The AGM was opened at 7.40 p.m. and the chairman John Amery welcomed everyone to the meeting.

APOLOGIES

Apologies had been received from Chris Clark, Dave Wright and Paul Fenech.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS AGM

The minutes had been circulated previously and were approved by Jimmy Briggs and Dick Penny as a true record. There were no matters arising.

CHAIRMANS REPORT

John reported that once again this year SAMF continued to enjoy a healthy membership and that our finances were very sound.

We continued to increase our activities for the membership and since the last AGM we have had the first two Individual League finals and he congratulated Colin Richards for the 2002 win and Paul Stevens for winning this years final. Next years final has already been arranged and SAMF would once again sponsor it with £1000.

The National Sea League had run into problems with the organisation this year, which had threatened the final in Clacton, resulting in John having become involved. He thanked Richard Holgate and his team members for all their help and support. A meeting was held at the event to thrash out the difficulties, hopefully resolving these difficulties and moving on successfully. Keith Morley had volunteered, and was accepted, to take over as the new secretary and he is now working on the 2004 final which is being fished in Loch Ryan.

John reported on our continued success in the challenge matches, having beaten Belgium at Selsey and the combined forces at Bridlington. Unfortunately the latter event had been a shambles, first we were given dates which clashed with other events resulting in us failing to raise a team. Then we were given dates in October, and at short notice with the help of local members from Humberside we eventually raised a team of 15 anglers. It was a scratch team, which fortunately was good enough to maintain our winning record, BUT, John was very disappointed in our member’s response. SAMF puts funding into the event and we always have a good rapport with the competition, so it is up to members to apply for the teams. He does not want to see the fixture disappear, but equally we will not be ringing round in the future begging people to make up the team.

We again attended the World Club Championship in Yugoslavia, not so successful as last year as we could only manage 11^th place out of 17, but it was a good learning curve.

John also congratulated our members who had made up the world championship team, having won the title in Portugal, which was a particularly pleasing performance. Also earlier this year England youth had become champions at Bridlington and the England casting team also won, meaning that England had 3 teams at the top of the world.  In the home countries shore championship England took silver medal.

SAMF members had played important parts in all of these.

John finished by expressing his thanks to those people who pit the effort into running events for us: Nick Haward for the Pairs, Eddie Painter for the Individual League, Darren Phillips for the Challenge matches, Dick Penny and all the area representatives who run qualifying competitions for the. And Andy Steele who does more work than the rest of us put together.

SECRETARIES REPORT

Andy started by saying how surprised he was that he was still in office considering that he had given more than 5 years service and that he had announced in April 2003 that he wanted to stand down. However, everything was still going well and SAMF continued to be in a healthy position, as we would see from the treasures report. We have 440 members this year of which 28 were life members.

Andy also expressed his disappointment at the apparent lack of interest in the challenge matches saying that it was several years now since we used the selection committee, having to now ask members to represent us, even to the extent at having 2 non members in the last team at Bridlington. However he congratulated the 3 successful teams, especially the Forces team which had been thrown together at the last minute, and Paul Jefferson for being top angler.

Support for the Individual league was not taking off either, and Andy reminded the members that SAMF put a lot of cash into sponsoring all these events. He also congratulated Paul Stevens for winning this years’ Individual League final. 

Andy was hopeful that this next year would see the introduction of a successful website, something that had been given a ‘back seat’ in the list of priorities.

He finished off by thanking Darren Phillips, Dick Penny, Eddie Painter and John for their assistance, Keith Morley for taking over the National Sea Leagues and Nick Haward for continuing to run the Irish Pairs. He also thanked members for their support and in particular those that had encouraged him to stay on as secretary.

TREASURERS REPORT

SAMFs net worth is £10725.45, which is an increase of £289.49 from last year. Making a small profit like this shows that SAMF is in a very healthy position when you consider the expense we have incurred this year.  We have sponsored 3 challenge team events and the world club championships, committed to continuing the sponsorship of the Individual League Final prize fund, and the Third Party Public Liability insurance continues to be a major outlay.

This expenditure has been covered by the increase in subscriptions to £15.00. Also after long negotiations with Angling Times we agreed to go 50/50 on the sponsorship deal they pulled out of for the 2001 sea league final, and we have now received £500.

It was recommend that the subscription rate of £15.00 remained the same for 2004.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS

We had received two resignations from area representatives, Paul Fenech from the North East and Mick Davies from Kent. Tom Parkin and Mark Rogers were duly elected to cover these areas respectively. The following people were elected:

John Amery – Chairman

Chris Clark – Vice Chairman

Andy Steele – Secretary

Mary Steele – Treasurer

AREA REPRESENTATIVES

South West Scotland – Jimmy Briggs

North East – Tom Parkin

North West – Bill Lindfield

North Wales – Mick Flynn

Anglia – Dave Wright

Sussex – Dick Penny & Angel Wolfenden

Hants & Challenge Match organiser – Darren Phillips

Kent – Mark Rogers

Essex – Dion MacFayden

South West & Individual League organiser – Eddie Painter

South Wales – Joe Arch

Humberside – Rob Neale

DAIWA PAIRS

Nick Haward was absent but had left a brief report with the secretary. Once again the competition had gone smoothly and well supported by 80+ pairs. Next years competition had already been organised for the 18^th – 25^th September, along the same lines as last year, however the HQ and most of the chalet accommodation is moving to Dingle.

INDIVIDUAL LEAGUES

SAMF will once again sponsor the final with £1000. Andy pointed out that with this sponsorship the prize list was excellent and he hoped more people would organise leagues. They only need to be a member to do so, they do not need to be the official area representative. 2004 final will be at Felixstowe, 16/17^th October.

NATIONAL SEA LEAGUE

Keith Morley reported that next years final had been organised for Stranraer. He had been up to the area recently and had spoken to local organisers. Correspondence to league secretaries would been sent in the next month. The final will be fished 7/8^th May.

CHALLENGE MATCHES

No date received for the Combined Forces match, the Belgium challenge is in September 3/4th and applications have been requested in the recent Newsletter. 

WORLD CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS

These are to be fished in Sicily early May. Applications for selection had been requested in the newsletter.

NIGEL ROBINSON MEMORIAL FUND

Andy thanked Mark Rogers for running this years match in Kent and we had received a further £30 for the fund. A volunteer is being sought for the 2004 match.

FINAL 2004 – PROPOSALS FOR THE SOUTH EAST

Dick Penny discussed his proposals for next years final to be held at Eastbourne on the weekend of the 26^th November, which was accepted. After discussions it was agreed that Dick would look at the possibility of running the matches into darkness to improve the fishing, however this would mean that we would have to bring the date forward one week.

Dick penny also pointed out that this would be the silver jubilee of the event and we should think about doing something to make it special.

ALF

There was no change to the ALF fund as reported at the last AGM.

PROPOSALS AND RULE CHANGES

We had not received any proposals or rule changes.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Ian Hopper asked for clarification on the qualifying procedure for the National Sea League final. John replied referring him to the minutes from the meeting in Clacton.

Jim Briggs asked Keith Morley who he had been in contact with over running the National Sea League final in Stranrear. Jimmy was concerned that he was the area representative for SAMF and he had not been involved. Keith agreed to speak to Jimmy outside of the meeting.

It was also suggested that the National Sea League final be run into darkness, which the organisers will consider.

Meeting closed at 09.00 p.m.