Notice of 2012 AGM:

May Conference:

To provide you all with some indication on how seriously the ASRL/SBC take this opportunity to address our future these are the agenda items to be discussed at the May conference. Twenty plus sweeps representing every State will be in attendance along with many of our National and State Referees.

We are acknowledging the past but concentrating on the future in this debate. What we all want is the best for our sport and by airing all these issues in a controlled way we hope to come out the other side with some good gains.

We did make the call for contributions to the agenda and received two suggestions that are included below. We have had some people call wanting to see an open forum for all to attend. We have such a forum already and it's called the AGM. You elect a committee each year to run the ASRL and that is what they are doing by organising this set of discussions between members from SLSA, our boat officials and a representation of sweeps. Unfortunately we can't open the doors further because firstly where do we stop and secondly if a committee of one is the best committee this group of 40 in full cry will be difficult to control.

ASRL Open Stockton Feb 2012:

We will probably never reach the perfect world some crave but I would like to provide a little background and comment on some aspects of the event so everyone can have a better understanding on how decisions are reached.

Some website comments are fair and well thought through and will be the subject of the committee debrief. Like it or not we now live in a different world where checks and balances are part of our life. The trick for us all is to learn to work within the process and if we find a process that can be bettered then we should and will make representations for change.

Friday:

Most of our problems centred on the Friday and will be the subject of a lot of discussion before next year. Things like which division starts the day, where best to place our showpiece Interstate event (and that may require a change of day) will all be looked at. Presentations will be another area to discuss

The Interstate Championship held for the first time as the official SLSA event and including all divisions of racing was brought forward by an hour so we could be assured of completing the event prior to the SLS shut down curfew. For those that aren't aware a new rule exists that states an event requires a 1.5 hour daylight search gap from the completion of the last race. The WSO had determined that we needed to be finished racing by 6pm and this was a no brainer until "that Storm" broke and forced the suspension of racing at the start of the Interstate for over 30 minutes. The very disappointing result for competitors and spectators was that we lost the Interstate relay component because we couldn't have completion by the 6pm cut off.

Saturday:

Open crews were on the line ready for the gun at 7.30 and the sky went black and yet another storm hit with a vengeance resulting in another shutdown. Again the rules are that we shut down for something like 30 minutes after the last flash of lightning so while ever the lightning flashes the clock ticks.

Some other comments have been made around the racing course. One of the initiatives that the ASRL has championed in the last few years is to introduce a Course Manager role (now being taken up at National level which is great). This position is held by an experienced non competing boatie who operates between the Referee's & Boat Panel and is constantly working with a level of autonomy with the IRB crews to adjust the racing course. There comes a time where we have to accept that those responsible have done everything possible to keep the racing as fair as possible given what the ocean is throwing at us. You must always remember that at best we cover roughly 200M of beach per area and not many beaches provide equal conditions for 400+M.

Sunday:

We took the maximum number of crews we could through in each division and raced two areas eliminated crews down to eight crews per division per area. These crews then came together into the northern arena for all finals. The racing was unbelievably fast, close and exciting. If you want racing where you fall over a monster and across the line then Stockton wasn't your beach but if you want reward for hard work, good coaching and speed your crew would have loved it. It had waves ranging from testing on Friday to small on Sunday but the crews with the surf ability milked the best of each run and it was a pleasure to watch good rowing skills at work.