This reply is “off topic” in as much as it is prompted by a post from “Llafurio” which has mysteriously disappeared ( along with the huge loss of all his other contributions to date, being replaced by the phrase “User declined moving his post to this website.”) He has “resigned” from the Forum because (and I have to paraphrase here ) the adoption of a Swallow Boats pennant by the SBA might represented the first steps towards an unwanted drift into a formal Club structure, contrary to its stated aims.
Hi, Llafurio.
I agree entirely with your sentiments but not with your response.
While recognising that you are not a public service provider and can do whatever you like, to leave the forum, depriving us all (especially those who have just bought a new boat “off the peg” ) of your knowledge and experience of small boats in general and Swallow Boats in particular, simply because a few people want to run around with a beige (Sorry. Off-white...) pennant at the masthead seems a little, er.... disproportionate, precipitate - and very unfortunate for prospective Swallow Boat owners.
What is more, the VERY THING you and I.. and many others - including Graham, if I’m any kind of judge - wish to prevent, (i.e. a take-over by committee types wishing to mould the world after their own pompous image) is made more likely by the absence of those with something practical to contribute about rigging and sailing the boats.
To be blunt, no one needs to read my inconsequential prattling ( or worry about what colour the club pennant should be ) when they are having trouble with their roller furling! A little flag isn’t going to help them – nor does it hinder anything. It is a pleasant little conceit but for all practical purposes, totally irrelevant!
If enough people actually WANT to form a social club to organise their own Raids and so on, perhaps they would like to start a BayRaider Class Association with its own website, constitution, brass buttoned committee members, dress codes and personalised coffee mugs (They would have to design their own pennant, of course, as not all Swallow boats are BayRaiders!) and leave the rest of us to get on with what WE want to do.
Like you, I feel strongly that THIS Forum should stay true to its original aims stated in the “About” tab, above, and keep its individual character, which owes everything to the informative, practical and interesting contributions from the majority of its users and nothing whatever to the “Professional committee members” it refers to and whose ministrations we have (so far) been spared.
Marx ...Groucho not Karl .... said:
“ I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member".
Clever, amusing, true on many levels but the SBA is a Forum, not a Club. Let’s keep it that way.
.....and another thing!
(This addressed to the site Administrator, Jonathan Stuart , or possibly the site Moderator, Clem Freeman)
What’s with this elitist Saddometer thingy – the yellow dots under our names? Um. Red dots in your case, Jonathan, I notice. (..tugging at a respectful forelock).
It appears that I am a “Hero Member”. Not a “Full Member” nor yet a “Senior Member” but a “HERO Member” !
I’ve not been called anything like that since I was chucked off the Politburo for having Revisionist leanings.
I call it a “Saddometer” because the embarrassing fact of having made over 300 posts on this site is indisputable evidence that I have nothing better to do with my time. That’s a Saddo, alright!
What is more worrying is that it might lead gullible types to think that some of these posts might be worth reading - or that my opinion is of more value than that of a mere Junior Member. Five minutes spent scrolling down the lists would soon disabuse them of that notion - but “Hero Member”? Forsooth! Do away with it!
....and finally.
To show solidarity with the sentiments (if not the response) that “Llafurio” expressed (and we are now prevented from reading), please refer to the jpeg, below, which I think SHOULD be the Swallow Boat Owners preferred pennant, if we are determined to have one. (Image stolen from the RN Code Book, 1932)
It embodies the true spirit (pun absolutely intended) of comradeship between small boat users, whatever the boat they happen to sail.
