CSC GMM February 25, 2024
John B. facilitated meeting
Reports from Officers
Shreyas, Third Vice Keelboats
- Shreyas is new Co Third Vice (in charge of Keelboat fleet) because Jack moved out of the area
- Winch clinic: Thank you for helping! We serviced all the boats!
- Boat updates
- Merit rigging has changes to make them more consistent, remove extraneous hardware, and make backstay and traveler easier to use.
- Refer to guide posted by Greg to #keelboat on Slack or on keelboat mailing list
- Seahorse – now has a boom but endcap doesn’t fit so some more work to do before fitting it.
- Commander – we're replacing all the running rigging soon!
- Merit rigging has changes to make them more consistent, remove extraneous hardware, and make backstay and traveler easier to use.
- Soon we will need help whipping (binding the ends of the lines) new Commander running rigging. Lots of lines to prepare!
- Marina planning – concerns about moving keelboats
Camille, Planning
- More re J Dock & Marina planning
- final decisionmaker is parks director – Scott Ferris
- Continuing to struggle re moving slips
- Nicho speaking to Ali and Harbormaster
- Robert O: any move is bad – nothing matches current benefits:
- Large open expanse that allows docking under sail in all wind directions
- Being in the turning basin is singular
- Parking lot – repaving
- Dredging in the south sailing basin – some money has been acquired for a study for this – still a ways off
Birk, Port Captains
- Day leaders – good coverage throughout the holidays thanks to Dave
- Dave becoming a US safe powerboat director, which will lead to some changes in skiff training/powerboat okay/etc
- Digital sign up kicked off – so far so good, some tweaks coming
- Turning attention back to VDL bench – more coming
- There will be regular shifts, 1 per quarter to keep people in the loop
Randi, Rear Commodore (Windsurfing instruction) – reporting for windsurfing generally
- For Sofi: first shipment of new sails
GMM 2/25/2024 WS Rear Commodore Updates (Randi)
I have been spending the off-season running analysis of our data from the last five seasons to identify useful season-to-season tracking metrics to track the impact of program changes. At some point I can share a report for anybody curious, but I won’t bore you with the details in this venue.
Currently setting up instruction schedule for the season. Starting Novice lessons Saturday April 20.
I’d like to broadly announce one change we’ve put into place over the past two seasons that I’m not sure non-windsurf members are aware of, which I would like to ensure is disseminated to sailors as well, since I know you refer new members to our windsurfing program.
Novice classes require registration through our online system. This ensures would-be windsurfers pass the written test before they get on the water, which allows us to double up on important safety information and club rules they need to know.
Another important change to know about is that Novice I classes are capped at 12 students. The Novice I cap is an important safety measure. First time windsurfers often need rescues despite all the times we instructors tell them on and off the water that they need to stop and paddle themselves back (or self rescue). The 12 student limit is a hard limit to help ensure our wonderful DLs can do their job without the environment becoming completely chaotic.
Finally, on a personal note, l will need a ton of help this season to keep the program going, as my mom has a terminal cancer diagnosis and will probably pass in the next 3-4 months. I’ll need help w/ staffing classes, class communication, and instructor training in addition to the usual teaching of classes. I know our team here is deep, thanks in advance for pitching in to keep the program thriving.
John, Rear Commodore (Sailing) Report
- We are still in the low and slow season (light wind and lower student demand). In addition, we're in a vicious tide cycle, and we're closing the club and canceling lessons more often than in other years.
- Comparing the last 3 months of instruction to both last year and 2019 (pre-COVID), here's what I see. Despite having 4 fewer dinghy instruction days because of tides, we are teaching 25% more students than in 2019, same period. And I'm encouraged to see a number of newer members becoming very active instructors.
- We had an outstanding Dinghy Instructor Round Table in January, well attended and with a lot of good discussion. We will follow this with a "teach in" on March 30 where we'll work on teaching some basic skills, both talking on land and practicing with each other on the water. \This has been a low season for keelboat lessons, with only 4 lessons in the past 3 months. It is picking up now, with 2 lessons just this past week, and I expect it will pick up further after the time change. But we will continue to be below historical averages until we get more Seniors and more Seniors teaching keelboat. If you are a Senior candidate who is hitting obstacles to getting the rating, let me know, and I'll work with you. If you are a Senior who wants to teach keelboat but isn't yet confident, contact me. Depending on the numbers, we can set up programs to help you along.
- Senior Study Group started February 13 with 16 attendees. This will go through May, helping the participants on the path to Senior with both classroom and practical sessions.
- We are about to announce the Fast Track schedule for this year. Mike Jones has been overall Fast Track coordinator for the past two years, a role he advocated for which has helped the program immensely. Lucian Beebe is stepping into the role, with Lucian and Mike overlapping this year. As we did last year, once Fast Track signups are open (this week), members will be able to signup for any session, rather than have to wait until a few weeks before the session. We will have 5 sessions, as usual, but with a special twist this year. One of the sessions will be Womens' Fast Track, open only to women members, and we're hoping to have only women instructors. Alyssa Lichtenstein, Women's Program Chair, is organizing this with Mike and Lucian, and she is planning some workshops to help women instructors get ready. As always, I will conclude by thanking all of the instructors who have kept our sailing program going at a very high level.
Additional Comment: Birk also requesting more coordinators for lessons – good way to get volunteer hours etc
Sara, Secretary report
- Sara new co-secretary
- Question: are the excomm minutes available to review publicly?
- Camille: yes, things fell apart during covid a bit, but now the minutes are updated and can be reviewed
- Response: this is important for transparency, there are fewer opportunities to interact with excomm
- Motions are there but not discussion
- There hasn’t been an official meeting for a long time
- All positions have to vote yes on a motion in order to vote online
Questions/Discussion
- Racing coordinators:
- We are running out of JYs every week
- Need more boats
- Don’t want to run mixed races with different boats
- Number of JYs is in steady decline, they are falling apart
- Other idea: get more lasers, but we’d need a place to store them
- Touras not that great to race
- John: raise that with Memo and James – John will follow up with them
- Question: how many boats out of commission? Last year there was a boat repair class, we’d like to repair.
- John: changes each week, boat repair clinic is a good idea, good senior project
- Announcement: schools are getting rid of lots of chromebooks, we could have some in different sheds etc if that would be useful – think about it.
- Food: Shout out to the cooks!