Sadly, Rod died on Good Friday after a long illness, which he faced with fortitude. Rod had a very positive outlook on life and he retained this characteristic to the end.

The MOA owes much to Rod and his wife, Carole, who were very early members of the association. They kept their Maxi 1000, Neroli, on the east coast at Ipswich, before moving to the Solent. Rod contributed significantly to the East Coast MOA section, becoming E C Rally Co-ordinator. He arranged memorable rallies, such as the one to Nieuwpoort in Belgium in 2005 as well as complex racing events in the Orwell.

In the days before the internet became our principle news source, the MOA issued a regular newsletter, complete with brilliant full colour sailing pictures. These were formatted and printed by Rod, a talented graphic designer. He was also instrumental in shaping the appearance of the MOA website and the current website banner is entirely due to his talent.

Rod loved sailing and he loved being part of the MOA, especially the rallies, where his gregarious nature came to the fore. We all enjoyed his company and he took every opportunity to promote the MOA.

He is greatly missed. Sincere condolences to Carole from all in the MOA.

The December issue of Yachting monthly features Maxi’s on consecutive pages.   First was Lady Penelope, David Le Mare’s Maxi 34 which featured in an article on “Solent Sailing with the RAF”.  The second article was about the Yachting Monthly Triangle race which mentioned the success of Amylou – Gary Heward’s Maxi 1100.

WANTED!  WORDPRESS TECHNICAL ADMINISTRATOR FOR M-O-A WEBSITE

An hour or so a month to ensure the present website operates correctly and its software is kept fully updated.  Also to maintain domain names, email forwarding,  and hosting/associated accounts.

More details…

1) Ensure the WP installation continues operating correctly and that the software for both the basic WP installation and its associated Plug-ins/Themes is kept strictly up-to-date.

2) Ensure domain names, hosting account, and associated accounts/subscriptions (e.g. for off-site backup, plug-ins) are renewed and in credit and to liaise with the respective support help-desks as the occasion necessitates.

3) Work with and support MOA volunteers who undertake day-to-day editing of web content and management of member user-names/passwords.

The WP installation is administered via a simple browser interface and no coding or programming skills are involved for the current MOA site.  WP is extremely easy to learn but ideally requires someone already confident with normal Office type applications.  Administration of hosting facilities and domain names (and email redirection) is likewise browser based.  Experience of FTP and database concepts might be an advantage in understanding how WP operates in the hosting environment.

Time Requirements: Under normal circumstances, the WP installation needs checking for required software updates each week which only takes a few minutes.  From time to time, web-site content together with its menu/page structure should be checked for relevancy, valid links, etc. to ensure it remains a good window for the Association and its membership.

Full hand-over support will be provided as required by the out-going Administrator.

Current Arrangements: (All with genuine UK-based companies):

Web host:  TSOHost.com      Domain Registrar:  123-reg.co.uk      Offsite backup: myRepono.com