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A letter from your Commodore

All Aboard the 'Skylark'

As I write, Christmas is still to come but by the time you read this we should be well into the New Year and looking forward to good times during the course of the next sailing season.  Hopefully, you will have received your new programme and I feel it is probably appropriate to explain the rational behind some elements of it.

Fewster Cup

Whilst there are superficially few changes to what proved a successful programme last year we have done some fine tuning.  Perhaps the most significant involves the Fewster Cup.  Thus, you will recall, turned two conventional race slots into 6 short Windward-Leeward races.  Some members, including myself when in the Phantom, found this hard work.  This year we have retained the same format but restricted it to one race slot at a time.  This means more weekends will feature three short races, usually in the slot after dinner, followed by a conventional race to round off the day.  We hope that this will please our asymmetric members and add increased variety to the programme.

Single Handed / Juniors

The format of three short races in the Single Handed and Junior trophies will remain unchanged.  Both series will feature Grand Prix finishes, if necessary, for the slower boats.  These series have been very helpful this year in encouraging new racers and helping Juniors to make the step from racing in the Junior Grand Prix to competing regularly with the adults.  We would wish to invite the stars of last year's JGP to join us in these series this year and the young people we feel are ready to make this step will get personal invitations to take part.

Race Officer

These series also dictate that we use water based starts and we would wish to encourage this trend to include as many starts of this nature as possible.  With this in mind we have set aside a pre-season time for a free workshop on Race Officering which you will receive notice about soon.  (Steve Gibbon is running this course if you have any questions.)  This will be designed to cover the very basics of race management and ideally will be helpful to members about to do their first or second duty.  Equally it may be useful to those unsure or indeed in need of a refresher.

Children's Fun Week

Instead of the children's fun week we have decided this year to set aside two full weekends for Family Activities, the Junior Grand Prix and Cruising events.  The plan would be to encourage members to stay over and enjoy a B-B-Q on the Saturday evening.  There would be no reason why suitably qualified and available members should not resurrect the Fun Week but at the time of setting the programme we were unable to identify someone to run it.

Open Events

The club is running five Open Events this year where the help and participation of members would be greatly appreciated.  the first, and possibly most prestigious, is the Flying Fifteen Northern Championships scheduled for May Day Bank Holiday (Saturday and Sunday only).  As we may have to cater for up to 40 boats, the majority of which will probably be dry sailed, there are no club events organised for this weekend.  Whilst informal sailing will be possible for members throughout the weekend I would wish to issue a plea for consideration especially at the times of launching and retrieval.  If in doubt ask a member of the Committee.  Similar consideration will be necessary with respect to parking - please use the Tower Knowe lower Car park and keep traffic off the main site.  The event is being organised so that no Fifteen sailors are unable to sail because of club commitments.  We want as many of you competing on the water as possible.  The Osprey crews have covered most of the duties so far and, for reasons that will become apparent, I would hope to recruit additional help from their ranks.  I would not, however, want anyone to feel excluded and all volunteers will be welcome and gainfully deployed.  For anyone contemplating the acquisition of a Fifteen this is a fine opportunity to see what is on offer and it might be possible to persuade someone to lend you their boat to take part!

The Solings are coming again in early October and will be looked after by essentially the same team as last year.  Normal club sailing will run alongside as in past years.

NEWS - the board sailing organisation will be with us on two weekends during the summer and will be bringing their own RIB.  the idea is that they will impinge very little on our activities and, once again, the Club Programme will run as normal.

Finally we have our September Open Meeting.  This has been a successful and enjoyable event in the past few years and your committee is keen that this should continue.  As this is my last year as Commodore I would like to see as big a turn out of Ospreys as possible.  I would like to think that all the club Ospreys will be able to compete and if this is to happen then help in organising the event will have to come from across the club.  At present we need volunteers for all tasks including Race Officer.  On my part I will be visiting other clubs to drum up competitors and, with the support of your Committee and the Osprey Association, will attempt to market this as a FASTSAIL event.  In simple terms this would involve inviting the other FASTSAIL classes (Javelin, Flying Dutchman, 470, Fireball, 505, Hornet and national 18's) to sail with the Osprey Class at our Open.  We are also reviewing the 'Dam to Dam' and whether it has a place in our Open or not.

Buddy Series

Once again we intend to run the 'Buddy' series but at a different time.  We hope to use the 'Picnic' series for this purpose which will also provide a lead in to the joint Regatta we run with the Yacht Club.  The event is primarily for families and was not well supported in 2003.  Hopefully we will change that this year.

The Kielder Collection will still run over the second May Bank Holiday but not as a buddy event.  The main reason for this is that potential buddies will be at Coniston.

Coniston

This is a three day Open Meeting which provides an excellent venue for sailing and relaxing on the edge of the Lake District.  There are starts for Ospreys, Fast Handicap, Slow handicap and, sometimes, Lasers.  You can also dry sail Fifteens and other large boats so this event has something to offer everyone - great scenery, friendly club, convenient camping and a range of other accommodation, relaxed atmosphere and interesting sailing on a large stretch of water.  There will be a number of KWSC boats attending and your Committee has decided to sponsor this event as a Club 'break'.  This event will make an ideal first Open with more experienced club members on hand to help you if necessary, and if you just wish to cruise, there would be an opportunity to do this and enjoy the company of your fellow members when you return.  Some of us even stay on for the week and enjoy further sailing, walking and climbing.  Watch out for details nearer the time but save the dates now - 29, 30, 31 May.

Newbiggin

Another departure this year is a blank weekend on 4/5th December 2004 - near the end of our Programme.  This is the date of the Newbiggin SC Winter Open Meeting sailed on the QE2 lake near Ashington (See Dave Mackay's report and the fabulous picture of this years event).  We have enjoyed considerable support from Newbiggin at our September Open in recent years and this year we decided to take this idea of mutual support further.  We have agreed to keep our respective club diaries free for each other's Opens.  Although you will not be forced to sail in the Newbiggin event a strong turn out of Kielder boats would be much appreciated.

Indeed it would be nice to think that the membership will support all our events and ideas this year.  With a growing membership and expanded site it only needs an increase in activity on the water and around the club to take us forward into another league.  I hope that you will be able to play your part and look forward to seeing you soon.

Alec Mamwell

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