Good evening,

The St James Sea Scout group has been doing well with a good number of Keas, Cubs and Scouts taking part, and a number of positive initiatives underway.

Recent changes to the committee have seen the appointment of a new Chair, Scott Rodgers, the introduction of Chris Smith as Secretary, and Rodney Grindey volunteering to take on the role of treasurer. We have been fortunate that James Scott and Marcus Smith have been able to support our group for so long as Chair and Treasurer, they deserve our thanks.

One of the roles of the committee is to raise funds for the group and to that end Kevin Rikys has volunteered to lead a fundraising sub-committee to help us manage the fund raising activities and submit grant applications. We recently submitted a price for delivering the white and yellow pages to Eastbourne and Petone and have been advised that we were successful. The fact that we were awarded the contract without compromising on the price is, I believe, testament to the quality of the service St James had provided over the years.

For the calendar: we need all families involved in packing the books into plastic bags on the evening of Wednesday 30 September or Thursday 1 October and delivering books to all residential addresses and business in our area during the week and more particularly on Saturday the 2nd of October. Please note – this is St James’ major fundraising activity and the income supports a lot of discretionary activities. We do need the full support of the St James families at this time.

We are currently going through an exercise to update all of our fire safety equipment. We have bought new extinguishers and fire blankets and buckets for camping and are replacing all extinguishers in the hall that are due as well as making a number of other small improvements that will see the hall well set up for the foreseeable future. Much of the money for this improvement has come from a grant from the Hutt Mana Charitable Trust.

During the coming summer we hope to make progress on building a boat ramp to improve access to the river for our boats. We have a plan from an engineering company that provides an excellent basis for obtaining the necessary resource consents and other approvals. Before we formally start fundraising and engaging builders we have decided to canvas the families to see what knowledge and skills we have available. On Sunday the 30th of August at 11:00am we are having a meeting at the Hall/Boatshed to confirm with our leaders what they need and to seek your advice and the input. I am happy to forward you all of the documents and concept plans, please let me know by return email if you wish a copy emailed to you.

We have recently benefited from a healthy discount on paint from Guthrie Bowron in Upper Hutt (thanks to Donna) which has enabled us to buy the paint needed to tidy up the whole hall. When the weather improves later in the spring we will have a working bee to start work on painting the hall. At this stage we intend that the working bee will only paint the west wall as it is reasonably accessible. More information on the timing of this project will follow.

Thanks to a grant from the Eade Estate we are investigating building a trailer to take both a 17’ Cutter and a Sunburst. The sailors in the group are finalising their requirements so we hope to be able to make a final decision on exactly what we need soon.

Finally, to make this Group work well we need you to help our programmes. Each of the sections would benefit from parents able and willing to assist by taking a leadership role – we don’t need people to to take over leadership of the sections, but we do need to support our current leaders. If you are in any way able to help please talk to the leader of your children's section – Keas, Cubs or Scouts. While we have a healthy committee, we need your views and input. Our next committee meeting is tomorrow night, Tuesday 18th August at 7:30 and every month on the 3rd Tuesday of the month.

I hope to see you soon.

Regards, Scott