Who are we?

 

The Moody Owners Association has a membership of about 1400, of which some 190 are members of the South West Branch and a further 55 have boats based in Wales. 

 

The South West Branch membership includes owners and associates with boats berthed at all the ports from Weymouth in the East, along the south west coast to Lands End, up the North Coasts and Cornwall, Devon and , Somerset, under the Severn Bridge into Gloucestershire and back along the South Wales coast to Cardiff, Swansea and Milford Haven. 

 

As there is no formal Wales Branch, we have always welcomed Wales based boats at all our events and include their owners in the circulation of our News Letters and notification of events.  We also very much welcome Wales based members as full participants at our AGM. 

 

The South West also has affiliated members who formally belong to other branches as they keep their boats in, for example, Turkey and Spain but as they live in the South West wish to be associated with a UK based branch so that they may participate in local activities.  In total the South West branch caters for over 260 MOA members.

 

The membership of the MOA continues to grow and all members are active in recruiting new members as new boats arrive at their home ports and when cruising.  Recent experience suggests that for every two potential owners who are approached and explained the benefits of the MOA, one will join.  This is a very high success rate and one that reflects the prestige in which the MOA is held

 

To further promote the MOA, and to ensure that members have someone they can approach when considering cruising to a South West Port, we have appointed a number Port Officers.  These are MOA members who are based in a particular port, such as Cardiff, Falmouth and Plymouth, and know the local facilities and environment.  A list of these is included on this site (see tab on the left of this page) and members are encouraged to contact them when they need advice or assistance in planning cruises.  The Port Officers also keep an eye on local activities and advise members of events of interest.

 

In common with most MOA branches, many of our members live all over the country.  If home locations were to be plotted on a map of the UK, you would see that although there are concentrations of people living in places such as Falmouth, Plymouth, Cardiff and Milford Haven, a large proportion live in a corridor spreading from Penzance to Taunton and well North of Manchester.  When setting our events programme we, therefore, attempt to ensure that they accessible to all by setting their location accordingly.

 

Finally, an important role of our branch is to provide opportunities for members to meet up, sail interesting waters and to enjoy the social aspects of the sport.  To this end the South Branch arranges rallies and social events to both UK ports and locations in France.  We, therefore, encourage members to use this web site to the full by clicking on the various links which provide information on our future events, give reports on past and current activities and list the port officers who can assist you to make cruising our waters a pleasant experience.  Also please do not hesitate to contact the South West Branch officers (see “Contacts” tab on the left) if you have any questions on our activities or suggestions on what you would like to see.