GP Committee members

The general affairs of the Club is managed by a voluntary team of members who are elected at the annual general meeting to form the General Purposes Committee. The GP committee has three Flag Officers, Commodore, Vice-Commodore and Rear-Commodore, as well as a Secretary, Treasurer, and three other members.

This year Russell Talbot has taken over as the club's Commodore. He has been on the GP committee for the last five years and has been the club's Health and Safety Officer and our resident technical guru who loves tinkering with boats and electronics, including designing and building our electronic starting system and acting as webmaster. He can often be seen racing an old Laser.

Harry Mayo is serving as rear Commodore having served the club in many positions. Harry races a Lightning 368 around Combs Reservoir, showing up those many years his junior on the race course. Harry is also well known for his enthusiasm for travelling, and now he has retired is enjoying his time fulfilling all such ambitions. He is also a keen walker.

Tony Berry is the club's Treasurer again and acting Secretary. He has been a member of Combs Sailing Club since 1980. He has previously acted in all management positions from club treasurer, secretary, vice commodore and has served many years as Club Commodore, bringing much peace, harmony and development to Combs Sailing Club. He is a GP14 sailor who taught many of today’s club members to sail.

Chris Fletcher has been a loyal member to Combs for many years joy riding as crew to Gordon Thompson in many double handed sailing Dinghies, enjoying many trophy wins across the years at Combs and away. Many among us will have heard Chris's screams of delight as he hurtled accross the reservoir attatched to a flimsy bit of metal rope on a high performance sailing Dinghy. He has more recently been seen crewing a Merlin Rocket with Paul Thompson.

Mike Craddock has this year been elected to the post of Vice Commodore. His real passion is big boat sailing and he spends much of the summer racing around the Irish sea. He races at Combs in a Phantom dinghy.

Andy Butler has been a member of Combs Sailing Club since 1985. He is a very experienced sailor, having learnt to sail at the age of 12 and taught sailing in his youth. These days he doesn't sail as much as he would wish due to his conflicting interest in fell running. These two sports have come together the last couple of years with participation in the Three Peaks Yacht Race in which teams of five sail a yacht from Barmouth to Fort William, and along the way they stop off at Caernarfon and Whitehaven for a pair of runners to climb Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis.

Judy Gibbons has been messing about in boats since before she could read Wind in the Willows. She grew up boating at Rudyard and on inland waterways. Judy and Tom lived in the North East for 12 years and enjoyed cruising and racing from RNYC Blyth and later, on the family yacht moored on the Exe. Since the family moved to Cheshire Tom and Judy became Combs members first with a wooden GP and now a Laser Vago. She really enjoys sailing (and falling in from) small and bigger boats in warm overseas waters in the summer!

Andy Brown is a relatively new sailor to Combs. Despite not being the most experienced of sailors, he has recently embarked on a new challenge with a high performance Phantom dinghy. His boundless enthusiasm marks him out as a useful committee member.

Damian Haigh is a newly press-ganged member of the GP committee. He sails or, more accurately, owns a Supernova which is always in need of repair. His long term ambition is to sail a real boat with a keel and a chart table and a fridge to keep the wine chilled.

No Flag Officer may hold the same office for more than five consecutive years. The Committee shall have power to decide any matter not provided for in the Constitution and shall decide on any Byelaws for the efficient running of the Club. It may co-opt one or two Members (with voting powers) for special purposes. It shall determine the times when dinghy and boardsailing can take place on the sailing ground.