John & Sally-Lou Crawford

Past Commodore of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Club

Committee Dinner - 50-year Membership Awards 2010

Rear Commodore Stephen Graham (r) presents Norman Sheals with his plaque in recognition of 50 years membership of Royal Ulster YC

March Club Night

Stanton Adair, Ian Morrow and Myles Lindsay pictured in front of a picture of Ian's boat Genesis.  Their trip to the Azores was the subject of the March Club Night.

February Club Night

SongBird Survival

Keith McDougall, Georgina Bradley,

Oliver Lynas Vice Commodore RUYC, and Nick Forde

There was a full house for February‘s clubnight on the subject of Songbird Survival in the UK.  Representing the charity, SongBird Survival were trustee Nick Forde, naturalist, painter and former farmer from North Norfolk, Keith McDougall, who is the Policy Director and Georgina Bradley, who runs the office. Nick Forde is passionate about the subject and in an expert visual portrayal, surprised the audience with some beautiful photographs and some astonishing statistics. There has been a crash in the songbird population over the last 40 years with, for instance, the UK Tree Sparrow numbers down by 97%. The presentation examined the nature of the problem and explained how most major conservation bodies blame only habitat loss and farming methods. Yet the impact of rising levels of predation on songbirds is largely ignored for political and commercial reasons. The charity contends that existing research in this area is outdated and flawed and SongBird Survival has commissioned high quality research and will be using this to persuade government and the public on what needs to be done to save our songbirds. The charity has noticed growing interest in this issue in Northern Ireland and welcomes this opportunity to describe its work and to seek support. See www.songbird-survival.org.uk

Betty                                                                 

Burns Supper

David Baird Addressing the Haggis

January Club Night

To New Zealand with Aldebaran

The Club night last week at Royal Ulster YC was packed out, and no wonder.  The speakers, Pat and Olivia Murphy from Howth were telling us about their trip around the world in their yacht Aldebaran.  Pat is a natural raconteur and backed up by Olivia with a few amusing anecdotes their talk took us from Howth to New Zealand via Spain, to the Caribbean, Venezuela, Colombia and through the Panama Canal to the Galapagos and numerous breathtaking coral atolls on the way.  There is no doubt that Pat is a real old salt and Olivia, who hardly sailed before they set off, is a complete covert to cruising now.  So much longer did their trip take than they had originally planned, they settled in New Zealand for over a year, that we only heard the first half of the epic journey.  The New Zealand back to Ireland half of the story is in the Club Night diary for the autumn of this year.

‘Heresay’

Vice Commodore Oliver Lynas wiht Guest Speakers Pat and Olivia Murphy

Vice Commodore's Luncheon

in the presence of

Her Majesty The Queen

and

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

Thursday 7th May 2009

Royal Visit Photographs

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