there has been problems in the past with the automated results being adjusted when laps have been missed, we decided that it is the racer’s responsibility that the transponder in their boat is working correctly and that no adjustment will be made to the laps counted automatically, this was proposed by Martin Marriott, seconded by Paul Upton-Taylor and the vote was passed unanimously.
  4. The FES website has increased in traffic but is hosted on an old package so is often slow and at times during the nationals was unavailable, because of this we decided to move the site to a higher capacity server, this was proposed by Chris Hobbs, seconded by Dave Harvey and the vote was passed unanimously.
  5. We want to have more 2 day events at Bridlington, and/or Nottingham, Rob Foss, Martin Harvey, and Lee Heath will liaise into setting these up.