President James advised the members that a letter of Resignation had been received from Laurie Blowes. James made the distinction that the letter had been "received", but not accepted by the Board, pending further efforts to dissuade Laurie from leaving the club.
The implications of this action were discussed, especially as it relates to the upcoming Food and Wine festival, and the critical decisions that needed to be made in the short term.
The Food and Wine committee meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday evening had been cancelled, but a decision was made that the meeting proceed, with an emphasis on restructuring the committee to reduce the workload and achieve better delegation of planning and implementation tasks.
At the Food and Wine committee meeting, which was chaired by President James, we were briefed by Paul Milde on preparations to date, issues with sponsors and existing committee structure.
Incoming Club President, David Pyke accepted the role of interim committee chairman, with an understudy appointed - Andrew Puckeridge.
A further appointment of a operations manager to take on the role vacated by Tim McGillycuddy remains open.