Freedive Toronto Minutes – AGM Nov 9 2007

Attendees: Soren Frederiksen, Gord Lemon, Doug Sitter, Pavel Wisniewski

Call to Order

President Doug Sitter called the meeting to order at approximately 8:00 pm

Treasurer’s Report

Soren Frederiksen delivered the Treasurer’s report: The financial outlook is positive due to the new members and t-shirt sales over that last year. The club had enough money to purchase an O2 kit. Soren is in the process of converting everyone’s membership dues to annual renewal date of June 1. Current members will owe part year fees from their renewal date until June 1. At this time there are still a number of outstanding membership fees which Soren is working to collect.

A detailed financial statement will be complete in the next 2 weeks.

Presidents Report

Doug Sitter delivered the Presidents report: This year has been a building year for the club starting with the Freedive boat being completely rebuild over the summer. Also to help build the club I personally increased my dive qualifications to help the club progress. Now that I am a certified PADI Dive Master and I am qualified to teach O2 Provider and CPR/First Aid courses I hope to be able to teach as many Freedive Toronto members as possible creating a safer club and safer dive buddies. I am pleased to report that many members have made excellent training progress at pool practices this year.

It was disapointing that after so many members were so keen on having Performance Freediving come to Toronto that not a single Freedive Toronto member signed up for the Intermediate Freediving course.

On the compitition side, this years hightlight is that one of our members, William Winram continues to be an international success and an inspiration. William won the silver in Constant Ballast without Fins at the 4th AIDA Individual World Championships in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. William achieved a depth of 75 metres.

Vice President Carlos Costa was not present to make a report and has decided not to run for a second term.

A review of the last AGM showed there was no old business to follow up.

Elections

A slate of new directors was presented to the board for consideration. As only four members accepted their nominations no election was held for the four board positions. The board approved the new slate and Aaron Wood, Renée Kitchen (returning), Soren Frederiksen (returning) and Doug Sitter (returning) were appointed as directors for the coming year. Renée Kitchen will continue as Secretary, Soren Frederiksen as Treasurer, Doug Sitter as President and Aaron Wood will take over the position as Vice President.

Doug Sitter then called for new business. The following items were discussed:

  1. Future open water dive trips: It is the club’s hope that more members will be part of dive trips and volunteer to organize trips in the coming year. This opportunity will be revisited early next year.
  2. National and Regional Competition: It was agreed that the club wants to host an open water competition in next summer. The board members will meet separately to work on planning the event.
  3. Donating to the diving community: Gord proposed we consider donating approximately $100 to the Ontario dive community. It was agreed that this would be a good use of funds. Gord will look into a donation to the dive community, perhaps through the organization Save Ontario Shipwrecks.
  4. Getting the non-members on our group mailing list more involved: Soren suggested the non-members who are part of our email group should be solicited to become members of the club via a friendly email.
  5. Website update: Pavel volunteered to produce video content for the website from our practices. Gord agreed to overhaul the content on the website in the new year. Soren and Gord agreed to look into paypal payments directly through the website for membership fees.
  6. Pool Schedule: It was agreed a pool Schedule needs to be put together for board members to be present for club practices.

Action Items:

  • The Board will meet in early 2008 to begin planning an open water competition.
  • Soren will create new supervision schedule for pool sessions – due in Dec.
  • Soren and Gord will look into paypal membership payments – due Feb. 2008
  • Pavel volunteered to produce video content for the website – due in Dec.
  • Gord agreed to arrange a donation to the dive community and to overhaul the content on the website – due Feb. 2008

Adjournment

Doug Sitter adjourned the meeting at approximately 9:15 pm.

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