January 5, 2016
Hello Fellow ECSC Racers, What a difference a year makes. A year ago we were fighting snow and ice…. This year we have all been entertained by photos of ECSC boats sailing up until Christmas!!!! Thanks El Nino.
We are currently finalizing the ECSC Racing schedule for 2016. A preliminary schedule can be found on our racing website at www.ecsail.org/racing . We will go into more details at our first race meeting of the year. This meeting is scheduled for Wednesday January 13th at 6:40 p.m. Place is TBD (I haven’t had a chance to check if DIVSYS is available because our past commodore has been AWOL in Park City, Utah). Remember these meetings are for any one interested in our racing program, regardless of experience.
The 14th through 17th of January is the Annual Strictly Sail Sailboat Show in Chicago. Make your way there if you can, there are lots of great presentations, boats and gear to be had. If you make it to the show, check out the gear at Line Honors Performance Sailing. Tell Bob you know me and he might just give you a special price (an additional 5% mark-up…)
Also any of you lucky dogs that get somewhere warm this winter on a sailboat, share a picture to our ECSC facebook page.
Sail Fast,
Rick
January 4, 2016
First of all, Happy New Year to everyone. Since our Last Tell Tales, we welcome another new member to our club - Lane Ely of Indianapolis sailing a Catalina 22. ECSC ends the year with 248 membership.
Christy Merriman will be the new Assistant Membership Chairman in 2016. I am looking forward to having her help. Bob Hickok has done a great job the last few years of fielding all inquiries regarding new memberships. He held three New Member Orientation sessions each year, met many new members at the club to show them around, did all the necessary paperwork involved when a new person joins our great club and did a great job in this capacity. Many thanks to Bob for all his hard work as Christy prepares along the same lines.
The ECSC Board made a decision at the last meeting to re-core all our locks and issue new keys to all members. So in the packet that you receive in February, you will have a new key marked with a ‘16’. This key will open the front gate, the ice machine and the power washer shed. There will be a place on the annual dues form for you to request any additional keys that you might want to the main gate or to any of the various storage sheds.
The annual dues statements will be mailed on 1/20/16. And as always, will be due on the last day of February, which this year is 2/29/16. It’s not too late to let me know if there’s been a change in your mailing address. Please send this information to membership@ecsail.org.
Jane
January 3, 2016
We are currently putting together plans for the 2016 Junior Sail Camp, which I believe will be the club's 15th annual. Junior Sail Camp is important to the club's future, as it fosters the growth of the love of sailing in many young people each year. That in turn keeps interest in the sport of sailing and creates future ECSC club members. Another important aspect of the camp is to find new potential Junior Sailors for the ECSC Junior Sailing Team. Information on the 2016 camp as well as an enrollment form will be updated on the internet in the coming month and I will provide a link in the next newsletter.
I've been around the Junior Program a few years now, and have been very impressed by the growth it promotes in the young people involved. While you may not realize it, these team members put in a lot of time both training and competing across the Midwest, as well as Nationally. Summertime for them is busy, and they represent ECSC well by their placings in the I-LYA regattas, as well as other regattas. Even as I write this, some of the Juniors are down in Florida competing in the Orange Bowl Regatta, while others are here doing their weekly workouts, both in order to stay at the top of their game in preparation for spring.
We tend to think of the Junior Program as just kids out racing sailboats, but it is so much more. The program teaches them safety, responsibility, teamwork, dedication, and the rewards of hard work, all valuable lessons for their future. If you know any young person between the ages of 10-18, I highly recommend getting them involved.
Be sure to keep track of the ECSC Junior Sailors by following our Facebook page.
January 2, 2016
Ahoy! Welcome to the Ships Store for the 2016 sailing season. As preparations for the upcoming sailing season are being made, I thought it would be timely to share some of the operational information with you.
Purpose – To display pride of membership in the Eagle Creek Sailing Club by having wearables and memorable items affixed with our Club Logo and/or name.
Operating Season – The season’s operation is from April 1st thru December 31st. Note, this ending date is correct. Even after the sailing season is over, we have quite a few club members who purchase items as Christmas presents for family and friends.
Dates/Place/Times – Our main shelter will have a formal display with on duty sales personnel to help you at all regattas and major family events during the sailing season. The actual dates can be found on the club calendar followed by specific details in the monthly Tell Tales. At any other time, orders can be placed by phone or through an email request (no texting). Items can then be picked up at the club based on a mutual agreed on pickup time. The product lineup will be on the club’s website at the beginning of the sailing season.
General Information:
- 30 percent of the yearly ship stores sales are from other sailing clubs racing at our Regattas!
- As a member of our club, you have reciprocal rights to the Inter-Lake Yachting Association (I-LYA) and US Sailing. Your ECSC membership card gets you into their clubs and a right to belly up to their bars if you desire. Sporting our club apparel during these visits opens you up to some neat nautical conversations!
January 1, 2016
You may have noticed that we got a little more sophisticated with our club communications. We are now using an email site to send notices and alerts to club members. This keeps ECSC off of the "spam lists." I have set up several mailing lists as follows:
- Members- This is a mailing list of all ECSC active club members.
- Newsletter- This is a mailing list of those who want to receive the newsletter. It consists of active and past or inactive members.
- Racing- This is a mailing list of those who want information about the racing events.
- Social- This is a mailing list of those who want information about social events.
- At the end of each email is a note explaining which mailing list was used. Also included is a link where you can update your mailing list preferences. Hopefully, this will keep your mailbox a little cleaner and streamline our club communications.