Commodore Bit

Welcome to the first newsletter of 2004! To begin with our best wishes go to Maggie & Mike Rogers. Maggie’s not in the best of health at the moment. Maggie’s a lovely lady and with Mike’s and the family’s support we hope to see them both back at the club before long.

We may not have started sailing yet but the activities already packed into the pre-season programme are pretty extensive. We’ve been to Richmond Theatre, had a Quiz Night, held a Valentines Dinner for the ladies in the club house, started work on the new storage extension, held our first working party of the year and had the safety boat engine serviced. All that, and it’s only early March.

AQSC’s Management & Social committee’s have already met a couple of times and the 2004 programme has been finalized and by now will have gone to print. This year, and for the first time, we have enough retirees and ‘early retirees’ within Aquarius to contemplate holding a Wednesday afternoon series of races. This has already been very unkindly dubbed the ‘veterans’ series. I have asked Richard organize this but we could potentially end up with more people sailing mid week than we usually get on a Sunday. That’s not to say that I don’t want to see you all out on the water on Sundays. I do. In fact I’d like to see a lot more of you on the water on Sunday’s. It gets boring racing the same half dozen people all the time; and taking of people … this year we must try harder to get more folks to come to our annual open weekend in May.

We need to re-establish a younger element at Aquarius which is vital for the clubs long term future. I will be attending the Commodores conference at the Dinghy Show next weekend and that very topic is on the agenda. Active sailing club membership is falling 5% year on year right across the country. That’s a lot of people, and young people at that. We really need to try and get as many people as possible through the gates and out on to the water over the open weekend, I hope I can count on your help and support. We need help with publicity and members at the club over the open weekend.

With this newsletter you should find this year’s subscription and dinghy park charges form. Your timely attention to this would be appreciated. This year, as stated at the AGM, anybody having a boat in the trailer park will also be charged, as if the boat was on a regular berth along the bank.

So what’s in this fun filled edition of ‘The Main Sheet’? Beats me! I can’t remember what I’ve sent to Richard half the time. Then when I read it in the newsletter I sometimes wonder why I wrote it, let alone submitted it for publication. I blame it on the shock of cooking the Valentines dinner in a kitchen that you couldn’t swing a Hamster in, let alone a cat (no offence intended to either hamsters or cats of course). I think it’s time to go back on the pills, the pains are starting again.

Mike (The Commodore) Baker