The 2011 Annual General Meeting for Launceston R/C Inc will take place on Thursday 1st September.
We’ll meet at Rutherglen (by the racetrack) at 7pm, and the meeting will be followed by open practice for those present for the meeting until 9.30-10.00pm (at no cost for club members).
We anticipate the meeting itself will take about an hour (at the most). The track will be closed before and during the meeting, and only open once we close the meeting. If time allows we might do the next session in our “School of R/C” on suspension tuning.
Read on for more details of the meeting.:
All are welcome to the meeting, however when it comes to voting, you must be a current financial member to vote.
The agenda for the meeting is:
- Presidents Report 2010-11
- Financial Report 2010-11
- Election of officers for 2011-12 (see below)
- Election of general committee for 2011-12 (see below)
- Audit arrangements for 2010-11 (technical requirement)
- Club Development
Election of Officers & Committee
We’ll be electing people for the following positions for 2011-12 financial year: President, Secretary, Treasurer, Race Director, Venue/Track Director. We’ll also be looking to elect a further 5 people to form a total leadership committee for the club of 10 people.
We will take nominations on the night, but would prefer to take nominations prior to the meeting (which we’ll publish here). If you think someone you know within the club (must be a member) would be good on the committee, or in one of the positions, you can nominate them. There is a simple process (per our constitution):
- Choose who you want to nominate
- Find someone else to “second” (or “agree with”) you nomination
- Ask the person you have in mind if they will accept nomination (if not, go no further)
- E-mail Scott with your name, the seconder, the person you want to nominate and the position (or general committee member).
The committee meets 4-6 times per year for a couple of hours at a time. The basic positions descriptions are:
- President: provide overall leadership to the club, chair committee meetings and annual general meetings. Currently Paddy Hume.
- Treasurer: manage financial affairs of the club including receipt of race and memberhip fees, paying bills, work with secretary to maintain membership register. Currently Andrew & Richard Green.
- Secretary: minutes of meetings, correspondence, work with treasurer to maintain membership register. Currently Scott Guyatt.
- Race Director: coordinate running of club and major events, provision of results etc. This is a new position.
- Track/Venue Director: coordinate preparation of and enhancements to track, maintenance of venue and all club/track equipment, liaise with Rutherglen. Currently Chris Brickwood.
- Commitee Members: Participate in committee meetings including decision making, planning and organising club activities
The health of the club depends on the willingness of its members to get involved in helping to make it happen. Now’s your chance to volunteer or to nominate others within the club.
Future Directions
One of the most impotant discussions for the AGM is to talk in general about the future directions of the club, and in particular how to respond to the increasing number of competitors. There are a number of options (all of which have positives and negatives) which we’ve listed below for discussion here over the next few days. The great news is that as a club we’re in great shape. We’ve come a long way in just 18 months. We’re in financially good shape. We’ve got a great race track that is very low maintenance. And we have new people coming along all the time to join in the fun.
The facts are:
- With the current format of racing, it takes approximately 28-30 minutes per heat to complete the night. So a 6 heat night (1 heat of novice, 2 SC, 1 of tenth, 1 of eighth, 1 of tourer) takes just on 3 hours – or a finishing time of 10pm. A 7 heat night (such as when we have two heats of novice) takes us through to just before 10.30.
- We can try, but can’t realistically start much earlier than 7
- Finishing after 10 is problematic for (a) families with younger children; (b) workers who start early; (c) those who travel to race with us; and (d) Rutherglen with whom our agreement is to finish close to 10
- We have been growing steadily, now have about 50 cars each week, with new members still emerging
- Numbers may eventually stabilise, or even decline, so any decisions about how to manage with high numbers needs to be easily reverse.
The options as we (the Exec) see them:
- Start earlier or finish later. As noted above, not a practical option
- One class per person, per night: A number of our members and racers run more than one car. Enforcing one car per-person would reduce numbers by 6-8 cars and “may” reduce the number of races (depending on which class each of those 6-8 drop)
- Cease running touring cars: reducing one class would probably reduce the number of races, saving 28-30 minutes per night. It would also enable us to make a fully off-road focussed layout for regular club racing. Tourers has been small consistently, and the venue has not proven ideally suited. On the downside, there are members who like to race Tourers. On the plus side, each of those members do have other cars they regularly compete with in other classes. If we took this step, we would look to offer alternate Touring car focussed events at other times (and possibly venues) if there is sufficient interest. The 2010-11 Committee have discussed this approach at their last meeting and recommend it.
- Shorten races: Reducing qualifying heats to 4 minutes, and final to 8 would save 24-28 minutes per night. Or running 2*5 minute qualifiers and a 5 minute final would save 30-35 minutes per night. Downside is shorter (or less) races, upside is time saving, plus less pressure for run-time in the final (eg Novice B final last week). Returning to our old format of 4*5 minute races is not an option owing to the current time pressures.
- Change to another time: It may be possible to race Friday night (in which case we could run later) or a weekend (say Saturday morning or afternoon) when more time is available. This would depend upon negotiation with Rutherglen. On the plus side it might suit families with younger children who want to race. On the minus there are several members for whom the attraction of racing at Launceston R/C is the mid-week time.
- Run weekly: Running more often, and splitting classes has been suggested (for example Short Course Truck + 8th Big Bangers one week, Novice + Tenth + Tourers the next). There are two significant issues here – one is that we have to run twice as many events, and therefore twice as much demand on those who run the events. The other is that splitting classes is difficult, and families might be split across two different weeks.
A combination of the above might be the answer, or you might think of other approaches which you could contribute here in the comments. We know that whatever we do we cannot please everybody, and for that we are sorry.
We’d also like to convass whether we continue/repeat the Launceston Cup, or potentially run a few extra weekend events (particularly if we did decide to drop Touring Cars from the regular race schedule) each year.
And finally if time permits to discuss Interclub events with the newly formed Goodwood Offroad Model Car Club, with NWRCCC and STMCC. If time runs out, we’ll ask the new committee to explore that topic.
The challenge of time and numbers we are faced with is a really nice problem to have, reflective of a club that is finding its way well. Can I encourage you to approach the topic (both here in the comments, and at the track and meeting) with creativity, and with a positive attitude. Let’s figure out how to make Launceston R/C a great place to race.
Launceston R/C Racers 
As i havent paid membership yet as i am away atm and by that i will not be able to have a say in wot happens to the tourers but i only have one thing to say if tourers are dropped from thursday nights i will have to regretfully try to sell it and as there is no class for my other car i would have to say i will not be attending any further racing in the near future.
regretfully
Peter Hutton
PSc’mon fellow racers get behind us tourers we are only a small group but with a couple of new cars just starting…these people have just invested in our sport and this looks like happening. I am only a pensioner and i just purchased a new car recently…guess it goes on the shelf as a expensive mantle piece when i return
Having run Tourers on a regular basis at rutherglen, I have no complaints at all on the suitabilty of the track layout or the surface.
The cars have reasonable grip levels considering the dust at times, and they do go round quite quickly and consistently. Not too sure who has come up with the idea that the track is not suited to tourers, as very few have actually driven a tourer around our great track, but please think carefully before basing any decisions on non existent facts.
If any car is not suited to the size and tight layout i would have to say the 1/8th buggies would be the class. The power and speeds of these things are way too much for the physical size of our track and are bordering on dangerous (but i did’nt say that as i do enjoy the 1/8th class)
Also the grape vine is telling me that a few guys are, or have purchased tourers specifically to run at rutherglen, so it would be a shame to can the class when numbers are starting to grow 😦
I know its a difficult decision to make , but cutting a class in my view is not the solution to the problem we have here. I’m sure we can come up with something that works. perhaps cutting the finals back to 8 minutes for SC trucks, 1/8th and 1/10th buggy, and only run 1 x 5 minute final for novice and tourers classes ?? just a thought but would cut some time from our meetings.
i would be happy to go back to 5 min finals….sur that would help save time and the tourers
To be honest I would be happy with 1 x 5 minute qualifier race, then 1 x 10 minute final ? with time between races and race time saved would be around 10 mminutes at least ??
I do the maths on 8 minutes total time for 5 minute race and 13 for 10 minute race. Lately we’ve been averaging about 7.5 and 12.5 respectively but cant go much better than that (without shortening races).
My personal preference would be to keep two qualifiers, not drop to one.
cheers
Scott
As another tourer driver have spent few dollars to get a tourer and totally against dropping us off the race meeting.The club started up to race all types of vechiles.I know at the last committee meeting most people didnt wont the tourers because they wanted a full blown offroad track.
The people that races tourer we dont have any trouble with the surface.
We have a constant 6 cars a night not counting Kellie which makes 7 with acouple more coming so our field is constanly growing
In saying that if we need to reduce run time that may be the best a fairest for all.
Changing night to a friday or a weekend i dont think that weekend would work as people still work weekend but friday could work.
Running weekly more money the club has to pay rent but it would allow the people with a 3rd car to run
And lastly 1 car per night i dont know how many people runs 2 cars
But overall i know some people dont wont the tourers but there only a part of the club I say let the whole club have a say
That is my thoughts on the subject and would like to stayon the committee
I was more thinking of the tourers only for 1 qualifier as a compromise for time , not that it would make too much difference.
I guess its something that we need to put some thought into, I’m sure there is a common sense solution out there somewhere lol .. A multible brains crashing session should nut somethng out 🙂
Maybe running weekly meetings with classes split over weekly meetings might be a solution , those who have multiple cars could then run 2 different classes week about ,would be more rent for the club, but also more income for the club at the same time which could be a plus.
Weekends would most likely not work too well, from what ive seen and heard, one of the big reasons why our club has grown so fast is the week night race meetings, keeps weekedns free for family and other activities, and also those who race at other clubs can do so with no clashes
weekly meetings….more rent..yes but….more classes =more drivers = more income even tho i would only be running one class(tourers) as now will be racing the 4X4 truck at latrobe exclusively unless obviously we get enuff for a class at rutherglen…..too much damage running with 1/8th buggies as they twice the weight
Peter
The whole touring car issue definitely has its advantages either way it goes. Not sure where your getting the 6 regular touring car drivers Ian, i count 4. We need to find solutions to the very real problem the club faces. We need to finish earlier on Thursdays, period.
Just to re-iterate something in the original post. If we want to run weekly, we have to mostly think about two issues:
1. Who runs the events. It takes time and effort to run the event, and I know that I personally just don’t have any more time to give. I’m happy to continue trying to run good race meetings, but I definitely can’t do any more thursday nights than I already do (and I know I already miss some when I’m working out of town). I can’t speak for the other guys, but I suspect it’s the same – so to run extra events (regularly) might mean needing a whole new team to run them.
2. How we split the classes is a real issue for the many families we are (and hope to keep) attracting.
Rocket, Graham, Peter, Ian, Derek,James, Kelli and the young fella i cant remember his name i count 8 actually
I have and will delete comments that do not assist the discussion. The facts (as clearly as I can) are stated above, and some of the issues have been unpacked. It is a difficult and fragile discussion. And there are many options outlined above.
Please (please) can each of us start with the understanding that we all want the best for the club and all (ALL) of its members. We can disagree, but not disrespect.
In terms of tourers, the facts are there have been 8 drivers this season, with 5 or 6 at each event. The tourer option is one of a number of options.
thank you scott
Ive got 3 cars Vorza, Slash & a Tourer also im happy with the cars i have since ive got a R/c Car for each track i regularary compete at, Im not phased about future plans if something changes with this club i will try to work around my other sport and work! L8r James
As the majority of the club is offroad and most people racing tourers have off road vehicles I think that the best move for the growth of the club would be to not run touring cars and have a 100% offroad focus.
I also think that all novice finals and B finals could be reduced to 5 minutes and I also like the Friday idea.
Why not some of the on road guys look into forming an onroad club somewhere in Launceston? Out of all of this the end results could be two great clubs to race at in Launceston.
Am gunna look at the possibilty when i return
oh dear just got my tourer and keen to race it,doesnt matter what decisions are made you can never keep everyone happy!i think a few good men could be shown how to run an extra day or night each week or fortnight just to reduce the workload for Scott,Paddy and Greenie,I believe rc racing is getting bigger in launceston and in a matter of time we will have to expand,so if everyone attending the next AGM can come along and give positive input to the future that would be a start,i would love to improve my level of driving so maybe one day i could compete on the mainland and practice makes better.
The whole idea is to grow the club in a manner where we can accommodate as many as we can. The idea of dropping the Touring class is just that, an IDEA. Yes many of us would like a full offroad track, and in saying that i myself am keen, BUT i myself am also VERY keen on a rally car of sorts too. And after the fun i had with the guys in Hobart racing tourers, maybe a tourer….
Running a second night during the week, or weekly meets, IS alot of work in set up, running and controling, and as many of you know, or hope you know, there IS alot of work involved. The second great part of running once a fortnight is the cost to too, the members. Think about the wear on the cars, the parts, tyres, then your time running to and fro, fuel there and back. don’t sound like much, but think about it, yeah? Theres a lot of time in just maintaining the car properly and to a consistant race standard as well. One the aims, is to make the racing affordable, so anyone can come and race with us.
I’d like to highlight that bit. We want to have people from all backgrounds of racing, lots or none, just come out for a run.
I know how much time I spend in balancing book, mebership lists,membership payments, trandponder hire (and buying), numbers (printing), affiliation, insurance, issues that arise and other bits and pieces. Have a look at the time Scott spends on write ups and just the standard running of the website and meets. He also spends a huge amount of time behind the scenes with rules and insurance, and a lot of other thing that we know not of, as WELL as being a farther and husband!!!!
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, WE, as a club have a LOT to thank Scott for, WE as a club wouldn’t be anywhere as far along as we are now with out his hard work and dedication to this sport.
Thanks Scotty G!
Running a Friday night, might be an idea, but we still run into time restraints, the Novice class is the one we should be working around, hook ’em while their young!!!!! LOL!! they ARE the future of the sport, and i’d hate to see them loose any track time. and running much later then we are now, i’m not sure how late parents let the young ones stay up these days, yeah its a Friday night, sure, but a parent will have to answer that bit.
Someone already said why the club has taken off, for the fact we run mid week. I myself struggle with time on weekends and i’d have problems getting time to get to a weekend meet, and i have made it to ever Thursday meet to date and hate to see that record broken. LOL!!!
I think everyone needs to take a chill pill and start think about the problem clearly. There are lots of ways to make the club work well, maybe we just haven’t come up with the right idea yet.
What ever the decision that is made, someone wont be happy with the outcome, but chin up peeps, we’ll fix it AS a club.
Some heat in this discussion isn’t there.
Personally, I did run a tourer at Rutherglen for a while. Not all that successfully, but I had fun. But off road racers in 10th scale is what I enjoy most. As such, that is where my preference lies, ina a full off road course.
I find it ironic that many are happy to race every Thursday, but won’t look at racing the tourers on say a weekend at a better location which I would have thought would be an excellent option. I do tend to agree that the 8th scale is a bit large for our track, but the numbers in 8th scale have been consistently higher than in tourers for a longer period of time. I don’t want us to drop any races, but something has to give!
My preference of the options that scott posted would be to limit to 1 entry per night (something we can change if numbers drop) and to drop the tourers to a different time and maybe location?
well i am not and i mean NOT paying any membership yet to be told a couple of weeks l8r i no longer welcome…so until it is decided lets all shut up turn up at the meeting ….decide the fate of the tourers(as seems some have already made up their minds to can them) and let me know so i can make room on my mantle for the Xray
Pete
“The whole idea is to grow the club in a manner where we can accommodate as many as we can. The idea of dropping the Touring class is just that, an IDEA.”
One idea of many, never has it been stated that we would be dropping them, or any other class, our intention has always been to have anyone with an EP car/truck/buggy/TANK, 2wd/4wd/6wd, rock up and be able to race. People seem to be focusing on this idea for some reason. It is not the olny option, as there are meany other ways of fixing the time restraint probs. Please, people, start think logically about this, as it has never been the intention to drop a growing class.
There are many other ways to gain time, different day, different race lenghts, race setup, split nights, split meets, weekend meets, one class per person per meet, class number capping, Qual’s one meet Finals the next meet, letting the computer run the meet(no stopping the clock ) with 1-1.5 min between races, and so on,(just the ideas that sprang to mind)
Please let people voice their opinions freely, as it is an public topic and members have the right to their say and to view other reasonable ideas to solve the issue of time restraints the club is currently starting to run into.
1 car per night probaly wont achive much(thats what i think)
My personal thought are
1st opt Dont run short course b final and novice b .get the top ten fastest for the night and just run 10 truck by doing that you saving 20 minutes doing that and run a b if there is time.
2nd opt. Rutherglen is really not suited to the 1/8 scale due to there speed and if 1 class has to go instead of having 6 race meeting in a series run 2nd thursday tourers and the 4th thursday 1/8 and only make it a 3 race series instead to compromise.
Rutherglen was started for all ep cars trucks and buggies and just off road
They are my thoughts for the day
P.S why cant we start racing at 6.45 instead of 7pm
I’m lucky to get there by 7 myself. by the time I finish work at Westbury at 5, drive home, cook tea, have tea with my family and head off again. But then that’s just me. But i’m not sure that the extra 15 mins that provides will help that much in the scheme of things.
Mind you, every little bit counts.
It would be nice if the council donated some land for an outdoor track or tracks and be able to use it whenever we like, just like hobart!
I work for the council that we operate in (Meander Valley Council). Personally the indoor track advantages outweigh that of the space of an outdoor track in my mind. How many nights have we raced with it raining outside? Plenty!
There are some tremendous advantages to indoor racing. We are fortunate so have the indoor facility at Rutherglen, with the horrible weather we’ve had this year it would have been very frustrating to cancel race meets.
The only downside is that there is no available track to practice or arrange a casual get together for an rc session. For those that would like to have a run more than once a fortnight or get some extra practice it would be nice to have access to a track.
I enjoyed myself the other week driving my new touring car,a bit different to the trucks but i felt that we deserve a better track for launceston for touring cars,its better to make a cool off road track at Rutherglen and find another place where we can have a great track and maybe drift cars too.But in the mean time we should keep tourers at rutherglen and have 5 min finals,and if there is time then one of the classes can have a ten min final,then take it in turns having ten min finals at each race meet.
Lets not blow this out of proportion here , no decision has been made as yet (I hope) This is just a discusion on the options we have and any new options that someone may come up with. In my view from my experience with clubs in particular in Tasmania dropping classes is not the solution to the problems we have, and if the club continues to keep growing the problem will be back in no time at all and we will again be having this discusion.
To be perfeclty honest how often do we actually finish too far past 10pm ? it is very rare that the actual racing is going past the 10pm mark. We had our largest ever field of entires last race meeting and we still finish around 10pm on track and presentations before 10.30pm, so i honestly can not see where the real issue is at the moment. We have been running for 18 months now and i can only remember 1 or 2 meets that actually went close to 11pm am i correct ??
If the numbers did increase too much more then yes we will be running much later with more cars on track, but honestly the numbers are up and down from 40 to 55 consistantly from meet to meet. At the moment i feel we should continue as is with our current format and see how things pan out. lets face it,numbers will stabalise at some stage , people will come and people will go, the numbers will stabalise. Lets not wreck the club with arguments and slits between drivers and particular classes, let the club grow its natural course and see where it heads.
just an idea to cut possible 15 to 20 minutes from the end of each night , why dont we gt rid of the presentations at each meeting totally. people know where they finished, and if not results are printed and posted on the board, and also on here for those who have access. I can not think of too many RC clubs that have a full presentation and certifcates at the end of each indivual club event. Why not put more into an end of season or end of year presentation where time restrictions are not goning to be an issue, perahaps a club presentaion dinner or BBQ similar to what the Southern clubs curently do. Just a thought, but would cut a large amount of time from our meetings.
We shouldnt burry our heads in the sand and ignore the time issues, because if the club did keep growing and numbers swelled to 60 or 70 then we would have problems. we need to have several viable options ready to run with should the need arise. but at the moment i think thats all we should be doing, is discussing the options and not acting on them until the need arises. just run the year out and see where the natural growth of the club takes us.
Lets not do a Tassie Governemnt here lol and make rash decisions and do something that is not right for the club of its members 🙂 ( Hope no polititions read this 😉 )
now that burned off a few brain cells, i need a coofee 😉
did u have some to start with at this time of day??
But i for once whole heartedly agree with you Rocket and think this is the best option presented
Peter
Was very surprised to see 33 comments on this thread so had a read through, and when I came across this one it is by far the best. I start work at 4am every friday and have missed maybe 1 race meet in the total history of the club, I sometimes sneak off after my last marshalling session and am usually home by 10pm.
Cutting any class will upset at least some of the people who helped create this club. I completely agree that running on a thursday has a lot of advantages over friday nights or weekends due to family and other commitments.
Maybe we could start at 630 or 645 as Ian said because most are already there anyway – then no presentation as rocket said… therefor reducing the night by up to maybe an hour without having to put any vehicles on the mantle, or upset anyone with split nights etc.
But ultimately I agree with rocket that there is no real problem the way it is.
Know one has commented about the launceston cup.I personly like to see it as a annual event.It was great success with a good numbers.Maybe if we do continue with it maybe friday night practice or 2 heats of quailifing.
interclub racing would be good aswell