Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010!

Dear All,

2009 has been an exciting year for the INRIA Club de Voile: 64 people participated in at least one of the activities that were organised, an INRIA crew qualified for the National Interenterprise Championships, and a new activity was launched: boat licence courses. At committee level, Tobias also successfully built on the previous club committee's experience with spreadsheets et al, and managed more effectively the budget. Of the 2800 EUR allocated at the start of the year by AGOS-Sophia, only ~200 EUR were left unspent. We also got in touch with W3C/ERCIM and strengthened our ties with Ecole des Mines: though in the end we were not able to organise anything with them, we got some very cool ideas about potential outings.

Thank you to all of you who took part in the club's activities in 2009: it was great for us to meet you and share our love for boating. We hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we did.

The INRIA interenterprise crew has been extremely fortunate to have two experienced helmswomen, namely Odile Pourtallier (INRIA) for one training session, and Virginie Raybaud (INRIA - LOV) for all the others and the competitive regattas. We thank them immeasurably for their patience and their generosity.

There have also been some notable individual achievements: Jean Christophe - JC - trained for the interenterprise regattas and gained substantial experience as No. 2 of sloops. He should by the end of this season be able to take over as No. 1 (the helmsman). A special mention goes to INRIA Women's Captain Aurelie, who made it possible for INRIA to clinch the second position in the regional regatta in June 2009 (dixit Captain Virginie Raybaud). Belated thanks are also due to Franca who organised, in addition to those of 2009, all the day sessions at the CNA in 2008 and consequently gathered a massive attendance for this year (let's not forget the esteem from Eric and Marina, and the 2800 EUR it also brought us!).

This is all to say that the Club de Voile INRIA is alive and thriving.

Have a great 2010!