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Editor's Note: What follows is the text of an email sent by Commodore John Rahn to members of the newly-formed CYC Long Range Planning Committee (LPRC). Members of the committee are Treasurer Remmert Wolters, Chair; Vice Commodore Wayne Balsiger; Sandy Pratt; Harry Dursch; Director John Fry; Commodore John Rahn, ex-officio.
Jan 17, 2010
Dear LRPC,
Thank you all for agreeing to serve on this very important committee. I am charging the committee with only one task: to recommend a stable, long-range solution for shore-side support for our Lake sailing program. This means finding and looking at all the options with an open mind, tabula rasa, and studying their feasibility, but does not include moving on to implementation. I am hoping to get a final report from the committee for the Board by June, 2010, so that we can move to implementation later in the year. If the recommendation involves major changes or amounts of money, we should plan for a vote of the entire CYC membership on it.
Please see below a memo detailing some of the options that I can see at the moment as possible paths.
With best regards,
John Rahn
Commodore, CYC Seattle
Here are some of the possible paths I see at the moment for CYC and the Lake. I am not advocating any one of these and am completely open to any new, additional ideas. These are just to get us started. I will comment on each path separately below.
1. Doing nothing is not attractive. It is a passive response to the situation, and we may lose some participation. The space we used to use, next to the garbage cans, may not be available again, and the entire property is likely to be redeveloped as soon as conditions allow, which would only increase rental costs even if we can persuade the developer to include an appropriate space for us there. I see only short-term possibilities, not any long range solution.
2. Buy a Lake clubhouse. Can our membership numbers support it? Would our members support it and fund it?
Major fund-raising campaign. It would require using a 501(c)3. Recently, The Sailing Foundation has indicated, in response to CYC initiatives, that they might be receptive to something like this -- it fits well with their Articles of Incorporation. Or CYC could use another existing 501(c)3, such as the Sea Scouts or Sand Point, or we could form our own 501(c) 3 for our clubhouse fund-raising purposes. There seems to be a plethora of appropriate 501(c)3s.
One downside is that the City seems disinclined either to maintain the Leschi marina, or to sell it.
If we do this, it should be not just a CYC clubhouse, but a Sailing and Racing Center cum CYC clubhouse at Leschi (or elsewhere on the lake), both to support our current vital racing fleets there and to grow sailing participation in all sort of events run by CYC or possibly by other groups. If we were to invest in a Lake clubhouse, we would need to make sure it got used enough to justify its expense, and to help pay for its running costs, so we would be looking for all sorts of programs and partners related to sailing and racing there.
3 and 4. Paths 3 and 4 would both be unpopular because of the history of the club and the long-time culture and family arrangements that support the Leschi racing. They would both involve temporary disruption at Shilshole and/or Sand Point until the new venues adjust to accommodating the new numbers of boats.
We'd have to persuade the Port to expand the dry storage (probably Eastwards), and find dock float space for dinghies. Both these options would maximize use of our Shilshole clubhouse, and save some costs by having only one establishment of racing support boats. We'd probably want to add at least one night more of our racing at Shilshole, such as a Tuesday in addition to Wednesday and Thursday.
I see no possibility of moving the keelboats to Sand Point. The Master Plan there is almost filled out, and there is no space for hoists or a marina, nor could we expect to get planning permission. Adding hoists and/or a marina would in any case be a huge capital expense for us.
If the dinghies end up at Sand Point (path 3), we would still have no clubhouse on the Lake. We'd have to find a place for the race equipment near there, which would service about half the racers it does at Leschi currently. However, this does offer an opportunity to try to grow our Lake dinghy racing into other fleets, and to collaborate closely with Sail Sand Point.
John Rahn
Commodore, CYC Seattle