Notice of Annual General Meeting

Notice of Annual General Meeting

Date:                        Thursday 15^th September 2011

Place:                      Otago Yacht Club, Magnet St, Dunedin

Time:                       1930 hours

Business:                 The normal business of an AGM will be conducted, including Receiving Reports; Election of Committee, Honorary Solicitor and Financial Reviewer; Subscriptions; and Notified and Non-notified Business.   Any notified business must be in the hands of the Secretary not later than 31^st August 2011.

Speaker:                  At the conclusion of the meeting, John Armstrong will give an illustrated talk on his and Robyn’s experiences with their yacht, the Shag, sailing to and visiting Dusky Sound.  This will be followed by a light supper.  

Ian Milne

Secretary

Ph 03 488 4205

ian.milne@clear.net.nz

Notes:

The annual Chairman’s Report, Repeater Trustee’s Report and Financial Report will be available at the meeting and will be posted on the association’s blogsite: http://otagomaritimevhfassn.blogspot.com .

Subscriptions were raised to $38 (Recreational) and $58 (Commercial) last year.  Six years’ membership for five years’ subs are therefore $190 and $290 respectively. The committee is recommending that they stay the same this year.  Hence renewal notices are enclosed with this notice as appropriate. 

Chairman's Report 2011

Chairman’s Report 2011

Following our usual practice the Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and Repeater trustee were elected by the committee at the first committee meeting. They are: Mike Harkness (Chairman), Ian Milne (Secretary), John Armstrong (Treasurer) and Martin Balch (Repeater trustee). Other members of the committee are: Brian Chalmers, Ron Johnston, Vern Hall, Ate Heineman, John McLellan, Les McBean, Keith Simon and Terry Thomas (Vice Chairman). An external reviewer was to be appointed.

This year marked a turning point, Hina Hina Hill was fully commisioned and apart from a problem with the power supply, which Martin refers to in his report, it has been functioning well. Overall our system, which serves a challenging part of the coastline with equally challenging weather, provides an excellent sertvice although coverage in the Tow rock and Nuggets areas is patchy. The committee is aware of these problems and is considering options, one of which may be to site a repeater at our old site in  Emerson Street. The power cable to Hautai Hill has been located and was partially uncovered by Terry and Michael, but it will need to be buried deeper, probably later this year. Development of our blog site is underway and we encourage members to forward material for it. It can be accessed at: otagomaritimevhfassn.blogspot.com.           

Overall, the association and equipment are healthy, but we would still like more members from the Oamaru and South Otago areas and greater involvement in the Association by more members. One place to start would be to post copy, links and/or images on our blogspite or forward them to John at omvhfassn@gmail.com. Martin notes in his report that  eventually we will need to find funds for new equipment, but this should not be for a few more years.

Finally, I would like to thank the committee for their support escpecially Ian for putting our records into a coherent order; our volunteer operators: John McLellan, Kevin Hughes, Heather and Keith Simon, Martin Balch, Ted Gilbert and Martin Finnie, and our members who have provided on-the-water weather reports. Martin Finnie has, on occasions, done the evening weather round-ups from Moeraki. At present Moraki is unmanned because John, due to ill health, has retired to Oamaru. We wish him and Pauline well and will miss his experience and help on the air.

Michael Harkness

AGM Thursday 15 September 2011

The Annual General Meeting will be held at the Otago Yacht Club's clubrooms in Magnetic Street, Dunedin. (Behind the Stadium) commencing 7.30pm.

The meeting will be followed by "Discovering Dusky" presented by John & Robyn Armstrong on their cruise to Dusky Sound.

Greymouth Bar

Click here to see film of fishing boats crossing the Greymouth Bar

Chairman’s Report 2010

 

The following Officers of the Association were elected from the Committee at the first meeting: Chairman - Michael Harkness; Vice Chairman – Terry Thomas; Honorary Treasurer – John Armstrong; Secretary – Fiona Balch; Hon. Solicitor – to be appointed if the need arises; Financial Reviewer – deferred; Repeater Trustee – Martin Balch.

Other members of the Committee are: Brian Chalmers, Ron Johnston, Vern Hall, Ate Heineman, John McLellan, Les McBean, Ian Milne, Keith Simon.

During the year there was a small increase in our membership: the total number now stands at approximately 200. Following up a suggestion from Keith that many recreational VHF users while owning VHF radios were not members of the Association, I visited a fishing contest at Karitane and distributed application forms to those who were not members of the Association. In fact, very few were members of the OMVHF Association although all appeared to own VHF radios. It would be in our interest for members to distribute applications forms at future fishing contests.

We have had some issues with the power cable and signal strength at Hautai. I refer you to Martin’s excellent report. As Martin mentions in his report, the cable will have to be located and re-laid in a deeper trench, and at the appropriate time we will require a working bee. This should enable us to complete the job quickly and efficiently. The incoming Committee will also need to tidy up the arrangements at Hautai with Terry who has security and Differential GPS transmitters at Hautai, and I’m am sure that we can come to an amicable agreement.

I have put a temporary hold on further developments of Hina Hina until we are sure we have sufficient funds to complete the exercise. At present the subscriptions and interest received will not meet our continuing obligations including repairs, licences and replacements. Over the next year, we will need to apply for a grant to fund our on-going developments and costs. Overall, the Association is in a good position and I think we can look forward to the productive year.

Finally, I would like to thank those who have worked on our repeaters, to our operators – John McLellan (who was honoured with a QSM for his long involvement with SAR), Kevin Hughes, Heather and Keith Simon, Martin Balch, Fiona Balch, Meri Leask (who comes up on the morning weather schedule) and Ted Gilbert, and those who have provided on-the-water weather reports. I would also like to mention that Neville Crozier resigned from the Association during the past year: Neville was member of the Association for many years and helped many sailors; and also Hamish Scott who retired from Harbour Control in December 2009.

Michael Harkness