Coordinator: Sheena Boyce, Solent Branch Secretary

The 2016 Solent Branch AGM was held on Saturday 12^th November 2016 at the Wildfowl and Wetland Centre in Arundel.  Thirty five branch members gathered together in a wonderful venue (despite the rain!) and the day started in the public gallery with a hot drink a chance to catch up and an opportunity to identify some of the birds visiting the reserve.

There were multiple sightings of a kingfisher which was very exciting and lots of wildfowl better suited to coping with the rain than we appeared to be.

We headed into the centre’s lecture theatre for a review of the year’s activities, award prizes and gifts and elect the 2017 branch committee.  With everyone comfortably seated we were formally welcomed to Dave Fairlamb, WWT Arundel Centre Manager.  Dave delivered a short presentation to introduce WWT Arundel including it’s history, current role and future aspirations.

Acting Captain Allan Howlett was duly elected Branch Captain (to serve until the 2017 AGM) and presided (with ease) over proceedings, introducing each committee officer in turn to deliver their reports before announcing it was time for the prize giving. (take a look at the Draft AGM Minutes to read the individual reports).

Richard Beeson won the cruising class award and overall trophy for the Nab Tower Race on Time Out (M40) and was duly awarded the Dixon Challenge Shield and Nab Tower Trophy and Richard was surprised to receive an extra gift from Ian Fellowes-Freeman – a replacement cap for the one he lost whilst passing to the south of the Nab Tower.

Ian and Sue Fellowes-Freeman, White Whisper (M346) successfully defended the Bill Dixon Cup by securing a series win in the Dixon Series so the cup will remain on their mantlepiece for another year!  Ian presented momentoes, for the first time, to winners of an individual Dixon Race before, having completed 3 years as Racing Officer he stepped down from the committee.

The Thelma Alloway Trophy was awarded to Jennifer and David Shepperd, Calista (S31) for an excellent Welsh Tea at Bucklers Hard and the Boules Trophy was awarded to Tim Norman-Walker, whose win in the knockout competition was all the more remarkable given Tim nor his team mates had ever played Boules before! Tim was delighted to receive a set of boules and words of encouragement from Allan to encourage him to gather he team together to defend Black Morwenna’s title next season.

The 2016 photography competition was won by Mike Neave, Gannet (M35) with a photograph taken en-route from Salcombe to Plymouth this summer and he was presented with a framed print of his winning shot…..of White Whisper and Sea’Scape…..he seemed quite keen to encourage us all to take some photos of Gannet!  Gifts were awarded to thank each of the event coordinators without whom our Calendar of Events would not be the same and to Ian Bevington for processing and publishing race results.

The election of the 2017 Branch Committee followed – Mike Neave was appointed Vice Captain, Jon Bell replaced Ian Fellowes-Freeman as Race Officer and Sue Fellowes-Freeman joined the Committee.  Neil O’ Connor confirmed he was happy to serve a third year as Branch Events Secretary, Sheena and Martin Boyce agreed to serve for an extra year in their current roles and Kim Sage and Allan Howlett had advised they would each be happy to continue coordinating website updates and midweek events respectively.

With the formal business complete Allan encouraged us to “dig deep” when buying our raffle tickets and invited us to switch locations to the Castle Room for lunch.  After a wonderful lunch and with raffle tickets drawn we competed a quick game (during coffee) of Heads and Tails – Diane Perry was the lucky last person standing and her prize was two crisp and shiny £5 notes – all for an entry fee of £1.  The nominated charity for marvellous sum we raised will be RNLI Mudeford who will shortly be in receipt of a cheque for £233.

The day had simply flown by – thank you to everyone who came along and helped to make the day such a success.