1. First I want to say that the CMBA is a great club and has been instrumental in getting Moth Boats racing after the original class crashed and burned back in the late 1970s.

2. The second thing I want to say is that the people racing these boats are genuinely some of the nicest folks I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. I believe with my whole heart that every sailor here today really does want what's best for the class. We have some differences of opinion about some of the restrictions the CMBA currently has, but I don’t think there is anything that can’t be resolved.

3. OK, now that I've stroked you, I’d like to talk a little bit about the “vision thing” as I see it. I don't anticipate any motions or votes on any of the ideas I'm going to talk about. Rather, I’d like to members to take these ideas home with them and refine their own mental picture of the CMBA in the not too distant future.

Basically, what I want to do right now not to dwell on the boats or measurement issues but instead, to think five years down the road and envision what the CMBA may look like organizationally.

BIG QUESTION: Will the Classic Moth still be struggling to field 10 boats per regatta at most regattas?

a. Without travelers most of our regattas would be hard pressed to crack double-digit turnouts. We need to continue to encourage folks to travel-that’s both one of the pluses as well as one of the minuses of being a Moth Boater, but we also need to find ways to better develop and maintain local interest. We now have 6 or 7 clusters of three or more boats. These clusters need to organize and better promote the class locally. The seven areas are: Brigantine, Annapolis, Norfolk, Elizabeth City, Southeastern NC--(Geo Bailey, Ed Steelman, Bob Fewkes), Charleston and St. Pete. I think the time has come for the CMBA to consider chartering fleets like the old IMCA did up through the 1960s.

b. This leads to my next point: the club needs to refine ways to connect and communicate better with the membership. We are spread thinly from New Jersey to Florida. The annual meeting seems to be the only time we, as a group can get together to discuss matters that affect the class. We need a better mechanism than a single meeting when everyone is tired from two days of sailing and thinking about packing boats for the ride home. Concentration right now is probably not at its best! After today’s meeting, for example, follow up will be hard to achieve due to the fact that we are spread out and not all of us have e-mail. A fleet rep that had e-mail could get information from the executive committee to the other fleet members and then respond back. After establishing the fleet representative as an organization tool, the class could consider the use of fleet reps with voting rights, based on fleet size, to make decisions at meetings held at regular times of the year, say on a quarterly basis.

The individuals selected to be a fleet rep would need to have e-mail and be in a position to travel and take time off occasionally to fulfill their duties.

An example of an item that was mentioned at a previous general meeting that apparently fell through the organizational crack is the idea of getting Classic Moths be at least acknowledged as an "existing" class by US Sailing. If we were better organized this would have not happened.

c. A third point I’d like the group to think about is what kind of mechanism can we come up with to permit “out of the box” experiments like new sail shapes and hull weigh reductions, two items which led to a recent e-mail feeding frenzy. This is after all a development class. My idea is that tinkering should be tolerated at some designated regattas, but boats must be legal at the Nationals for whatever rules are in effect for the year. The French Classic Moth club was very concerned after seeing all those e-mails a week or so ago, over the idea that we, the CMBA, were about to radically change the rules on min hull weight and sail shape after they had gone to the pains of telling their guys that the American model was carved in stone. On the other hand the French want very much to legalize the use of the Europe dinghy sail (slightly larger than ours) because over there, those sails can be bought cheaply second hand. I think it would be good if we can keep the rules of our club in sync with other classic groups, but I also think it’s premature to envision an international classic class before our own house is in order. Even if we decide to continue to go it alone and focus on our local boats, sailors and issues, we still need to improve the way we do things. Better organization, and the involvement of more people will help us if not expand, at least maintain the regattas we currently enjoy.

As for the prospect of visiting French sailors, I think as long as the numbers of visitors is one or some small number, we should do as they did with Bob Patterson and lend ALL equipment. That removes equipment differences from the equation for the near term and actually promotes visits since the over seas visitors don't need to go to the expense of shipping boats and sails and can come to each other's regattas with the assurance that the boat, sails, etc. they use will absolutely be legal in the host country.

In conclusion, the CMBA has grown enough over the last dozen years that these ideas need to be discussed to insure both continued racing and to accommodate future growth. All successful organizations eventually arrive at this crossroads. The choice is either to grow or to stagnate. A "holding pattern" is usually not sustainable.

Respectfully submitted by