Minutes of MPBA Fast Electric Section AGM 2019
Friday 28th June
1. Meeting opened at 7:00pm
2. Members present:
Martin Harvey, Martin Marriott, Peter Barrow, David Harvey, Keith Mallam, Paul Upton-Taylor, Ian Williams, John Croydon, Rob Physick, Barry Fatt, Roger Graves, Gary Westwood, Robert Foss, Martin Machen, Paul Heaton
3. Apologies for absence:
Vaughn Miller.
4. Minutes of 2018 AGM
Minutes of 2018 AGM have been on FES website all year. There being no changes the minutes were put forward for acceptance. David Harvey proposed that they were accepted. Barry Fatt seconded the proposal. The minutes were accepted on a unanimous show of hands.
5. Chairman’s report.
Peter mentioned the registration for the nationals were down this year which is obviously of great concern.
There was a team from the UK going to Italy to compete in the world championships consisting of Peter Barrow, Martin Marriott, Paul Heaton, George McDonald, David Harvey, Robert Foss, and that everyone participating has done a lot of building over the winter for this event.
Peter said that we are slowly getting to grips with limiters, and that there has been some success with limiters and records broken.
6. Secretary’s report
Robert Foss said that nothing much to report other than that he had attended the two MPBA AGM over the winter. It was restated that we do need to get a valuation on the SAWS trophy and that a value needs to be submitted to the MPBA as it is worth quite a lot of money. It was agreed by Ian Williams that he would do this.
Robert added that with the rule changes and limiters entering the hobby and the obvious numbers that are declining and the trouble that Electra has experienced with numbers, that whatever people’s views are on the rule changes and technical aspect of the hobby, is that if there is one thing that we must do, that is to unite as a group of guys/girls and push the hobby forward to bring fresh blood and new and young people to the hobby, because if we do not the future of fast electric boat racing UK is in serious risk of stopping.
It was mentioned by Ian Williams that more attention should be placed on shows to bring it to the people, and Barry Fatt mentioned that having kids’ days at Bridlington with boats to let them have a go would be a good idea.
Robert went on to talk about having more events at Bridlington, two-day events and international events at the venue, and again pushed the importance of promotion of the hobby and referred to his article in “Propwash”.
7. Treasurers report.
Martin Harvey passed round account sheets 2016, 2017-2018, 2018-2019 then proceeded to say he was challenged by the MPBA that we never in our minutes give a full financial report for which he agreed.
Because of our financial period runs from the 1st of October to the 30th September each year at the present moment we are in between, so what you have is 2017-2018 we started at opening balance of £300, SAWS entry fees at £63, nationals individual £515, and £70 from team entries nationals.
Because we’re allowed to hold £1000 in our own account, Martin asked for a £700 top up from our central funds as shown, so we had a credit of £1648.53. He went on to say that you can see that the central funds were at £2834.22. We had a grant in that year of £394 and the top up of £700 so we now have in the central funds £2528.22.
On the debit side we had one registered letter go out. We bought the eLim programmer and the display £70 for the rod and lake hire for the SAWS, national trophies £336.85. We purchased a gift for the kitchen staff £15.80. Martin had brought a receipt for £4.99, the hire of Bridlington lake for weekend £300 and hire of NADS transponder system £200 so our debit was £1120.58 that gave us a closing balance of £527.95.
The SAWS made a loss of £7 and the Nationals made a net loss £260.75 ending up the year at £527.95 that was carried forward onto the next sheet 2018-2019, where we have an annual grant this year of £470.
So far we have had national entries at £486. So far we have a credit of £1483.95, in the central funds carried forward you have £2528.22. We were given the grant of £470 this year but was paid out to us on the income side so we ended up staying at £2528.34 in central funds.
Expenses so far this year we have with the main renewal at £23.98 web hosting £71.15, postage stamps £4.20, of the income stated I’ve given a refund because of booked in mini eco we are not running, and people that have paid for transponders through Martin that money goes to NADS debit of £10 to NADS, so we end up of a closing balance of £1354.62 but then we have to pay the £300 for the lake hire, £200 for transponder system so £500 to come from that.
Then also the national trophies for which he didn’t have a price for at that time but Robert Foss had it with him, and of course £70 SAWS lake hire. Martin reckons on balance we will come out on balance what we started the year at.
It was said by Robert Foss that he did not seem the fees were high enough for entries that we would be making a loss.
8. International Officer’s report.
It was deemed to be better to give this report upon a return from the world Championships that were taking place in Italy three weeks from now.
9. SAWs Officer’s report.
Keith Mallam proceeded to say, all good last year. A £7 loss was not too bad but they want to change to £4 per class as it means people can bring 2 boats and they will only get charged for the class.
10. Nationals Officer’s report.
Martin Marriott said that he had nothing much to say as all went smoothly as far as he was concerned. Hopefully everyone was happy with the website and the registration process.
11. Public Relations Officer’s report.
Ian Williams proceeded to say there’s not a lot to report on that front, the reason being Marine Modelling stopped last year. They owed him £600 but only got back £41, so he approached Model Boat magazine and had written a couple of articles for them and that they have said to him that they are prepared to push MPBA things he has written for the magazine but they hadn’t been published.
Robert Foss said that magazine was not the way forward and that social media was a better path to take the hobby forward.
It was agreed that Barry Fatt was to create a Fast-Electric Facebook page. Ian went on to talk about buying some small RC boats for kids at £25 each to create interest and maybe use at a show in 2020.
12.Area Representative’s reports
Both Southern area representative and Northern area representative were not present.
13.Election of officers.
Peter asked if anyone in their current positions wanted to change or stand down, all agreed to stay in their positions.
Proposed by Barry Fatt.
Seconded by Robert Foss.
Passed unanimously.
14.Any Other Business.
Martin Machen proposed going to the M course for eco classes. Peter proceeded to say that that had been voted through in 2013 already. Martin withdrew his proposal.
Martin Harvey proposed that the section drops the automatic adoption of Naviga rules that suit the majority not the minority, this was put to a vote, proposed by Martin Harvey seconded by David Harvey.
For: 9
Against: 7
Abstentions: 0
Proposed that the section votes on an email-based system instead of having to wait until the AGM, thus eliminating the wait for 1 year between discussion points for rule changes.
Luke Burton proposed. Seconded by Barry Fatt. The proposal was put to the vote.
For: 12
Against: 2
Abstentions: 2
Proposed an adjustment to limiter settings for safety reasons, a 5 second slowdown time, then a 30 second ¼ speed allowing the pilot to move off the racing line away from oncoming boats, was deemed impossible to have to redesign the limiter from Martin Marriott that was a product for Naviga rules whereby this was not specified, to do a one off accommodating this rule just for the MPBA.
Proposal to change page 5 of the race rules to three minimum boats to race, proposed by Roger graves, seconded by Ian Williams and was passed unanimously.
Proposed that as the CAT class is solely UK, to use any LiPo and whatever weight you choose to use. It was agreed that the pilots running the CAT class should go away after the national event to come up with a set of rules that you all agree on.
Proposed rule change to bring mini mono, mini hydro into line with Electra, when using LiPo with no weight limit increase the capacity to 2S 2500mAh to 2S 2700mAh and 3S 1700mAh to 3S 1800mAh. David Harvey proposed seconded by Peter Barrow. This was put to the vote and was passed unanimously.
Peter at this point thanked Martin Marriott for all the work he has done on the internet.
Proposal of an international four day event at Bridlington in 2020, as a separate event to the Nationals providing Bridlington agreed to allow. If this was not the case it would be run in place of a NADS event. This was proposed by Peter Barrow and seconded by Robert Foss and put to the vote and passed unanimously.
It was decided to have a folder consisting of all the Naviga Proposals submitted by the competing countries to be left over the weekend for everyone to read and comment, reminding everyone present this is there opportunity to have an input into the UK vote.
Meeting closed at 8:30PM