Good Ole Boys Bass Club

of

Central New York

 

04/10/2005

The meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m. by President Tom Hudson and Craig Raponi gave his Treasurer's report.

This meeting was to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the club joining the New York State Bass Federation. It must have been important to many of our members, as we had very good attendance for this early in the season.

The first item discussed was our present club insurance with American Bass Association. Tom had looked into this insurance deeply and discovered that The American Bass Association policy is a primary insurance, meaning that this policy is first in line to protect the club from any law suits. The insurance from the Federation is a third party insurance.

This does not take the place of the insurance that the boat owners need, but is another cushion to protect the membership. It was decided that the club will keep the present insurance. You never can have enough insurance in today's world. Any insurance arising from the NY State Federation would be extra.

The floor was then turned over to discussing joining the NY State Federation. Everyone had their turn to express their opinion on the subject. Some of the members were interested in fishing the Federation tournaments and some were not, but everyone was in favor of our club joining the Federation.

There are many questions that still need to be answered. It is too late to get any benefits from joining the Federation this year, so a committee was set up. (Tom Hudson, Jack Laughrey, and Chris French)  They will contact other clubs and the Federation to "set up the paperwork" for our club to join the Federation for the 2006 season. If you would like to help this committee, contact one the three.

We need to start this year if we are to be ready for next years' Federation tournaments. It was voted on, and passed, that the top six club members at the end of this years' standings would have their membership in the NY State Federation paid for by our club. They would represent our club in said tournaments for 2006. Any member who ends up in the top six who is not interested in fishing the Federation tournament may pass the honor down to the next member in the standings. The club will also appoint some "alternate" members to attend the Federation tournaments in case one of the original six is unable to attend. But, they will have to pay their own Federation dues.

It was discussed that the club could also raise some money to defray some of the expense of those six members to attend this tournament. This is in the very early stages of discussion, and we have over 1 year to finalize any plans, but Chris French is starting to think about fund raisers. If you have any ideas contact Chris.

We then discussed the fact that anyone fishing the Federation needs to be a member of National BASS.

A motion was made, seconded, and passed by a 2/3 majority, that starting in 2006, all club members must be a member of BASS. The by-laws have been changed to reflect this amendment. This could be a paperwork nightmare, ( some members already are BASS members ) so the Federation committee of Tom, Jack and Chris are mulling over how best to work this out.

Before the meeting was closed, Tom announced that the drawing for pairings for the pike tournament will be held at his house on Monday, May 2nd, at 7:00 p.m. If you are unable to attend, let him know before that Monday if you will be or will not be fishing on Saturday, May 7th.

The meeting was closed at 8:15 p.m.