NORTHBRIDGE SAILING CLUB ABN 78 000 469 947 Main Clubhouse: Bethwaite Lane, Clive Park, Northbridge Seaforth Clubhouse annex: Sangrado Street, Seaforth Postal Address: PO Box 39 Northbridge NSW 1560 www.nsc.asn.au 2018-2019 Season Report Commodore’s Report I am unable to be present at the AGM and annual club prize-giving as my wife and I left for a holiday abroad. I do beg your understanding! Your club is honoured to have Mr Trent Zimmerman presenting trophies and joining us for lunch at the prize-giving. We are particularly grateful to Mr Zimmerman for his support of the club, in our successful grant application to the Federal Department of Sport. His office has also provided us with our new Australian flag, which you can see proudly flying today. The Federal Department of Sport matched the Willoughby Council financial commitment provided for our essential deck and pile remediation. We are eternally grateful to the Mayor of Willoughby Gail Giles-Gidney, and her team, for their wonderful contribution to our club. 1Shiny new railings! The support provided recognises that we at NSC are the custodians of a community resource. We are not a gated community. Prior to mentioning achievements by the club over the last year (and there have been many), I ask you to spare thoughts for any of our members facing challenges at this time, whether they be health or otherwise. May we all be reminded to count our blessings. And now to list the achievements of the last 12 months at NSC, that facilitate our sailing. 1. Formation of Rust Group (Rebooted Underutlised Salty Tars). This group meets on the second and 4th Wednesday of the month 9.30 am to 12.30 followed by a bbq lunch on the deck. Regular attendees this year have included Phil Susans, Steve Penny, John Smidmore, Cam McDonald and myself. Major achievements have been restoration of the flag pole (look outside) and club boat repairs. New members, who may not be members of NSC, are always welcome. 2. Construction of the new stairway by Willoughby Council 3. Construction of new compliant railings on top deck 4. Completion of new ramp on Eastern side of deck (special thanks for the ever- capable Jim Beeston who took over the responsibility to complete this construction in a time frame to comply with grant requirements) 5. Essential repairs to the piling and deck structures to cover safety and the requirements of an engineer’s default report, for the purpose of lease renewal with Roads and Maritime Department 6. Establishment of a recycling service at NSC Your club is in a sound state. But we must remain constantly aware that your 2Pouring concrete for our under-deck piers club relies on the volunteer efforts of all of us. Whether it be taking a turn on the Committee, attending working bees, signing up for Officer of the Day (OOD) or for the newer members or parents of members, signing up for Assistant Officer of the Day (AOOD) duties. No boat licence is needed for this AOOD role, and it is a great role to increase skill and knowledge in rescue, mark laying, and boat handling generally. We have often seen an OOD with a son or daughter fulfilling the AOOD role – a bonding parent/child experience (hopefully!). Additionally, and very importantly, there are the ever-important canteen roles to be filled. Imagine if those hungry instructors and sailors were not fed! I encourage you to log onto the website early in the season and book yourself a couple of roles on dates to suit you. Finally, I would like to thank the committee and the various class captains, and our safety officer – a team of approximately 10 who are the mainstay of our wonderful club. Without them the job of Commodore just would not be possible. Happy sailing! And, see you in the Spring time. Peter Doyle Commodore Financial Report The performance for the financial year is very pleasing with a profit of $34,832, (2018 $2,537), which has partly resulted from an increase in revenue from Junior Learn to Sail, $10k, Clubhouse Hire, $7.5k, and membership fees, $7k at the same time we have been able to keep our expenses at a similar level to the previous year. Membership numbers increased slightly during the year, largely due to the intake from learn to sail participants, however, not all these new members will continue with sailing in future years. The Club closed the year with approximately $159k in the bank, an increase of approximately $50,000, however approximately $39k relates to the unused portion of the grant from the Federal Government to assist with necessary repairs to the deck which will be spent in the current financial year. It should be noted we are the custodians of an aging facility which will require continual maintenance and as such it is necessary to build reserves to cover future maintenance. This year we have been extremely fortunate to have received substantial support from the Federal Government and Willoughby Council. Andrew Boyce Treasurer Learn-to-Sail and Live-In Report Learn to Sail We had a truly bumper season for Learn-to-Sail. The September school-holiday timing for our first (Spring) intake seems to be popular (even if it is still pretty cold); we had 27 new sailors start and remarkably 23 continued on to our Level 2 course (and 11 of those bought boats and moved into Level 3/junior sailing). Our second (Summer) intake was also bumper, with 23 starting Level 1 and 28 continuing on into Level 2 (no, they didn’t clone some extra, we had some carry-overs from other clubs and courses!), and again 10 of those bought boats and graduated to junior sailing. We still had more enquiries! So we ended up running a modest course during LiveIn as well – another 6 sailors making a total of 61 for the season. We also ran an Adult Learn-to-Sail course in the spring with 6 sprightly seafarers, and once again were flooded with enquiries once it had finished, so ran a second course for a further 10. For especially those parents of junior kids, this is an excellent way to foster bonding – learn to do it yourself! Next season we want to reduce the load on our instructors (so they can improve their own sailing). So we’ll have a LTS intake during the October holidays and at Live-In only, with abbreviated courses (we’ll go straight from Level 2 into Green Fleet), leaving many more Sundays free. LiveIn It just never dies! The Live-In format was largely unchanged from past years. 46 kids showed up, along with a dozen instructors, and the kids found out that a full week of near-anarchy and fun was worth the occasional wet-suit rash, deck splinter, sunburn (yes, a few square inches of skin missed out on sunscreen) and missing mum. Our Head Instructor, the majestically- serene Sarah Bartels managed the whole thing from start to finish, and the remaining fleet of instructors (Luke, Nathan, Kashi, Justin, Tom, Matt, Hamish, Bezi, India, Sam, Ben and Max) were superb (amazingly, they are still all friends). They were all between 14 and 18 years old, are a truly exceptional bunch of sailors, and I think any parent would be proud of their responsible attitude. Young kids see what capable youths these instructors are, and aspire to emulate them. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they started as saints or ratbags, their Northbridge sailing experience shapes their growth and maturity. We rely on them totally. Thanks. The kids had a whale of a time, and as usual learned more about sailing in a week than they did the rest of the year - mostly because they had a lot of fun and accidentally sailed a lot! Parents pitched in yet again with the volunteer position rostering - the kids owe a huge thank-you to you all. For those members not connected to the Live-In, there’s as much volunteer activity during that week as during the rest of the season combined… Many parents loved the opportunity to see their kids having a great time while the chores were done. Just like Vegas, what 3Gone are the days of happens at Live-In stays cheese and vegemite at Live-In, so there won’t sarnies being enough.... be any tales told here. But we can report that the traditional instructor race produced its usual amount of anarchy, with all instructors taking it as seriously as the Olympics – much ego was at stake. Just seeing the tactics used caused the average sailing skills of the Live-In kids to regress back to Tuesday – for a start all the Opti sprits except two were stolen and hidden prior to the start – pretty easy to guess who was behind that prank (yes, the two that still had sprits…). For the record, the race was won by Justin (AKA “The French kid”), who we fully expect to be an Olympic Nacra finalist 4Now that's a proper shopping soon, having decimated the adult Laser sailors during list! the NSC season, and comprehensively destroyed the home-grown egos at Live-In. Long may the Live-In survive and thrive! It is a hugely vital part of our sailing culture, and the envy of other clubs. Adult Live-In In fact, Live-In induces so much envy that the adults of the club wanted to have a similar experience (although adapted somewhat – we don’t really cater much during junior Live-In for meditation and red wine!).