Minutes
of MPBA
Saturday
24th July
1.
Meeting opened at
7:05pm
2.
Members present:
P
Barrow, J Foster, S Bennett, B Barrow, D Harvey, G Roberts, I Phillips, C
Ransome, F Richards,
L
Burton, M Harvey, P Heaton, S Mitchell,
Apologies
for absence from Mark Shipman
3.
Minutes of 2009 AGM
The minutes of the last agm
were passed round. There being no
changes to the minutes they were put
forward for acceptance.
Proposed by I Phillips and
seconded by C Ransome. Carried
unanimously.
4.
Chairman’s Report
‘We have had a good number here today and generally we seem to be getting
over all the issues that we had last year. Chris
Osman worked it out that there were over 100 boats including the team racing for
Sunday.’
5.
Treasurer’s Report
‘There is no balance sheet due to so much money coming in late for the
National entry fees. There will be
one prepared for Peter Revill by the end of September which is the end of the
financial year for the MPBA. A
number of bills have been received today so a rough estimate of the amount held
by the section is around £1800. This
comprises £1111.22 held in central funds and the rest is held in our bank
account. Entry fees for the weekend
are about £500 with one team entry still to be paid.
Next
year entry fees are going to have to be paid no later than two weeks prior to
the event to enable a balance sheet to be prepared.
In the past couple of days about £180 has been collected.
If I am going to continue as treasurer next year this situation has got
to change.’
A discussion then took
place regarding methods of payment. The
chairmen suggested opening a Pay Pal account for which there would be a fee.
The secretary also asked what would happen when Cheques are no longer an
option. Postal orders are also an
option, and the web site already had this method of payment as an option.
It was suggested that the entry fee could be increased to cover the cost
of the Pay Pal transaction, but the secretary was not happy about having to pay
the charges.
A proposal was made by
David Harvey that next year all fees for the National were to be paid no later
than two weeks prior to the start of the event.
This was seconded by Chris Ransome.
Carried unanimously.
6.
Secretary’s Report
‘The only thing that has been going on this year is in relation to the
electronic timing system that was purchased and the discontentment of a member
who felt aggrieved with the MPBA. This
member was banned from the MPBA as a result of this.
An attempt was made by this person to enter the Naviga World
Championships under the English flag as opposed to the GB flag.
This request was dismissed by both the MPBA and Naviga.
The
only other thing that happened in the year was the introduction of the Non
Competitive events which due to the nature of our boats are not suitable for us
to run.’
7.
Election of Officers
The chairman asked if there
had been any offers to take on a committee post, but there had not been any.
Mark Shipman had given notice that he was prepared to stand as the rep
for the Southwest. It was mentioned
by the chairman that a Southern Area rep was needed as the incumbent officer had
not been to any meetings in the past 18 months.
There were no offers, although there were some suggestions.
It was suggested that the current Southwest rep could become the Southern
rep and that a new Southwest rep could be elected.
This was not thought to be acceptable.
The position of the Southern rep was to be left open.
The existing committee were asked if they were prepared to stand for
re-election. With the exception of
the Southern Area rep (not present) all were prepared to stand for re-election.
However the treasurer stated that the first thing that went wrong would
cause him to relinquish the position. There
being no other proposals for election, all were carried.
Committee voted in:
Chairman:
Peter Barrow
Secretary: Martin
Harvey
Treasurer:
John Foster
South West Area Rep:
Mark Shipman
Southern Area Rep:
SAWS Officer: David
Harvey
Nationals Officer:
Ian Phillips
International Rep: Paul
Heaton
8.
Proposals
The proposals that had been submitted prior to the meeting were
discussed:
a)
‘That the lipo limit
for mini classes be raised to 140gm. This
will bring it sensibly in line with other classes making a 50% reduction in
weight from Mono 1 which is in itself a 50% reduction from Mono 2’.
Proposed by - David Baker
Seconded by - Ian Phillips
Peter Barrow stated that in
his opinion it should be possible to take one power source from one class and
use it in another class within each class classification.
Paul Heaton said that he believed that at the Naviga presidium meeting at
the Worlds in September there would be a proposal to introduce a mini hydro
class. Ian Phillips therefore
proposed that this proposal a) be held in abeyance until it was known what the
outcome was from Naviga with regards to the mini hydro class.
b)
‘That at the World
Championships presidium meeting Paul Heaton propose that the cell counts and
weights for Mono 1 and Hydro 1 be 2 cell lipo max 280gm;
Mono 2 and Hydro 2 be 4 cell lipo max 560gm’.
For Super Boat class the cell count should be raised from 6 cell lipo
to 8 cell lipo max weight of 1120gm.
Proposed by - David Harvey
Seconded by - Martin Harvey
Paul Heaton said that it was his opinion that the super boat class would
not get accepted as feedback
was that it would be deemed to be too dangerous as the Germans would be
going 100mph. If the
other classes went to 3 and 6 cells then there would not be a super boat
class requirement.
The proposal was put to the vote on the basis that if it was not passed then
we would need to have
another section vote to decide what cell counts should be proposed.
The proposal b) was passed unanimously.
c)
’ That the MPBA FES
stay with Naviga rules for all classes. Also
that similar sized boats have similar sized cells, i.e. mini classes all have
110gm cells’.
Proposed by - Franco Scotto
Seconded by -
Paul Wray
Ian Phillips suggested that as we had to wait until what NAVIGA voted for
at the presidium meeting that the proposal
c) be
held in abeyance.
9.
A.O.B.
a)
The
date for the 2011 Nationals was discussed. Ian
Phillips asked when the Europeans would be in 2011 and Peter Barrow said that
they would be some time in May. It
was therefore suggested that the UK Nationals should be held on the same weekend
as 2010, i.e. 23-24 July. This was
proposed by Ian Phillips and seconded by Paul Heaton.
Passed unanimously.
b)
Peter
Barrow asked what was going to happen at next year’s Nationals with regards to
having a jobs sheet similar to what is used at NADS and ELECTRA meetings to
allocate competitors to specific tasks. Peter
suggested that if a competitor failed to complete the task then he/she should
forfeit their previous lap score. This
was felt a bit harsh. It was
mentioned that it had fallen to a few people to run the meeting this year and
this had made it difficult for these people to also run their own boats.
It was John Foster’s view that there were enough experienced
competitors capable of doing a duty. Peter
said that with the number of competitors there today it would probably mean no
more that 12 minutes of duties a day. David
Harvey proposed that the duties be spread evenly across the competitors,
seconded by Bill Hickman. Passed
unanimously.
At
this point Paul Upton-Taylor joined the meeting and was asked if he would be
prepared to stand as the Southern Area rep.
Paul stated that he was not easily contactable as he worked nights.
It was suggested that he could be contacted via email to which Paul was
agreeable. Paul was also agreeable
to signing the MPBA form.
c)
Peter Barrow said that he would like to go back to splitting the classes
over the two days so that some classes had two rounds on the Saturday and one on
Sunday, and some classes had one round on Saturday and two on Sunday.
Chris Ransome said that he thought it better to keep to all two classes
on the Saturday because it was not so important to finish on time on the
Saturday as it was on the Sunday. Ian
Phillips wondered whether it would be feasible to start at 0830 on the Sunday,
but it was felt that this would create problems with hotels breakfasts etc.
After further discussion it was proposed to leave things as they were.
The proposal was passed unanimously.
d)
The chairman asked for
discussion on moving the AGM to a separate day.
Chris Ransome and Ian Phillips pointed out that it was difficult to get
members to the meeting on a day when they were racing let alone on a different
day. Some discussion took place and
a vote was then taken to leave the time and day as existing.
Passed unanimously.
e)
The chairman asked
what the feeling was about setting up a PayPal account.
It was generally felt that this was not necessary as it was always an
option to send postal orders as a means of payment.
f)
Bill Hickman asked about the level of the fee paid to the Bridlington
club for the use of their lake. He
was told that it was £200. Bill
then asked for how long this had been the fee, pointing out that the amount of
work that the Bridlington club members put in to get the water suitable for
running the event was a great deal. Bill
suggested increasing the level of the payment and the chairman said that it had
been proposed last year to raise this to £250.
The treasurer then stated that this was not what had happened.
Bill suggested that £300 was well worth it and proposed this for future
Nationals as the MPBA had enough money for this.
It was mentioned that the entry fee might have to go up to cover this.
The chairman pointed out that there were some members who would like to
buy an electronic timing system. The
chairman then asked what other expenses had been paid out in the past year and
was told that there had been a few small bills but that £380 had been spent on
trophies. Entry fees for this
year’s event had brought in £550. The
treasurer was asked what the level of grant had been received this year and he
replied that he had received no grant. The
treasurer informed the meeting that the MPBA had asked for surplus money to be
returned to the main body, but it was pointed out to them that of the £1400 in
the section account there were £692 of un-reconciled cheques and that the MPBA
had no right to take that money. No
money was handed back as the true balance was under the £1000 allowed to be
held. There was £1111 held in
central funds for use by the section. The
secretary said that he thought that there was a £1000 grant available each
year. Chris Ransome also believed
that there was an annual grant available and that the grant should be used for
running the Nationals event.
Bill
Hickman proposed that the fee for the event be raised to £300
Seconded
by Simon Mitchell.
Passed
unanimously
It
was agreed that the situation regarding the availability of an annual grant
would be pursued before any decision was made regarding an increase to the entry
fees for future Nationals.
g)
Simon Mitchell
proposed a vote of thanks to Peter Barrow, the
The
meeting closed at 7:50pm