JYAA 2025  AGM Reports

Presidents Report

The Jubilee Yacht Association of Australia has strong leadership, foundations, governance and principles which have guided us through 90 years of sailing. Thank you to those who had the vision and determination to establish a class which has endured and is continuing to be appreciated and enjoyed.

The Jubilees strength lies not only in her design but by remaining a One Design class and now a National organisation. We have competitive sailing with classic timber boats often outperforming fibreglass boats and the option to build a new boat remains with the mould and plans available.

 

We worked with a local Ballarat Company, S3 Promotions to provide special 90th Anniversary year glassware and Polo Shirts at a very reasonable price. If you would still like to place an order a further print run can be arranged.

 

We have strong club sailing at Ballarat on a weekly basis and regattas and events across all Eastern states. Our membership is growing, with 21 Individual and 8 family memberships. We have had a most successful year travelling to regattas in Brighton Victoria, sharing in their 150-year celebrations and the J.A.  Linacre Victorian State Titles. The Jubilees feature strongly in RBYC history and will be mentioned in the 150th Anniversary book which you can order through the club rbyc.org.au

 

The Rudder Shield was held at Ballaarat YC in April with 10 boats volunteered by club members and competing crews from Cronulla, Albert Park, Sorrento, Royal Brighton and Ballarat. It was a great day of camaraderie and team spirit with the excitement of exploring different rigging and trim and team dynamics. More than 30 sailors participated, and Team Cronulla won with a very small margin.

 

In October, Lake Macquarie hosted the National Championships with 11 boats competing. This was a great turn out with everyone travelling and navigating busy freeways and trailer antics. This was a great warm up event for the Queensland State Titles at Tingira Boat Club on Macleay Island. Congratulations to all who competed and our event title holders:
2025 J.A. Linacre Memorial Trophy, Victorian State Titles – Michael Morrow and Siobhan Dent, Balcombe Bay 130

Huntingfield Cup, National Titles - Michael Morrow and Siobhan Dent, Balcombe Bay 130

Queensland State Titles – Trevor Rogers, Sorrento Moo J17

 

Thank you to everyone for your support over my last two years as President and previously 12 years as Secretary/Treasurer. I have enjoyed my experience and look forward to continuing to contribute through General Committee duties and Freydis J1. I would like to propose that Freydis become a project for a subcommittee as she will require ongoing maintenance, finances, funding, promotion and care. Freydis is very close to completion and I would like to make a special mention to the very dedicated team of Joe Luciani, John Brewer and Paul Crosbie who put her back in such good shape, 600 + hours of devotion.

 

Leonie Crosbie

 

Treasurers Report

As this is my last report, I would like to present some historical membership statistics and to pose some questions. Firstly, our membership fees have not changed in 20 years. This of course lessens the value of our revenue and therefore our ability to operate. We would be the only association that has ever done that.

 

In 2023-24, we had 18 individual and 5 family memberships. In 2024-25 this increased marginally to 21 individual and 8 family memberships. As a general observation, the majority of sailors only renew their membership when it’s a mandatory condition of entry to a regatta. We currently have 42 Jubilees listed as active on our database. While the member numbers have boosted, it does not reflect the true potential of our membership. As a rule of thumb, we have something between 85 and 110 active sailors but even though numerous emails are sent to all subscribers to the website seeking them to become JYAA members, our membership does not reflect those numbers.

 

As an association we have to ask why our membership is so low particularly because our expenditure continues to increase even though the JYAA operates very frugally with most inputs being the volunteer time of the Committee. Great effort is made to control expenditure.

Our website is built on the Wix website-building platform and while the annual subscription is significant , I believe this needs to be maintained and enhanced. As a promotional tool it is very effective with about 200 hits per month.

 

Looking at other expenses, Jubilee sailors are already members of sailing clubs and as such are directly linked to Australian Sailing for information and support. Therefore, the Committee resolved some years ago not to affiliate JYAA with Australian Sailing as it appears to offer little extra to a small class like ours.

 

My point is that while we have reserves built up over the years by Committees of the past, we cannot continue to operate with a deficit, so I recommend the goals of the new Committee must be to attract more financial members and to achieve this we need to offer all sailors more opportunities to participate in JYAA activities. The success of the most recent National titles at Lake Macquarie demonstrates how attractive innovative class based events can be. One way is to have more events along the lines of the Rudder Shield where members do not have to trailer our boats to events but rather share their boats with one another.

 

Anyway, to the 2024-25 financial report. The Financial Statements are on the website for you to view but in summary, I can say that the JYAA remains in a strong financial position with cash assets of over $13,000 and no debts, however the deficit for 2024-25 was $3,200 mainly due to the costs of the Freydis restoration.  As this project is virtually concluded, the asset balance will be more stable. However, in the future there will be the added costs of insuring and maintaining Freydis, further developing the website and developing the Jubilee class to the benefit of the membership in general.

 

Therefore, I ask all sailors to immediately renew your membership for 2026. Details are on the website.

 

Paul Crosbie