Dear friends, dear members,

We think it is a good habit to inform you by the end of each year about the plans for the coming year. If we may believe the media we must expect adverse economic winds in 2012. It will take a lot of plying against these winds, but luckily we have done this before in our Gunning yachts.
Moreover, the Eurozone crisis is no reason to lose our faith in the Alcyone Circle. For the Circle has remained firm since it’s foundation in 1964, even more so than anybody could have divined at the time.

Winter meeting 2012
During the HISWA RAI Amsterdam (6-11 March 2012) there will be no winter meeting. Instead, there are plans for a splendid winter meeting in 2014. That meeting will be held in a medieval small castle. During that pleasant gathering the book ‘Alcyone Odyssee’ will be presented. For this book some of you were still going to supply missing data and a nice photograph of their ship. We would appreciate very much to have these by the beginning of the new year, so that we can finally complete writing the remainder of the histories, finish the technical documentation and decide on the graphic design.

Summer meeting 2012
This meeting is scheduled for the weekend of 30 June- 2 July. At the request of many the meeting will be held again in the picturesque harbour of Hindeloopen. The timing of the summer meeting does not coincide with Oerol Terschelling, which will take place from 15-24 June.

Our Alcyone Circle Club Flag
It took some time, we know our flag was announced in 2010, but now we have it! In close and pleasant cooperation with Peter Hoogenberk and Adrienne den Tex an eminently suitable flag was designed. We have added a rough sketch. Of course the design will have to be digitalised, which will be done by a well-known flag production firm in Dokkum. The colours of the flag are based on the old Dutch Beggars’ flag (oranje/blanje/bleu) (orange, white, blue). The orange stripes in the upper part of our design can be interpreted as the evening or morning sky with stripes of clouds. In the lower part one can image to see water with waves and stripes of foam. The orange and blue half circles refer to our Alcyone circle and provide the necessary dynamics in the design. In the centre is the kingfisher, symbol of the Halcyon, the bird into which Alcyone was transformed when she threw herself off the cliffs when she saw her lover Ceyx’s dead body wash ashore. The stars form the seven stars of the Pleiades, with the kingfisher Alcyone being the 7th star, all of them represented in the form of a letter A(lpha). In the spring of 2012 we will order 40 small flags of 30 x 45 cm and also, by request, some large flags of 100 x 150 cm. We expect that 40 small flags will last us a few years and the price for this number of flags will be at an acceptable €15 each. You will be informed in due time how to order this beautiful club flag for in your standing rigging.

Last but not least: We wish you all a merry Christmas and health for the coming year.

Kind Regards, all the best,

Arjen van Boekel and Joost van ’t Hull

Board Alcyone Circle