The Cayman Catboat Club held their regular monthly meeting at the Foster’s Food Fair boardroom to discuss their plans for upcoming events, as well as ways of financing the club.

Meeting in Foster’s boardroom is a fitting way of remembering club member, David Foster, who used to support all the clubs activities before sadly passing away in 2005.

After the traditional opening prayer, there was a roll call for club members, before the club, led by President Jerris Miller and Vice President Kem Jackson, got down to business.

Apart from regular club members, those seated around the boardroom table included three representatives from the Dart group of companies, who have been taking an increasing interest in supporting the club’s activities.

Earlier this year Dart pledged a total of CI$175,000, which will be used for the club’s activities, including the upkeep of a newly acquired catboat, The Whittaker Cat, the club’s educational programmes, and sponsorship of the club’s races.

The first thing on the agenda was reconstruction of the clubhouse – the building Whitehall at Whitehall Bay in George Town that was badly damaged during Hurricane Ivan, and that the club has been busily restoring, from top to bottom.

Fundraising was next on the agenda, and Mr. Jackson had received a proposal for an interesting fundraising idea: there was an artist, he said, who had made some limited-edition prints of a catboat painting, and was intending to donate a percentage of the sales to the club.

Other discussions involved deciding upon a logo for the club.

“We don’t want to have two or three logos floating around, we should just have one,” long-serving club member Loxley Banks suggested. “I move we get the three logos, see what they look like and the appointment of a committee of at least six club members to decide what the right logo is.”

Upcoming events included the forthcoming Camana Bay Catboat Regatta and the Premier’s Cup Regatta.

The Camana Bay Regatta is scheduled to take place on 14 November, at the Royal Palms Beach.

Camana Bay’s Davina Tressida said: “There’ll be a treasure hunt on the beach and a bouncy castle. The band, Swanky, will be playing there too, and possibly there’ll be quadrille dancing too, but that is yet to be confirmed.”

“Set up a microphone so that Loxley can do a running commentary on the race. He does a great commentary,” Mr. Miller suggested.

There will be a separate event, on 17 November, for presenting the prizes, Mr. Miller said.

Tom Sargison, who has been away from the Cayman Islands for over a year, studying wooden boatbuilding in England, said that a catboat he made there would be shipped to the Cayman Islands soon. “The boat I built is based on a catboat in Mr. Jackson’s yard, called the ‘Bluenose’, Mr. Sargison said. “I tried to make it as authentic
as possible.”