May 22, 2022 GMM minutes

Start Time  6:15

End Time  6:50

Location: CSC Club House

Attendance

Reports 

Commodore:

This is our first in person meeting since Covid! 

The club has been realy busy as the season heats up. The number of members is also up 30% compared to last year this time (and last year was also a good year for membership).

Thanks to the volunteers who keep the club moving and especially thanks to the people preparing the food!

Vice Commodores:

Tone Toe and Jessie Homchand are our new banquet chairs! Thank them both for stepping up to fill the position this year.

Deepti has started the youth rides back up! Thanks.

We will be restarting open houses again with the first one on June 26 and then roughly one a month.  For those who have joined post-covid: these are days when we give free rides to the public. It is usually a noon to 5pm event that requires a lot of help to make it work. Public sign ups are from 1 to 2:30pm. Keep an eye out on the email lists for announcements and updates.

1rst Vice:

We have two Touras on order that should be shipped out this month, and we also ordered a new RS500 to replace our aging hull. We hope to have all three boats delivered in the next month or two.

We also purchased a JY that was offered to us to replace one of our aging hulls. This boat is already integrated into our fleet. We are also on the hunt for a laser to replace one of the hulls, so if you have a lead on a cheap laser hull in good condition let us know!

As always, fix anything you break and if you don't know how or need to know where parts are, please drop us an email.

2nd Vice

Congratulations to our new windsurfing senior: Eric Ams.

Break it/fix it or contact 2nd vices to arrange help. We are a great place to learn how to fix boards, please learn how to fix them. Also don’t stand on boards on the dock.

We are replacing 4 novice boards and 5 junior boards. 

Sherman island trips are back, they are organized by Christine Page this season.

Randi has set up a place to find tasks for volunteer hours.

3rd Vice: 

Lots of boat maintenance and upgrades being done this year

Dr. Who new running rigging

Daisy new standing rigging

Uncle Donald, J80 new bottom paint jobs

Uncle Donald rudder repair under way at KKMI right now

J80 side repaired

right now 5 of six boats fit to sail, soon all 6 again

Shout out to keelboat seniors and cruising skippers: Come on down and take people out on our keel boats

Keelboat usage is picking up now after the pandemic restrictions but we are not using them to full capacity yet

Soon: help needed for a winch clinic; email will go our in coming weeks

For any questions: email 3-rd vice any time

Only thing I might add is “reminder, we do not stop boats by pulling them against the dock to rub, except in an emergency.  It is not the standard docking procedure.  Signed, everyone who maintains the boats”

Rear commodore:

Rear Commodore for Windsurfing: 

The season is now in full swing, have offered 18 classes including WIPA Level 1 windsurfing instructor certification resulting in 16 certified CSC instructors! We are teaching 3 Novice lessons each weekend and have given instruction to 82 students this quarter. Lots of volunteer support: we need more volunteer instructors, get on the mailing list. Volunteers supporting on a number of efforts: Christine is planning regular trips to Sherman Island; Tinne, Felipe, and Neerja are running a regular novice practice group for peer support; with John’s support, Francis and Peter M. are collecting data for a quantitative analysis on progression, plus we’re working with Andreas to send out a survey for novice windsurfers this summer, so we can better understand the our windsurf experience at the club.

Rear Commodore for Sailing: 

Our dinghy instruction program is going remarkably well, considering that we are in a bad tide cycle. It's not that there are lower or more frequent low tides, but they are hitting at very bad times. Right now, every other Saturday is land lessons only, and we've had to cancel weekday lessons because of low tides.

That said, when we look at the stats from the beginning of the year until now compared with the same period in 2019 (pre-COVID), we are teaching more students across the board now – 10% more on Saturdays and 40% more on weekdays, counting only on the water lessons. So the demand is great, and our instructors are meeting it.

On the keelboat side, we are teaching 28% fewer students than the same period in 2019.  Demand is high, and we are turning away  40% of the signups. Part of the problem is that we don't have enough instructors teaching at the basic level, and honestly another part of the problem is that too many people are signing up for keelboat lessons who have not perfected their sailing skills on dinghies.

We have restructured the keelboat basic instruction program to make it more organized, starting with an on the dock session on inspecting the boat, raising the sail, reefing, starting the motor, and some other skills. This is followed by a written test and a sign off on practical skills. The idea is that when you come down for an on the water lesson, you get on the water quickly, and you don't have to sit around because one or more of the other students don't already know this stuff. And we have 5 skill levels (tracked on your White Card), so we can structure lessons better – the instructor will know what to work on, and you will know what you will be doing. Initial feedback on this is positive, but we are watching it. Please send your feedback to me so we can make it better. I know that the signup system for lessons is less than ideal, and we will be working on improving it over the next few months.

We are focusing on making our instructors even better. A number of us went through the US Sailing Small Boat Level 1 certification last November. While that was useful (and DBW had given us money to do it), it's a different way of teaching that we do here. So we engaged Morgan Collins, the US Sailing Instructor Trainer who ran it, to do a 2-day workshop focused on how we teach. There were 15 attendees, and it went very well. We will be doing more of these in the future, probably not until Fall.

Seasonal programs are going well. We finished one Fast Track, the second one starts this week, and there are 3 more after that one. This year we have an overall Fast Track coordinator, Mike Jones, and we're working on better support for the individual coordinators and better student flow into the sessions. For example, you can sign up for any session now and not wait until a couple of weeks before the session.

Advanced Dinghy started May 9, and we have a full schedule, every Monday except for Fast Track and holidays.

We are doing a lot of land school because of low tides, and thanks to the instructors who have been supporting that. Land school is not just something to do when you can't go on the water, it's an opportunity to teach some things better than you can do on the water. It's not a time filler, it's a positive learning experience.

We have done several workshops and are planning more. I encourage you to think about offering one, either during the week or on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday. Talk to me if you want to do it but aren't sure how.

A proof point is ratings earned. Again comparing this year to the same period in 2019, about the same number of members earned Novice, and 30% more earned Junior. So far, nobody has earned Senior or Cruise, but I think several members are very close for both of these.

I'll conclude by thanking all of you who have contributed to our sailing insruction program as instructions, Fast Track coordinators, land school instructors, and testers. We're doing so well now thanks to your efforts.

Port Captains 

We have many day leaders graduating and will have many new faces soon as we hire new day leaders.

By the end of June we will have a survey out to explore ideas about collaboration with day leaders on hard days.

First aid kits have been updated.

Thanks to the volunteer day leaders: especially Tone and Audry.

Secretary

No updates.

Treasurer: