Prepared for the NZLA AGM 20 Oct 2015
 
The Laser class has again led the way for dinghy sailing nationally with good fleets to many regattas across the country and we have again seen our sailors perform well at international level.
 
Internationally, while the court case with the licensee and builders remains unresolved it has been great to see the new Standard Rig sail released as of November and hopefully we will see progress on the other ongoing equipment issues, principally bending top and Radial bottom sections, shortly.
 
Congratulations to Scott Leith for landing another Radial World title. There were also many solid performances from our top Youth, Open and Masters sailors at international regattas.
 
Our grants and coaching initiatives has again continued and NZLA will continue to encourage and sponsor coaching this season for any club or group of Laser sailors. It is often difficult to find suitable slots where coaches are available and thanks to Mike Keeton for his continued perseverance in organising the class coaching.
 
The Nationals at Takapuna were a success with the total fleet of 150+ boats. We hope to see a continuation of the strong support from sailors at this seasons contest at Muritai.
 
This raises one of the issues currently facing NZLA. With the new ISAF world cup regatta format our top international sailors need to attend the ISAF Miami regatta in January 2016, meaning that they will be overseas and miss our Nationals. Your committee have discussed our options and agreed that for 2016 and 2017 we will continue with our Nationals in January as the advantages of these dates outweigh the disadvantages. However if the ISAF program remains unchanged we may need to consider a change, at least to the Open division Nationals, in the future.
 
The local initiative for women’s sailing and the special women’s regattas have continued this season with increasing participation and a special thanks to Chantal for her ongoing organisation of this program.
 
With the 2017 World Masters games Laser sailing at Torbay we are looking to attract additional Masters sailors to our fleets. The 2017 contest will be open entry and an ideal opportunity for Masters to join the class with a specific target in mind.
 
Financially we again enjoyed a satisfactory year and the association remains in good financial health.
 
A proposal was raised last year for NZLA to purchase boats for charter. After quite extensive investigation of the options we did not proceed with this as the potential costs and complications of owning, managing, storing and chartering boats were found to be just too difficult for an organisation of the nature of NZLA to commit too.
 
Karen Grimwade has again done a great job as our secretary. I again would like to thank all our committee for their input this year, particularly Mike Keeton who in the dual roles of Treasurer and Coaching Coordinator and Mike Knowsley for his ongoing work on our high quality and constantly evolving website. If anyone would like to join the committee or propose or discuss any Laser issue you are always welcome to contact me or any member of the committee via the NZLA website e mail contacts
 
Thanks and enjoy another season of challenges sailing a great little boat.
 
Nick Page -Chairman NZLA