Notes from the Treasurer - July 2024

At the AGM I discussed the need for a budget for raising the level of membership subscriptions. SailGP was a major distraction which deferred the review of the accounts and the budget until now. At $90pa and our current level of membership and rising costs the Association is going backwards.  

The committee has a number of projects that it would like to do, most of which require time and other resources. Rising costs for the basic services mean that the subscription needs to be increased. 

Additionally, the subscription level is normally set at the AGM and is charged in the August.  We have members joining at various times through the year.  The constitution does not require us to have the subscriptions charged in August, we can charge the subscriptions on a rolling basis set dependent on members joining dates. 

We require a special vote for setting the value of the Subscriptions. This can happen at our July Event!

I propose that the membership subscription be set to $120+pa effective from 1 August 2024.

At the AGM, I propose a full review of the budget with the potential for the association to have part time resource for furthering some of those projects.

Key costs that your subscriptions cover

• Domain and website related costs

• Subscriptions for gmail, google docs, squarespace, stripe and xero

• Accounts and Insurance

• $500 for subsidising 1 or 2 events

If the association really wants to do anything we need funds to be able to do it and more volunteers to share the load to make things happen. 

The committee would like to run networking, educational and other events like the big screen we placed in Albion Square for Sail GP. To do so we will need to either have sponsors, make them paying events or increase the subscriptions further to support them.