WW Racing Committee Meeting 23^rd Nov. 2005

Present:

John Ringwood (Chairman)
Willie Irwin (Treasurer)
Martin McCarthy (Secretary)
Wesley Bourke (Ctte. member)
Keith McGuirk (Ctte. member)

Agenda, action points and decisions:

1. Function of two "exceptional" committee members.

Keith to act as an equipment officer, to look after (inventory, care, whereabouts, co-ordination) fleet of Wavehoppers, timing equipment, finish banner, race bibs, team gear, etc.

Wesley to act as PR for committee, consistent with PR role for ICU Council.

Race co-ordination/liaison, as in notification, reports, results & liasing with organisers, is to be performed by the WWR ctte. secretary.

2. Domestic calendar Spring 2006.

Changes to existing calendar for 2005/06 season discussed. New race calendar agreed, Chairman will circulate shortly. The Inny has been nominated as the Irish leg of the Home International series. British competitors to get free entry into the event. Keith McGuirk will work on supplementary "training/squad" calendar.

3. International calendar & Selection Policy 2006.

The location of the 2006 World Championships has yet to be announced after the withdrawal of Bala as the host. It was noted that the venue for the World Championships will not be known until after the 15th Dec. The Inny will be used as selection for the World Championships (if Karlovy is to be the host) and the Avonmore is to be used as the venue for selection for the World Cups (presently Karlovy, Mezzana and Lofer are the venues for the 2006 World Cups). The actual selection policy will be decided at the next committee meeting and the Chairman will draw up a suggested policy for discussion at that meeting.

4. Accounts/grant application/funding.

Wesley was asked by a national team member to request money for the Juniors who fundraised for the World Cup via the Logo Lottery. The secretary explained that the World Cup event is still in debt, creditors are still owed money and that all of the money pledged as part of the Logo Lottery has not been collected, despite the individuals/companies concerned being invoiced. For this reason, no money can be given back to the Juniors. It was pointed out that they did receive free team gear, which does reward them for their efforts.

The treasurer presented a partially completed capital grant application form from the sports council. Some ideas for funding application were discussed, those to be included in the application under development include purchase of wavehoppers, purchase of laptop, purchase of trailer, funding to transport trailer to events in Ireland and abroad. Funding is sought to enable three coaches to be qualified and a foreign coach is to be brought over to Ireland for a period of days. This is to be completed in full and returned to the ICU office by close of business Friday 25th Nov.

The accounts as presented by last years treasurer at the AGM are up to date, with the exception that €30 is due back as proceeds for the Aghade race '05 - this has yet to reach the account. Thus the WWR ctte. has €3645 to hand (including the Aghade race proceeds). €1,500 of last years International Grant has still to be dispersed. This cannot be used to pay athlete's expenses if the event was held in Ireland, so a table of payments to athletes is to be drawn up based on the number of overseas World Cup events they raced in. The secretary noted that the Castleconnell World Cup account will most likely be overdrawn and may request that the WWR ctte. cover this shortage.

5. Equipment inventory.

The following equipment is to be collected and accounted for:
Race bibs, Finish banner, timing equipment (start beeper and finish beam), video camera, wavehoppers, laptop & printer.

6. Information dissemination.

Information or lack of, is perceived to be one of the weaknesses of WWR and canoeing in general. It was decided that the bulletin board which forms part of the new WWR website (see below) is to be used for information dissemination only. (does this mane only the webmaster can post info. to it? - please can someone clarify this). The secretary is to investigate the admin capabilities of WWRnews newsgroup and request the passwords from Francois Gerdeaux. The secretary is to ensure that accurate and timely info. on races and other relevant subjects is posted.

The new WWR website created by Feargal Walsh is to be launched soon. The existing one (hosted by NUI Maynooth) is to be updated for the coming season after which all activity will pass onto the new website. Sean Martin has offered to maintain the new website and Wesley is to liase with Sean and Feargal about this. Proper DNS is to be bought and Wes is to investigate the possibility of getting this through Sean's company (to save on VAT). Wes is also to talk to Feargal about payment for his work on creating the website, a figure is to be determined (€200 was mentioned at the meeting).

7. A.O.B.

It was decided that ctte. meeting minutes would be posted on the website for the sake of transparency.

8. Next meeting:

Tuesday 6th December at 7.30 PM, 17 Riverside Drive, Palmerstown.