COMMODORE’S REPORT
The past year for the club has seen a steady as she goes approach to running of the Club. 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 are the subject to ongoing maintenance which has been taken care of by well attended working bees organised and managed by Terry Crocker.
A major goal for the Redlands Boat Club has been reached with the renewal of 30‑year lease. Thanks to Garry Bowden and Trevor Higgins who have successfully followed up with the relevant departments over the last year.
One of the conditions of the lease is to allow access to the relevant authorities for the extension of the rock wall which will allow management to assess repairs and improvements required to be undertaken to the ramp, turn around area and pontoon extensions.
The Redlands Boat Club has engaged the services of a Solicitor to improve the conditions of the lease in order to utilise the club’s facilities more often.
The first Friday night of the month sees the Clubhouse open for dinner for the members and their guests. In order to keep the Friday night dinner viable, management has engaged the services of a contract Chef company which has seen an increase in meal quality. Would like to thank Kylie Dawson for all her efforts in organising this for the Club.
The Friday nights still are a challenge due to the fluctuating numbers of people who come down on the night however the night does return a profit.
Please see the house report by VC Daniel Holt for more information.
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.
Doug Ross has worked tirelessly in conjunction with Adrian Watson to ensure efficient communication with all Club members through a well maintained and up to date Website. I feel now that it is up to the members to utilise this tool to ensure they stay up to date with the Club activities and update their details regularly.
Daniel Holt has taken on the role as Rear Commodore the 2017 / 2018 period, so I am looking forward to a full year of boating and social events. I urge all members to support Daniel and make this a good boating year.
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.
Mike Streets – Commodore
TREASURER’S REPORT
The 2016/17 accounts have been audited by Bird, Walker, McDonald and Associates and are available for Members review. The figures for 2016/17 are $1914.45 which is down on previous years thus reflecting the lack of support from members, the Club is only open 1 night a month and if more members attended we could see a turn around in the trend shown this year. The trading figures $293.60 is down on that of last year thus showing that for the Club to operate more profitably we need Members supporting the Club, now the Club is only open the first Friday of each month, this gives everyone a chance to come down and support the Club after all there’s only 11 Fridays nights available each year for you to support your Club over a 12 month period.
The Club is in a strong financial position with current cash assets of $584822.10 which is up on the same period last year, our nett. assets are $853322.24 with total income of $111531.36 for the year which is down on last year’s trading.
This year we have not been able to reach the limit of 400 members. We have had several members formally resign and return fobs, however this year any un-financial member as at 31 August will have had their access turned off and unless they pay their fees by the AGM they will be removed from the register after the AGM.
I would like to express my thanks to the Management Committee for their support in making last year a financial success.
Phil King – Treasurer
VICE COMMODORE’S REPORT
This year the club saw a decrease in turnover of $10230.79 on the previous year with a total bar, regalia and food sales amount of $23673.95. This saw a very small profit of $293.60 down $8226.55 compared to last year.
As always numbers were hard to predict and to cater for. Attendance numbers for club night fluctuated over the previous year, with some nights only seeing around 25 members, guests and children with the exception being June where we had 97 members, guest and children.
During the FY17 period the club went through a few changes in Chefs, with the previous chefs not wanting to continue, we needed to find a replacement. One of the biggest challenges faced is finding a dedicated kitchen team willing to work only one night per month. Appointing a contracted chef company has seen some quality chefs producing quality food, and timely service, however we still fall short of maintaining a dedicated chef.
In departing the role of Vice Commodore, I would like to take the opportunity to thank a few members for their assistance, Terry Cox, Dom and Michelle Appay, Ken Mann, Glen Sutton, John Crane and Greg Williams who were a constant help throughout the year and I wish to thank them enormously for their contribution. Also, to all of the management committee, thank you for making yourselves available to assist where and when needed.
Daniel Holt – Vice Commodore
PUBLICITY OFFICER’S REPORT
The last 12 months has seen 59 emails sent to members providing information about events at the club and general information about the goings on around the club.
The Statistics recorded by our MailChimp email system still report that only around 50% of the emails sent are opened by the recipients. I am working with Adrian Watson to change some settings in our domain registration such that Mailchimp can send “authenticated” emails that should reduce the amount of emails that go to Spam folders in members inboxes.
The SMS system introduced by Kylie this year is proving to be an effective means of alerting members to activities being run at the club.
The RBC Facebook page is quite underutilised and opportunities exist to increased use of social media to improve publicity of the club to its membership.
I have issued 10 editions of the Bulletin in the last 12 months and would like to thanks Greg Deighton, Gary Bowden and Don Appay for their contributions of articles for the website and Bulletin. Patsy Gosling has also been fantastic with her contribution of recipes. It has been a little challenging producing the Bulletin over the last 12 months due to the reduced number of boating events held by the club resulting in less content to create articles.
The Website has now reached a point where it is operating well and is easy to add content to. It is also proving to be a vital tool to manage membership details with the vast majority of membership details now up to date with a number of members self-serving to maintain their details. This year we have added online payment facilities to the website and look forward to increasing the use of this for payment of membership fees in the future. We have also added a module to allow members to promote their businesses on our website.
I have investigated installing large outdoor screens (similar to what is in front of schools) this year either in front of the club or in the parking area as a potential method to get information to members who don’t use the internet, monitor emails or SMS’s but attend the club to use the facilities. It was decided not to progress with this due to cost concerns.
Social member Victoria Wells (Daughter of ordinary member Graham Wells) has agreed to take on the Publicity Officer roll for the club in 2017/18 and I would like to take this opportunity to wish her all the best and thank her for agreeing to take on the roll. I also would like to encourage all members to think about putting fingers to keyboards or taking a few photos around the Club and the Bay and sending them to Victoria on the editor@redlandsboatclub.org.au email address for use on the website.
Doug Ross – Publicity Officer