The first SMAC monthly meeting of the 2024 Season is our Annual General Meeting, where we appoint the Committee, update any Club Rules if necessary and generally plan ahead for the next 12 months. There’s quite a lot to report so grab a drink and read on…

First item on the agenda was a bit different – Steve Kelly unveiled the Bill Arnold Memorial Trophy (pictured). This is based on an idea by Bill himself. It includes his own Alvey reel and slabs of oak, with feet made from bronze marine bearings. Peter Kinchin made up the trophy for us, and it will have an engraved plaque when it is presented at our Presentation Night. The actual award is still a secret, so come along to the Presentation and find out!

Our Committee was re-elected with the exception of our late and much missed Treasurer, Bill. Dan Lumsden was voted in as our new Treasurer. Bill was also an awesome seller of raffle tickets, so as Eleanor Atkins was his protégé on the last couple of sales we decided in her absence she would be a worthy successor to the role. See what happens if you don’t attend our AGMs?

The 2024 Committee is as follows:

  • Commodore: Tim Andrews
  • Chairman: Steve Kelly
  • Deputy Chairman: Neville Merritt (+ writer of things and BBQ cook)
  • Communications Officer: Steve Andrews
  • Treasurer: Dan Lumsden
  • Open Competition Organisers: Steve Kelly, Neville Merritt, Dan Lumsden, John Evans
  • Raffle Ticket Sales: Eleanor Atkins

There were no requests to change any Club Rules so the existing Rules stand.

Fish Of The Month was awarded to Dan Lumsden for his cod of 10lb 1oz. Richard Pack’s whiting was a smaller % specimen weight and anyway we decided that he had already won enough prizes and cups for that fish (Cod Competition 2nd Prize and Best Placed SMAC Member cup).

The 2023 Season Results are below – congratulations to all the winners, and Dan Lumsden is our overall Club Champion. We’ll celebrate all these at our joint SMAC and SMDAC Presentation Night on 2nd March so bring along your partners for a great evening. There will be a free drink for every member, free food and a raffle. We’ll be spending £500 on raffle prizes so it’s worth buying lots of tickets! We will award the cups which live in our Trophy Cabinet, matching awards to keep and Angling Trust Specimen certificates and medals.

Our Club Scales will need officially calibrating if we are to continue to get Specimen Fish Certificates from the Angling Trust, so a calibration fee was authorised. We now have a set of calibration weights for checking too.

Following the interest in our club branded hoodies, polo shirts and the anniversary t-shirts, we had a request for SMAC branded beanies and caps. Neville Merritt showed samples of hats and there was enough interest from members for us to get quotes for a batch of each, to include child sizes as well. If the price is reasonable we’ll buy a stock for sale to members.

Southsea Marina has a new manager – Dave Frey. Dave has been working with Premier since 2016 at other marinas. We agreed to invite him to meet SMAC at the next Monthly Meeting in March, and also to drop into our Presentation Night if he felt so inclined. Hopefully he will be so impressed by our good behaviour that he will look kindly on future requests for SMAC member marina benefits.

Finally, John Wearn laid down the challenge of a SMAC vs. SMDAC competition and we agreed that a summer evening pier competition sounded like a very good idea. A date will be proposed and rules defined.

Our next monthly meeting will be Tuesday 5th March but don’t forget, our Presentation Night is the previous Saturday evening on 2nd March. See you there!