I hope some of you enjoyed the knot tying class we held in December. I understand that we are holding another one for the Boy Scouts so they can get their merit badges. Next week Tony and Whitney will be doing a splicing class. I am looking forward to it, it’s always fun to learn some new skills. We have something going every month until the season starts so keep your eyes peeled for something you might like. We had our second meeting with the board members to finish up going over our strategic plan. It has been a really good exercise defining our focus and making sure that we are working more closely with our fellow organizations. SEAS is going to be taking a more active role in adult sailing education to complement what Youth Sailing does. Over the next few of years we will be adding keelboat instruction, cruising, navigation and bare boat certification. The boat rental program will be primarily focused on the adults that have come through youth sailing. The rental price is $50 for two hours or $500 for an unlimited pass, and we will have special deals for yacht club members to take advantage as well. Also if you volunteer you can earn a free rental-details coming soon.
We are going to concentrate on servicing Sheboygan and its surrounding counties for our instruction and boat rental program, while taking a more regional approach to the adaptive programming. Of course we will still be supporting blind sailing as we fell into being a national leader in this area. This summer we will be holding a blind fleet racing event. In fleet racing there are sighted people on board. That might be a bit too exciting otherwise.
Lisa, Matt and Geoff met with some folks from South High and Geoff will potentially be having some kids that are interested in the marine industry come and help out with the boat maintenance. These are paid internships and will possibly be expanded to North and Central Highs. We will continue working with at risk youth. Jason Berdyck has started a boat building program for the Scouts. They are building quick canoes, which is a simple design and the kids get to keep their boats.
We are, again, in the process of designing the boat storage facility. When it is up and running we will have work areas for both SEAS and the Scouts to do boat building. We hope to start up a Build to Teach program which is STEM based. Our goal is to be in the new building next fall. God willing and the creek don’t rise.
Speaking of which, Whitney just walked in and showed me a bunch of pictures of the Youth Sailing building which was hit by a car last night and has considerable damage. I suppose that is one way to get a door facing the parking lot, maybe not the preferred way. It was a hit and run so they may be on the hook for the damages if the police are not able to find the culprit. As Denice Cornell said, “It’s turning out to be an interesting day.” I hope yours is interesting as well, but maybe not that interesting.
Leslie Kohler