From the Helm

Commodore J.P. Clowes

I think every year, the commodore of the club writes a column like this one, so I guess it is my turn.

Just a reminder, please, have a little respect for your fellow club members, and for the club as a whole.

Recently, I was up at the club on a Saturday, and ended up meeting with a couple of club and fleet members. We were working on our boats trying to get ready for the Daysailer North American Championships that our club is hosting in a week or two. These two friends went in search of the boat scale, so we could weigh our boats as part of the qualifying process. Anyway, they went off, and didn’t come back for a long time. After about 30 minutes, I went looking for them, and found them buried deep in the Oar House. The Oar House was a mess! Things were thrown every which-way, gas was dripping, slowly out of one of the tanks, and it was virtually impossible to get into the building, much less find anything in it. These two members had been attacking the oar house and after about 45 minutes of solid work, finally had it in a respectable order.

That same day, I went into the club house, in search of a drink. I took a peek inside the refrigerator, and found it a disaster too. The date was late May, or early June, and I found a couple of large vats of potato and macaroni salad with expiration dates of mid April, a couple of brown bananas, (remembers, bananas don’t do well in refrigeration) an extra large pizza box with a single slice of dried out pizza, and a bunch of other stuff that was no good any more, and hadn’t been good for a few weeks.

So I ask you all, please act like your mother-in-law is coming to visit when you are at the club. Put stuff you use away neatly where it belongs when you are done. We have all been taught not to waste food, but if something expires in a few days, putting it in the fridge probably won’t get it eaten. There just aren’t that many people up at the club during the week. If you do leave something in the fridge, please check on it after a week or so, and if it doesn’t get used, get rid of it. If you have a get together at the club, please be sure it is left in a manner you would like to find it.

Along those same lines, many members like to donate items they no longer want or need to the club. The club has had some really nice items donated to it in the last few years. For example, the patio furniture that is now sitting on the north end of the porch. Thanks to the people who donated that stuff, it was a great addition. However, a lot of stuff just kind of shows up too. A lot of it is stuff that really isn’t something that we can use. What happens to it? It gets tossed in the dumpster and we as a club get to pay for it to be hauled away. So what I am asking is, please give me or another member of the board a call when you want to donate something. Have some child sized life-jackets you want to get rid of? We’ll more than likely accept them gratefully, since people are always looking for those. That extra gallon of purple paint that you bought for your daughter’s room but didn’t need? That might be better suited for Habitat for Humanity or another charitable organization.

I don’t mean to blame anyone, and I’m not saying any of this stuff was done deliberately. I just want to remind everyone that a lot of people use this club and I hope everyone can think a little about how what they do when they are at the club will affect everyone else. We are really trying to be an attractive place to new and potential members, and by keeping the place neat, it makes a better first impression. It will also keep our current members that much happier.