Chairman’s New Year Wishes

2012!  An exciting year to be in London.  The long awaited Olympic Games are now 200 days away.  The second longest serving British monarch (after Queen Victoria, as you ask) will be having her Diamond Jubilee.  This will include a huge river festival, and our club will be well represented on the water.  Chelsea Kayak Club will celebrate its second birthday and will welcome its second Chair at the AGM.

We have had a successful 2011, with a goodly number of trips in Britain and abroad, some re-organising of the committee, increased membership, some new equipment, some funded training opportunities and a number of social and fundraising events, culminating in our first stand-alone Christmas party.

The reorganising of the Royal Borough’s youth service into an Employee-Led Mutual (ELM) has continued and will officially happen in April 2012.  There was some uncertainty as to what that would mean for the club, but at this point it seems that we are secure in our position at Cremorne and considered an important part of the family of user groups there. We have been assured that our access fee will remain the same or will increase only by inflation and from the new membership year all CKC members will also become Friends of Cremorne Riverside as part of their membership.

We intend to  increase the membership fees  this year, by a small amount, but we think that  CKC will still remain excellent value for money at the new rates. There is also a need to make some changes to the Club Constitution to allow for greater flexibility on committee positions, and to revise and clarify our policy on attending trips.  More details will be forthcoming!

Committee positions will be up for re-election soon.  I will be standing down as Chair, so there will be at least one vacancy!  If you are thinking of getting involved on the committee, please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

It is worth restating that we are very much a club that relies on the input of its members for its success – of course the committee are very involved with this but there have been quite a lot of people who have helped in one way or another who are not on the committee.  This includes keeping the website up to date, writing blogs, organising trips, leading trips, organising social events, representing the club at external events, volunteering time and effort to fix or transport equipment or members… the list goes on.  Without the efforts of all involved we would not have a club.  So for your new year’s resolution in 2011, maybe you could consider how you can get involved and be part of the club’s continued success?  Your club needs YOU!

Cheers

Andy