At the Spring Warmup banquet, I had intended to discuss some of the directions we planned for the Club this year. As we know, COVID-19 put an end to that by quashing the banquet, and by creating no end of uncertaintly. As of late yesterday, I do have some answers. I will circle back to Club plans at the end.
We received notice from Park management that the Park will remain closed until May 1st. Facilities that remain closed are bathrooms, marinas, boat rental concessions, visitor centers, pavilions, cabins etc. No mooring will be allowed. Slip holders will be reimbursed by the State for pro-rated lost time. No new contracts, waitlist additions, or transfer requests will be processed until the Park reopens. Access to the marina area, launch ramps, lakes, trails, forests, and parking areas for “dispersed recreation, such as hiking” will be allowed. “Boat owners may remove their boats from dry storage but won’t be able to return them to dry storage” until the Park re-opens. This means that you could dry sail your boat from the marina launch ramps, because the gates are open. I do not know the status of Tohickon, Haycock, or Three Mile Run lots/launch ramps. Any further questions regarding these announcements should be directed to the Park Main Office. Nockamixon Sail Club has no additional information other than what is stated above.
As you know, the Club has been trying to increase youth participation with the formation of our Family Fleetand formal sailing classes using the Sunfish fleet. Unfortunately, we have run into snags with our insurance program and we won’t be holding any formal lessons this year. We will, however, be holding group Sunfish sailing activities such as last year’s Thursday night sailing, and the equivalent of Sunfish picnics where we rig and launch Sunfish with supervision by parents and use of the Club’s chase boat and committee boat. We are working on a solution to the insurance issues, which primarily involves US Sailing certified instructors.
Several Fleet Council officers and members have requested to step down this season. We have an immediate need for a newsletter editor. The newsletter is currently templated and laid out using Microsoft Publisher, so ideally the new editor should have experience with MS Publisher and a licensed copy available. The newsletter could be converted to Adobe InDesign by the new editor, if that is the new editor’s preferred software. Our Treasurer would like to step down this year at the end of his term. A new Treasurer should have experience with Quickbooks for PC. The Club has purchased a license of this software if needed. Finally, one our our Admiralty from the cruising fleet would like to step down. Admiralty attends all Fleet Council meetings to advise on Club issues, audits financial records, and is responsible for assembling the annual slate of officers. If you are interested in any of these postions, please contact me.
The website committee has been hard at work on our new website. The committee met over the winter to review the old website, create requirements for a new website, and determine that we should move from the Drupal platform to WordPress, for easier maintenance going forward. Club member Dave Strempek has volunteered to design and build out our new WordPress site. The committee has met several times to add feedback and review progress. We hope to have the initial site available for public use by ULDB.
Finally, we have a new Swag Meister, Bill Clark. As a result, we have updated our NSC branded offerings (but not on the current Club website.) We had hoped to open up ordering at the Spring Warmup, with samples available, but we all know what happened to that. We will have NSC burgees, both blue and white ball caps, long sleeve tech-Ts for men/women/youth with new printed NSC logo, hoodie tech-Ts for men/women/youth, and also men/women tech polo shirts with the new printed logo (as opposed to the old embroidery.) If you’d like to order any of these items, please let me know and I’ll get you in touch with Bill.
Hang in there, folks, this is an opportunity to do all those projects on your boats, to get them extra spiffy for the season ahead.
Commodore Brian