It’s been a pleasure working with the various officers of Fleet Council, both our current officers, and past officers. As you know, I am stepping down as Commodore following the Fall Banquet this coming weekend. The Fall Banquet also counts as a full meeting of the membership of the club, and as such, the membership will vote on a slate of officers for the coming year. At this time, we do not have a Commodore or a Vice Commodore to fill the slate. I would like to use this post to go over the officers and their duties. This will be a rather long post.
Commodore, open: As you may guess, the Commodore heads the club, and is responsible for calling Fleet Council meetings, setting agendas, maintaining bank accounts along with the Treasurer, and entering into legal contracts as necessary for the club. The Commodore should make decisions with input from the other officers of Fleet Council, for the best interests of the club, and should provide good communication to the membership of the status and business of the club.
Vice Commodore, open: Our Vice Commodore is primarily responsible for planning our three banquets: The Spring Warmup, Summer Picnic, and Fall Banquet. The Vice Commodore would all assume the duties of the Commodore in the absence of the Commodore. Since the By Laws actually say the VC heads the Social Committee, and since we don’t really form committees from the membership, recently we’ve had Co-Vice Commodores to help share the work of event organization.
Rear Commodore of Racing, Gary Bonner: The RC Racing is responsible for all the racing activities of the club, including organizing a race committee roster and maintaining scores of racing. The RC Racing should assume the duties of Commodore in the absence of the Commodore and Vice Commodore.
Rear Commodore of Cruising, Paul Servantes: The RC Cruising should be responsible for all cruising/non-racing activities of the club.
Quartermaster, Scott Daniels (Outgoing Craig Tourtellot): The Quartermaster should maintain the property of the club. As our main property consists of the Committee Boat, Chase Boat, Sunfish fleet, and sheds, the Quartermaster should make sure that all these resources are in good working order.
Treasurer, Frank Fisher: The Treasurer should collect dues, maintain the funds, and keep records of transactions for the club, as one would expect a treasurer to do. The Treasurer also provides records for an annual audit.
Communications Officer, Scott Lynch (Outgoing, Bruce Idleman): The Communications Officer is responsible for publishing 3 issues of a newsletter per year, maintain literature or publications such as our brochure, notify the membership of meetings, and maintain the club website. Many of these functions have morphed, and we now consider maintenance of the Facebook Group to be an adequate record of club goings-on with member stories and photographs, as a replacement for the newsletter.
Membership Secretary, Debbie Servantes: The Membership Secretary keeps minutes of meetings of Fleet Council, and maintains a list of members in good standing. This involves working with the Communications Officer as the club website has become our primary means of tracking membership.
Admiralty, Paul Prozzillo, Craig Smith, Angela Rowland, and Jim Gill: The Admiralty attends Fleet Council meetings to help create the club’s events and activities, audits the financial accounts along with the Treasurer and Membership Secretary, and reviews legal documents such as insurance policies and contracts. The Admiralty will also present the slate of officers for membership vote at the Fall Banquet/general meeting.
Fleet Captains, John Wheldon (FS), Craig Smith (Thistle): The various boat fleets of the club should vote for a Fleet Captain during the Spring Warmup/general meeting. These fleets consist of the various classes of boats. Currently we have racing classes for Flying Scot, Thistle, and Portsmouth Handicap boats, but there can also be fleet captains for Precision, Catalina, O’Day, Sunfish, Hunter, Compac, or other boats of sufficient number present in the club. Fleet Captains should attend Council meetings to provide input from the various fleets.
We have one other non-elected member of Fleet Council, our park liaison, Warren Mangan.
It is customary for an out-going Commodore to sit on Fleet Council for the following year. It is typical for a Commodore to come up through Fleet Council, often beginning with Admiralty, such that they are familiar with the operation of the club. If we were to have a new Commodore who has not served on Fleet Council in some manner, I would consider it very important for me to be on hand to help the new Commodore settle into the role, and so I will sit on council next year. I have presented officer duties mainly in the way these roles function within the club. The club’s Constitution and By Laws list actual duties, and are available for members to download from the club website. They are somewhat more formal as far as enumeration of duties, and as such my descriptions don’t follow the By Laws to the letter.
Hope to see you at the banquet on Sunday!
Commodore Brian