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From the Wheelhouse - March 2021
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My apologies, as I am sure this is my first “From the Wheelhouse” this year. With the busy festive season over it was back to business, then Covid-19 struck again, pretty much setting us back two weeks. With the January Management Committee meeting falling on the 26th, Australia Day, we rescheduled for the 1st February and when COVID-19 closed us down we decided to combine the two in February. This meant we missed the January Management meeting all-together. With a full agenda, it was decided to hold a pre meeting to try and reduce the amount of discussion on the many agenda topics. This had the desired effect at the meeting held on the 23rd February allowing us to complete all the business in the allotted time.
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Looking back, when the Western Australian government announced the COVID-19 lock down, we were required to close the club down by 1800hrs. Somewhere in the translation, the bar staff were shutting things down at 1630. I do apologise if you were caught up in this as I believe the instruction was to have the bar closing by 1730, but the kitchen would need to be packed away and cleaned for a possible two-week closure. This would mean a stock take and removing all perishables. This would take a couple of hours hence the 1600 timeline.
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The government's instructions to the public was “no non-essential travel” - in other words, stay home. Unfortunately, various sectors read the brief differently. Some marinas continued with their hard stand activity and we saw members moving around the club to attend to their boats. Our Bosun was overly zealous in applying the direction and we had several complaints from some members who thought his approach in discouraging members accessing the premises bordered on heavy handed. Assessing and controlling the government's directions is a very grey area, and the Management Committee has instructed the General Manger to draw up a policy and guidelines in how to address this issue in future. The Committee believes policing the directive should be left to the authorities, as we can only recommend and advise.
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The Policy Committee are in full swing and have established a structure to allow all policies to be collated under the renamed “Governance Risk and Policy Committee”. This was formally adopted by management at the last meeting.
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After an interesting conversation with Marie Taylor (Elder in Residence) regarding flying the traditional indigenous flag (colours) and enquiring if it was it appropriate, she smiled and said, “I think the Goolugatup flag would be fine”, and at management it was agreed to accept her suggestion. We are obliged to ask permission from the flag’s designer as to the rights for the club to use this. Cally Browning was all too happy for the design to belong to the club, thank you Cally.
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As you may or may not know, two of our staff are going on maternity leave in March and May - unfortunately, they both work in finance. Not sure if it’s the seats or the water, but I would suggest continuing to drink alcohol!
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We have been fortunate to employ a temporary Finance Manager and she will fill in for both Lauren and Ciara respectively until their return. Judging from our first meeting I think the Treasurer will need to lift his game!
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From the Treasurer's dashboard, the club is in good shape and the forecast is looking good. Budget planning is in full swing for the coming year. This budget will be not restrictive but conservative in line with the present climate.
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Regatta is always busy as you are all aware and with the AYC (Australian Youth Championships) being cancelled, the Goolugatup Sailing Carnival grew to replace the national regatta.
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The club has run many events and you would think it would be an easy process to host but every regatta has different challenges. Sponsorship is always a major hurdle. We were lucky, as with the cancelation of most national regattas, sailors were basically state bound. The Ron Tough Yachting Foundation normally fund sailors in their travels, but as no travel was possible they decided to be the naming and major sponsor for the event -a big thank you to the Foundation (by the way, this is where the money goes from your donation at subscription time). With many volunteers and a few nervous times the regatta was a huge success so a big thanks to all involved.
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The 2021-2026 draft Strategic Plan refers to increasing membership and more boats on the water. This is easy to say, but hard to drive. Regatta and Training and Development have partnered to introduce a programme to entice new crew and improve crew knowledge. This is in the form of an S80 programme and keel boat courses. The early results look promising with good numbers. All we need now is the yacht skippers to encourage and nurture the new sailors. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a gap in the Power Section training to bolster their numbers -I guess we need more discussion on this subject.
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The Rear Commodore has taken the canteen under his wing and there has been a marked improvement in the turnover. There are rumours that it may be worth opening early on Saturday and Sunday mornings to provide a service to members, especially for those early morning coffees after the night out and workers on the slips, there seems to be a market for it, as the Club doesn’t open until 12noon. Keep an eye on Coffee Pointers. The House Committee have proposed the reintroduction of breakfast on the Quarterdeck from October.
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Things are moving. The committee tabled quotes and plans to start the process of providing CCTV. Wayne explained his committee was unhappy with the notion to use Wi-Fi for all the security, explaining the ongoing cost to service the data and keeping the system secure were quite high. His recommendation was to go to optical fibre as we need to supply power to the cameras and while installing, we would be able to draw the necessary cable in at the same time. The committee agreed and costs would be included in 21/22 budget planning. This is good news.
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The wave attenuator is still in a holding pattern. We are just waiting for costs to replace the rusted head stock ends (these aren’t the things you see in the Monty Python movies) but the cross members that support the concrete decking. There is also a damaged deck panel that will need to be examined more closely.
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A bit of progress with the Quarter deck kitchen upgrade – the tender is closing mid-March with the works intended to start in May.
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Kerry, our Facilities Superintendent, is on board now and I think she is settling into the role. I have noticed more organisation in our maintenance area, we are also developing an Asset register -this will improve the financial management of the equipment and repairs.
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In a recent article in Coffee Pointers, we reported there was a small fire caused by the ignition of an acetone bottle. The Facilities Superintendent is looking at ways to improve our policies to reduce the risk.
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This area has been a little quiet in the recent hot months, but there are a lot of projects for our volunteers to be involved in, the main players will be sitting down with Kerry to work on a programme.
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One project in the offing is to build St Ayes rowing Skiffs, I have mentioned these before.
Discussion at Management was whether the idea was sound and fitted within the draft strategic plan- the only issue was how would the members react? I have put together a paper regarding the skiff rowing on the Swan courtesy of information from John Longley, click here to view the full paper, I’m interested in your feedback commodore@sopyc.com.au
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From the debriefing from the Goolugatup Carnival we lack support craft skippers and crew for our regattas and sailing programmes. I have established a volunteer co-ordinator and with the help of Clive Blowers I have asked him to increase our volunteer base and arrange training that will standardise our safety boats and mark laying teams. This will be formatted and collated through the Bosuns Club with the On Water Group drawing on the resources as required. If you have an interest just let Clive know or contact the OWG.
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This seems to be an extremely busy portfolio. With the ever-changing legal approach, we seem to have lost the “she’ll be right attitude” but we are forever finding ourselves in wars of words. Most of the members are quite happy with this approach but there is a minority that make us all suffer. We have ordered a few miles of red tape and will be updating the small print, so once again keep an eye on Coffee Pointers.
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Just a reminder there is policy on the instillation of fendering and attachments to the marina pens so before attaching any items, please ask.
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With COVID-19 we have had to shuffle all the upcoming events around - this will mean adjusting your calendars to avoid disappointment.
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Management has endorsed sitting down with our IT provider and discussing how we can tie all our software together. This should improve our operation and will include the website and how we produce our media.
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Chairman Alan reported the junior programme is in full swing with 40+ boats training on Sundays however, we still need to convert the sailors to participate in the afternoon racing.
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With the newly developed wind surfing and kite board programmes, we are finding a huge interest from both club members and non-members.
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We are also seeing a lot of interest for the corporate world, sailing in the BW8s. This is promising as it's good exposure for the club.
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After a lot of discussion, we are finally seeing results in the clubs’ teams in both the women's and youths group. This will put us in good stead come interclub regattas.
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Some of you may recall at the 2018/19 AGM, there was a motion to remove the Grand Sponsors flags from the lawn in front of the club. The motion was lost.
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There has been a new push to relocate the poles apart from one. This flagpole would represent the Grand Sponsor of the week with the rest lining the entrance of the club in place of failing Cocos palms which have been removed. It would be a brave Commodore to reverse an AGM decision without some feedback from the membership so I would like your thoughts commodore@sopyc.com.au. It may need to be debated at the next AGM or special meeting.
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I know it has been a lot of reading and I do apologise, but it has been a couple of months and I like the members to be kept up to date with what is happening at our club.
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