Report from TAUK to the 2003 World Council Meeting

Technical

Pursuant to a decision taken at last year's AGM. TAUK has reverted to minimum hull weight of 68kg in line with decision taken by WTC to continue at that weight. (In recent years, TAUK has applied minimum hull weight of 66kg.)

Membership

Membership is fairly static - reached about 75 last year at the Nationals (some people don't join until then). This year currently sitting at about 65 but expected to go up to close to 75 again by the time of the Nationals.

We had a stand at Sailboat (the UK dinghy exhibition) in March of this year and it seemed from talking to people who visited the stand that there are quite a lot of people out there sailing Tasars who do not bother to join TAUK - primarily because they do not go to open meetings. We are trying to find ways of encouraging them to participate in the Association:

- we are planning to run a training event later this year, possibly in conjunction with an open meeting.
- many boats which change hands are advertised through the TAUK website. We are now following up with new owners and offering them free TAUK membership for their first year of ownership.
- at this year's AGM we will introduce "crew" membership at reduced rates (at present, only one person per boat needs to be a member but this means the crew does not, get membership benefits e.g. newsletters).

Open Meetings, the Nationals, the Worlds

Number of Open Meetings is slightly down on last year. We are encouraging members to advertise other open events at their clubs which can be included on the "circuit" as alternatives.

Nationals last year were at Brightlingsea in Essex (East Coast). This year, they are at Pwllheli in North Wales - good open sea sailing. We are joining up with the Kestrel fleet to run a joint event. (Many sailing clubs in the UK now ask the smaller fleets to do this - we are already booked in at Penzance (Cornwall) for next year along with the Osprey fleet.)

Three current TAUK members have gone to the Worlds in Victoria.

Liz Grist, President, TAUK
2003/06/21