In recognition of the difficulty of sourcing lures with ‘manufactured’ barbless treble hooks when predator fishing the General Committee, at its meeting on 4 November 2020, agreed the following amendment to general by-law 19, effective from 8 November 2020.

General Bye-Law 19. Hooks

All hooks must be barbless (as manufactured, not crushed barbs), with the following exceptions:

• Size 14 and smaller, which may be barbless or micro-barbed.
• Trebles and hooks used on lures which may be crushed flat.

Working party volunteers

During the lockdown the surrounding vegetation continued to grow leaving much work to do in particular strimming and swim tidying at Marsh Farm and Busbridge. We are now looking for volenteers to help the maintainence teams, you would be working on your own or part of a small team to ensure government rules are still followed. Tuesdays and Thursdays are good days for us so if you are interested in helping out please contact Roger Howe on 07729 554193. Any work carried out will earn a work party docket entitling you to a discount at the next membership renewal.

Due to the present public health situation with coronavirus and government advice on ‘social distancing’, the General Committee have decided to cancel the AGM, scheduled for 18 April 2020. The propositions detailed in the AGM notification will be carried forward to a future AGM.

The General Committee have also taken the decision to suspend the Late Entry Fee for all 2019-20 season members for the next 2020-21 season, i.e. for any member who is unable to renew their membership by 1^st July 2020 there will be no late entry fee payment required for renewal applications received after that date at any time during the season.

We all have a duty of care to ourselves and our members and it makes little sense to call a meeting and thereby increasing the health risk in the current exceptional circumstances, which I hope you will understand.

In other respects the Society will operate as near normal as possible, for example fishing will be available as usual (subject to closures already notified in the Handbook). Membership should be renewed as normal. Please use the BACS payment system where possible.

The General Committee will continue to monitor the situation and members are advised to refer to the Society website or the Society Facebook group for updates.

David Johnson

Society Chairman