CYC Home
By Rusty Lhamon
CYC Director
Earlier this year the CYC Board of Directors authorized a survey of the membership in an effort to better understand areas where the club could improve. The survey was designed to take the pulse of our members and to uncover ideas for enhancing the value CYC provides its members.
Using an online survey, input was received from a broad cross section of the club including short, mid, and long term members, as well as virtually every membership classification. The results of this survey were presented to the board in April. Overall, the outcome was positive with 68 people responding (more than 10% of all members) and the feedback has been used to initiate new efforts as well as reinforce several ongoing activities. Here is a quick recap of the results.
There were four key questions to the survey:
Participants were asked to rate the importance of 19 different activities or areas of the club. The top five items (viewed as most important to the most people) were:
Next, participants had to assign a value indicating how important it is to improve each of the same 19 items. The top five items (viewed as needing the most focus for improvement) were:
When asked if they were willing to help with the improvements, almost two-thirds of the respondents said yes, but 20 percent didn't know how. We are working to address this, so please stay tuned. You may be contacted soon and asked to help. If you are, please chip in wherever you can. If you aren't contacted, but you want to help, please contact the club office and let them know.
Finally, participants were asked if they felt CYC was a good value. More than 75 percent of survey participants said they do feel CYC is a good value. For those who didn't feel they were getting a good value, many gave good comments that are helping the board understand how to improve the value for everyone.
What are we doing with all of this information?
Perhaps you have already noticed several of the ongoing activities. The membership committee, a group which is accepting more members/volunteers, first met in February (at the beginning of the survey). The group reconvened in June and assessed progress to-date and next steps. Here are some of the highlights:
Junior Program and Family Activities. Board member, Michael Cename, is heading up a junior committee which is focused on creating momentum for juniors and families alike. The objective is to develop areas which compliment, rather than compete with, other local programs such as sailing schools and camps. The initial events have been a great success, including Opti racing which is now part of the sound Thursday program and the first family day at Sail Sand Point. This committee is hard at work, so stay tuned for more events and activities in the near future.
Lake Clubhouse. The lake clubhouse appears to be our most challenging improvement area. As is apparent to us all, having a clubhouse on Lake Washington is a significant financial undertaking. Given the importance of this facility, it has been decided that a long range planning committee led by the Lake Fleet Council will develop the strategic and financial plan for this endeavor. We are actively seeking a capable and willing volunteers to join this committee -- please let Bruce Sherman or Tom Colligan know if you are interested. Board member, John Frye, has agreed to be the board liaison to the long range lake clubhouse planning committee. The objective is to develop a financially viable plan which will ensure CYC maintains a vibrant presence on Lake Washington for the foreseeable future.
Social Gatherings. Several club members have worked hard this year to increase the number and quality of social events which are not connected to races. The family events mentioned above are part of this. In addition, Wendy Hinman and Mary Thornton have started to put together a knockout set of events which started with the very successful pizza and trivia night in April. In addition, the 80's reunion in May was a big hit. Stay tuned for more social events. They are a ton of fun, and a great way to get to know other members and see some of your favorite friends as well.
In addition to these, we tried an experiment during the Friday's in February by bringing our kids and setting them up with a DVD to watch during the presentation. This worked well, and with a few more folks we could organize a kids group event (child care included) to coincide with adult talks or social events to make things even more family friendly. If you are interested in activities like this, please let Rusty Lhamon know.
Organized Cruising Events. There is an effort underway to draw CYC racing fleets into the cruising mode as well. While the CYC cruising calendar has a number of annual events, some of the fleets, like the Thistles and T-Birds have planned cruises separately from the rest of CYC. The goal is to become more inclusive, as it is apparent that many members like to both race and cruise. If you are planning a fleet cruise, please contact Bill Mains, the CYC cruising chair and ask what opportunities there are to combine with other events or open up to others. Cruising, like the social events above, is an important way for club members to bond and enjoy camaraderie that comes with an outstanding yacht club like CYC.
Membership Value. The membership committee believes the focus on the above initiatives is the single most important value enhancement we can undertake today. In addition, it is recommended that the board looks into other possibilities that may increase value (and possibly affect costs). These include ideas such as: mandatory volunteer hours (or the ability to buy this down), investigating the balance of fees for different club attributes or features (such as racing, dues, events, etc.), and more strict enforcement of member benefits within the club (i.e. food and drink prices) to bring CYC in line with most other clubs around the country.
The next CYC Membership Committee meeting will be in September. If you would like to join this committee, or volunteer in another way, please call Rusty Lhamon (425)-654-1854. If you didn't have a chance to fill out the survey, but would like to see how it was done (or you want to add your input now), you can find it at the following link. Take the CYC Member Survey