Commodore John Rahn

CYC invites all members to a club “Town Meeting,” Friday, Sept. 10, at 7 p.m. at the Shilshole Clubhouse.

This Town Meeting is for the Board to communicate to you, but more importantly, for you to communicate to the Board. There will be opportunities for you to bring up any CYC issues you want to, and to have open discussion of the significant issues facing the club, and some good possible ways forward. Mark your calendars now!

You will be getting a survey to give the Board feedback on some issues before the meeting.

In July’s From the Helm, I noted our alarming membership age profile – which, incidentally, matches the profile of most other yacht clubs. And in common with other yacht clubs, we have other challenges: gradually declining membership, and a waning of participation in sailboat racing generally.

I proposed in July two new initiatives aimed at reversing the age trend and improving family-related CYC activity: a junior and adult instructional program, and a recent college sailor program. It is my opinion that there will be no sustainable future for CYC unless we do this. However, we cannot go forward with these without consensus within the membership that they are a priority. We anticipate that the capital costs attendant on starting an instructional program will be covered by donations and sponsorships. However, there will be substantial, but not insurmountable, ongoing costs due to boat storage and maintenance and especially, staffing.

Issues that will be opened for discussion from the Board include:

• CYC instructional program and recent college sailor ideas
• Volunteerism
• Social activity
• New racing models
• Membership drive initiatives
• Leschi
• Update on the 2010 CYC budget from our Treasurer
• Discussion of possible good ways to cut costs moving into 2011

And as I mentioned, you can bring up anything else of importance to CYC. This is your club.

We do many things extremely well – I counted about 290 individual races each year, for example (excluding Fridays). Our culture of expert Corinthian racing has served us well in the past and will continue to be an important part of our future. There are changes we can make in areas such as instruction, improving our volunteer culture, and improving the CYC social scene for adults and for families, which can have major positive effects if done right. We hope that you will contribute other good ideas at the Town Meeting. But, “inaction is not an option.”