The AGM was opened at 9.30 p.m. by chairman, John Amery, who welcomed everyone to the meeting.

APOLOGIES

Apologies had been received from Rob Neale, Jimmy Briggs, Chris Clark and Dick Penny.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS AGM

The minutes had been circulated previously and were approved by Tom Parkin and Paul Molyneux as a true record. There were no matters arising.

CHAIRMANS REPORT

John stated that most of what he would talk about was to be discussed under various items on the agenda, but he made the point that he was concerned that our funds were decreasing and would be making comment under Treasurers Report. We are still promoting a wide variety of events for our members, many of them subsidised , which is where some of the money is going, so he encouraged all members to apply for these events and take advantage. 

SECRETARIES REPORT

Andy reported that most of what he wanted to say would also be covered by the agenda items. Membership had fallen to its lowest, once again, for several years with 387 members of which 30 were life members, and just 2 juniors. This was having a knock on effect with the funds which would be covered next.

Once again the numbers fishing the Masters was low which had resulted in this years prize fund being low once again and SAMF had to use its own funds to keep the prize fund the same as last year.

He went on to thanks to Darren Phillips, Eddie Painter, Nick Haward and Keith Morley for their continued efforts in running their events, and once again a big thanks to John Amery for his continued support.

Andy finished by also thanking the membership for their positive support for the federation.

TREASURERS REPORT

The following is a report from the treasurer after declaring a worth of £9766.86p in this years accounts:

The above figures show that SAMF worth since the 2004 AGM has decreased by £1727.36. This is the second year running we have made a loss and as reported then we would have to take action to address this if it continued. Last years figures were slightly inflated because I had purchased a large amount of stock which increases SAMF worth, also there was no CAF challenge to account for. This year has seen the same trend with £305 less income from membership plus £727.00 less sales of clothing. Expenditure has basically remained the same however, quite simply we are spending more than we receive each year. Also this years Masters has cost over £200 more than we have received. SAMF is still in a healthy position when you consider all the sponsorship we do i.e.Individual League, Irish Pairs & 50% of the cost of the challenge matches, but this clearly cannot continue and we have to take action now. We can either increase our income, normally done by increasing subscriptions which is something I personally would not like to see. Otherwise we need to reduce expenditure which will probably mean we would have to look at the amount of sponsorship we give to our competitions.

I will leave this up to the members to decide.

After a discussion the membership wanted to keep the sponsorship similar to what it is now and unanimously voted to put up the subscription rate to £20 per annum.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS

We had received a resignation from Chris Clark as vice chairman and it was proposed to elect Dick Penny, in his absence, to this role. We also had a vacancy as area representative for North Wales and Shane Russell agreed to look after our interests in this area.

The following people were elected:

John Amery – Chairman

Dick Penny – 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 – Shane Russell

Anglia – Ian Bowell

Sussex – Dick Penny

Hants & Challenge Match organiser – Darren Phillips

Kent – Mark Rogers

Essex – Dion MacFayden

South West & Individual League organiser – Eddie Painter, assisted by Hugh Rathbone.

South Wales – Joe Arch

Humberside – Rob Neale

DAIWA PAIRS

Nick Haward gave a brief report about this year’s successful event. The matches had been run using the conversion to weight system which had appeared to go down well but needed a little bit of adjusting for next year. Specimen hunting now being 100% catch and release was beginning to be accepted by the competitors and in fact most had expressed their satisfaction at seeing their specimens being returned alive. 

Next years event was being held on 23^rd to 30th September and the accommodation/HQ had already been booked. It was anticipated that the event would be popular because it is the 25^th Anniversary and Nick was guaranteeing £2500 for the winners. Entries would be accepted on a first come basis

INDIVIDUAL LEAGUES

This year’s final at Blackpool had gone well with good catches and had put paid to the myth that there were no fish in this area. However the continued lack of support from members was putting this competition under pressure of being discontinued. Eddie Painter has a number of ideas to try and generate more interest and despite the subscriptions having been increased to cover sponsorship the SAMF committee will not guarantee what level of sponsorship it will give at this stage. The 2006 final will be at Pwlhelli in April / May..

NATIONAL SEA LEAGUE

Keith Morley reported that arrangements for this year’s final in Eastbourne, 9^th/10^th December were well under way, and he expected to see about 26 teams competing.

The final in 2006 would be fished at Chesil. He reported that there is scope in several areas of the country to organize a league and he would be pleased to assist anyone who contacted him. New phone number 01502 741556.

CHALLENGE MATCHES

Darren Phillips reported on the success of the SAMF team against the Belgians fishing at Dungeness and Samphire Hoe in September. He also explained about the arrangements being made to fish against the Forces in January at Slapton Sands in January. He asked for anyone interested in being in the team to forward their names to either him or Andy Steele for selection.

WORLD CLUB CHAMPIONSHIPS

John reported that he had managed the SAMF team in Portugal and they had a very successful championship. The team of Mark Pinder, Ian Bowell, Andy Gallagher, Tony O’Grady and Malcolm Stote had fished exceptionally well, and in fact went into the last day of 4 in gold medal position. Whilst they were one of only 3 teams with 5 weighers on the last day the few quality fish that were about eluded them and they eventually finished in 3^rd place to take the bronze medal. John congratulated the team on their performance.

He also reported that in this World event each country is allowed to send 2 teams, and Worthing had made up England’s 2^nd team. They had finished a very creditable 7^th out of 20 teams. This is an event which allows competitors to see how a full-blown world championship is fished and John encouraged members to apply.

The 2006 competition would be fished in the South of France, on the Atlantic coast.

NIGEL ROBINSON MEMORIAL FUND

Mark Rogers ran this match on 2^nd January on the Parade at Hythe, helped by Peter Owen from Folkestone Angling. The match had been fished by 150 anglers thus boosting the fund by £150.

We are looking for a volunteer to run next year’s event.

FINAL 2006 – PROPOSALS

There were no proposals for next years event to be held in the North East and the committee had been expecting to suggest Pwlhelli. However a surprise proposal came from Mark Sharman to take the event to Great Yarmouth in November, and gave members a brief rundown on how it would fish. He had no concrete proposals to put forward at the time but it was accepted that we would go to Gt. Yarmouth if Mark and his organizing committee could make the necessary arrangements. If this failed there would be time to change this back to Pwlhelli if necessary.

We also discussed the continuing reduction in the prize fund and it was unanimously decided to increase the qualifying entry fee to £4.00

ALF

There was no change to the ALF fund as reported at the last AGM, and Chris Clark is looking for someone to take over looking after this.

PROPOSALS AND RULE CHANGES

We had not received any proposals or rule changes.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Andy Steele aired his concerns about the new system of catch and release with regards to the conversion to weight. He could see the merits of introducing this at grass roots match fishing level but felt that at our level in top competitions it was wrong to give so much importance to the catching of the ‘lucky’ larger fish. He had seen it in action in 4 major events and was not convinced it was the right system, quoting “there was nothing wrong with the system we already had”  Just to get members views on this subject a show of hands proved members liking for the conversion to weight system.

The controversial subject of bait bans was also discussed and there were no objections from the floor to continuing with this practice at the discretion of the organizing committees.

The meeting closed at 10.15 p.m.