2015 – 2016 Commodore’s Report

Dear Members,

The past year for the Club has been in my opinion a successful and smooth one. The Redlands Boat Club is in an extremely good financial position as we move into the next Club year.

The success of the Club is due to its great facilities and location which has been managed extremely well by the small dedicated management team with ongoing help from a pool of volunteers.

The Clubhouse and grounds is the subject to ongoing maintenance which has been taken care of by well attended working bees organised and managed by Terry Crocker and Trevor Higgins. One of the main aims for next year is the renewal of the club lease. Garry Bowden and Trevor Higgins have been in contact with the reverent departments to insure a smooth transition for our renewal.

Providing that a long term lease is granted, the Club will be looking at improving and or replacing our ramp, pontoon and turn around area which is due for an overhaul.

On the social scene, the Club had its 40th birthday which was celebrated with over 100 guests at the Grand View Hotel with a combination of both old and new members enjoying the night. The Friday night dinner’s at the club has had a marked improvement in the type of food being served to our members, this is due to the efforts of VC Rodney Winkleman and the chefs he sourced and put in place.

Our Friday nights are still a challenge because of the unpredictable and fluctuating numbers people who come down on the night however the night does return a profit.

Rodney was also responsible for organising guest speakers for our members meetings which were also well attended.

One of my goals is to try and connect with all the members in order to improve the number of members taking part in the events we organise, such as Friday nights, boating events, members meetings, etc.

A big step to achieving this is the work that Doug Ross has been doing with the RBC website keeping members up to date with what is happening in the Club. Moving forward our well maintained and up to date website will be a very useful tool in the communication with our members.

Doug has been working closely with our web designer Adrian Watson to improve the flexibility for both management and the members one example is the generation and automatic sending of renewal invoices to members, as well as members being able to log on and pay there renewals and details as needed.

Between Trevor Higgins and myself, a yearly boating events calendar was put together and quite a few members took advantage of the organised events where good numbers of boats and members joined in.

The Wilsons Cleveland Classic was not held this year due to a lack of time for the team from Wilsons to organise.

As part of our commitment to setting the Club up for the lease renewal, Gary Bowden has rewritten both the Club rules and bylaws making them more relevant to the modern day and a lot easier to read.

To sum up I would like to thank the tireless efforts of the management team and all of the members who have volunteered their time throughout the year because without your help the club would not be able to go on in its present form.

Kind regards,

Mike Streets

Commodore-Redlands Boat Club