The new owner has done some wonderful things with a Marina since he acquired it, including the construction of a new club house. What is not commonly known locally is that there have been various issues regarding the local sailing club’s use of the facility which despite the club having relinquished its  old “shed” some time ago, had not been formally resolved with Marina owners as landlords. As a lay club member, I had no direct involvement in that.  Late last summer, The Marina quite rightly required the sailing club to finalise and formalise  arrangements. I will not go into detail here but the proposal was such to incite me as a member to attend the club’s AGM in November and express my strong dissatisfaction with that proposal, which I did. The AGM subsequently resolved to agree to an alternative financial proposal tabled at the AGM by the Marina which was far more acceptable.

Also at the AGM, the officer elections required the posts of the Commodore, Vice Commodore and two of the three Rear Commodores to be elected / re-elected. All of the incumbents declined to stand for re-election. A past commodore  (with some reluctance) volunteered to stand temporarily (1 year) as commodore and I (again reluctantly in glaring absence of any other volunteers) took on the role as his Vice. The other two roles were also “reluctantly” filled eventually by volunteers from the assembly but it would be true to say that there was generally no enthusiasm involved despite the large AGM attendance.

At the first meeting of the new committee, as VC I proposed that the relationship between the sailing club  and the  Marina owners should be put onto a more formal legal basis that the previous “handshake” type arrangement that had existed with regard to the old club house. Again I will not go into detail here but there was a certain amount of objection to the concept from one of the Flag Officers and one of the lay committee members in particular. The Marina owners were subsequently asked to provide a document outlining their requirements for the relationship which was duly received a few days later along with an invoice for the club house use. No problem there except that certain statements within the proposal indicated to me that the committee should discuss the content and its implications prior to finalising the agreement to ensure that the interests of the sailing club were not being compromised etc. i.e. Ensuring that the interests of the sailing club members were being protected so far as possible.

The commodore was abroad for medical treatment but saw the same implications as I and left instructions that the committee should consider and debate the contents of the document. This is where the problems began.

As VC it was clearly now my responsibility to organise the Commodore’s sensible direction. To facilitate this (early December) I wrote to the committee (by email) with my personal analysis of the document in the hope of generating some sort of email correspondence group debate. In view of the nature of the subject, I intentionally (and stated as such in the letter) omitted the  Marina owner (who at that time sat on the committee as a lay member) from the circulation list owing to the clear (in my view) conflict of interest.

What I then received was a series of abusive, slanderous, character assassinating emails from one of the Flag Officers. As result, I declined to attend the following committee meeting unless I received an apology, which I did not (neither have I since). I was then asked to attend a further committee meeting which I again declined as it was clear that the individual’s actions were not going to be challenged in any significant way by the committee in general. I should state at this point that the Commodore and various other committee members did agree with my perspective but (for reasons which again I shall not state here) were not able to strongly and effectively voice their views.

Thus I was left with no other option than to seriously consider my position within the sailing club. Membership renewals are due by 1st January. Having delayed my renewal pending the outcome of this matter, I reluctantly decided after 19 years of membership that the only course of action open to me was to decline the renewal invitation and consequently void my role within the committee. It is important to understand that from my perspective, I have not resigned from the sailing club, I was constructively removed from the membership by the unacceptable actions of the flag officer in question.

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