Salterns was thriving. The Junior Committee (JC) was active and effective. We started Saturday afternoon sailing in April & May to ease the early season rush and it proved very popular. The club house and kennel roofs were replaced successfully. The number of club Oppies and Moths increased. Organised events were well attended and both numbers and sailing standards at Moppy Camps were kept at a high level.
The key event was the conclusion of a 5 year struggle to get the Lease renewed. After threats from joint landlords NFDC & HCC to allow only a 1 year lease at the same rent as the RLymYC (I do not jest) and years of obstruction we got a 10 year lease at a fair rent. It took the threat of a 2nd Ombudsman complaint to get it, but get it we did. The crowning idiocy was a last minute demand that we fence the 8 acre pond “in case a member of the public falls in”. Protests that it was tricky launching boats over a fence cut no ice, but our demand that they must therefore fence the Solent next to Salterns – as the risk was the same or worse – did the trick.
As always it is the people that make Salterns what it is. We were so lucky in having enormous input for more than 10 years from Geoff Stock (with Mandy), Tony Harris and John Claridge – “the big three” in my memory of Salterns. This in no way is to belittle the help received from so many others.
Jeff Dudley
(Co-President with Kay Batten)