2017 AGM Minutes

Called to order 7:32

32 in attendance. 8 proxies. Please

When 2016 was winding down we got the bad news that we had lost our church parking lot for our solo events. We had had a few years enjoying the convenient, if a bit small, location. We saw our competitor numbers increase and the quality of the events was outstanding. So we started 2017 wondering where we could go. Thankfully, with the help of a wonderful contact, we were able to obtain Shearwater and we had  an exciting  year breaking in a new location for our slalom events. Shearwater  has been an absolute blast, gobs of room, lots of parking, convenient location and usually always a sea breeze to keep the bugs down. We were even able to work around the three long speed bumps that separated the taxiway from the runways. I know … speed bumps on a runway??

Thanks to our hardworking solo crew, Director Scott Montgomery and past director (and current race director) Joel Nelson, we were able to run some fast, safe and interesting events. The usual support team of the Partridge family, Krista Nelson and Alan Gray kept things organized and we seemed to get enough help from the competitors to keep the day running well and ending on time.

Being a semi-operable military base, we are not sure what dates we  will get for 2018 as we have to work around some DND events, but Shearwater has confirmed they are happy with us, and the big cheque that we write at the beginning of the year, and so we know we will be back.

Scott and Joel are busy planning events for 2018 and are trying to make next year even bigger and better than 2017.

Our rally division is small and director Ian Pearce, who is already busy enough with all his other obligations,  trys to get in one ASCC  event each year, but the weather can thwart our January date pretty quickly so we mostly play a supporting role  to the big player in the local rally world, our sister club BAC.  We are happy to help where we can with checkpoints and competitors.

Race is a region commodity, and we support these events with the usual numbers of workers and competitors.

We are 192 members for 2017 and already have a head start on our membership drive for 2018. The club AGM is in December and we will decide rules and executive then. I want to thank vice president Alan Gray, Treasurer Brian Jarvis and secretary Evan Williams for helping keep this all together last year. It has been disappointing to see the state of affairs at the region level and we hope this weekend will end with a new slate of officers and a fresh look toward the future. I would like to thank Dave Hull for the amazing amount of time he has spent as President of the region and we wish him well in new career  in radio  and hope that he continues to keep AMP looking neat and trimmed.

Thank you to all our competitors both in the club and in the region, we are busy making sure you have lots of fun events to attend for next year. Pool

Race report: Joel N

My first year down as ASCC race director and my fears are gone. It was really interesting to be involved in the discussion and decision making throughout the year. We came up with some good ideas and some that were maybe not as good, but in the end I feel we were relatively happy with the Outcome and the knowledge learned over the year.

2017 had 9 rookies between the 2 schools held over the race season. So we had plenty of new drivers and a few new cars. We even had some old cars and drivers return with the start of Vintage Racing, three out of the five race weekends held a Vintage race series.

The last two race weekends with safety in-mind do to some excessive speed differences,  we tried something new and split the GT1-3 cars and GT4-6 cars into two fields, giving each group a more open track. With racing as tight as it is, it created some very good battles in the GT4-6 group, and ended with some races being won on the last lap.

It was awesome to see so many new drivers and cars. Some teams unfortunately had to put in great effort to repair or rebuilt their cars so they could get back on track but they kept there spirits high. Unfortunately, some things are out of your control. Just as one of the Rookie driver’s season started, it appeared to end with the unfortunate luck of losing his car and trailer to thieves. However, with the combined efforts of multiple people in the clubs, social media and some luck, his trailer and car were found parked in the woods almost untouched just one week before the next race. It was quickly prepped; semi cleaned and was back on track doing what it was built for. Hopefully this will be a one time incident.

Tow as always had some work this summer but unfortunately that is part of racing. Thankfully just the cars were damaged and most made it back before seasons end. We had good year for Marshall, but race is still in need of more officials as we now have many officials doing multiple jobs. We had a racer step up and start mentoring some of the newer drivers to the series.  This is something we plan on continuing and improving on into the future.  AMP continues to make track improvements and it is looking and feeling safer year after year. With more improvements happening right after this race season ended.

The Race workshop at the ARMS AGM was well attended and taking into account everything we learned and tried this past year, 2018 will see a change in the race day schedule. We are creating two Raceday series, Debert and Penfield. Each race will have its own Qualifying, heat race and main race. Bringing in this change will be the semi-end of the unlimited race, as it will be combined into the one hour. Changing to the two series will also allow us to possibly restructure the fee setup giving racers the chance to pay for 1 series, or a full day. Hopefully this will bring out more cars and drivers.

ARMS Awards were given out. Leigh Pettipas received the Les Fraser award, Brian Partridge the Sprit Award and Scott Montgomerie was the rookie of the year. Just to name a few.

I think the worst part of the racing season is it seems so short. It always feels like its just getting started, when really it’s coming to an end. The 2018 season may be 5 months away but it’s already looking good.

Membership report Alan G: Membership for topped out at 202 members in 2017 compared to 197 for 2016. Of the 202 members, 192 were registered prior to September 1 to set our voting quorum. I expect membership to be the same or better next year, especially if we are able to book Shearwater again for events.

Rally report. Ian P

2017 has again been a year of ups and downs. ASCC did not formally organise any events in 2017. While that may seem like a bit of a daming statement, we remain a club with a strong support of rally in the region.