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Mast friends..
Well Christmas has come and gone and I hope you had a
great holiday. MAST has had a great year!
Many of you I saw at the MAST Christmas party. Every year this is a major
event for us, organized by one of the members of the group. Each year
something new and surprising is part of the package. This year we had the
sweets supplied by various members of the group and a guitar player. The
slide show also continues to expand as more pictures are added into the
package. One of the waitresses mentioned to me that they look forward to
working this event as it's always such a fun crowd.
As we sit around the Winter solstice. the Summer Sailstice seems so far in
the past. This is the second year of this event, that we are a major sponsor
of, in both volunteers and prizes. The party and prize giving at SSYC, who
provided the music, was an event "par excellence .
The three pizza parties were also well attended and it's the first time
where I personally had tried to cook frozen pizza on a gas grill.
We had various other events, the spring brunch, the Racine cruise, fall
regatta, etc. we even had a couple of officers meetings.
The races went off smoothly carefully orchestrated by the race chair. The
two race meetings we have pre and post the season give an opportunity for
everyone's views to be heard. Not everyone gets what they want but overall
we come out with something that meets the needs of the group.
Our next event is the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 18th January .
This meeting is where we elect new officers to the club. At this meeting I
will be stepping down and passing the reigns over to Ken Quant. This will
leave a vacancy for a new Vice Commodore. There have been some discussions
as to applicants and we have presently approached three people, Lisa Roeder,
Guy Mascari and Charlie Kopchick and asked them if we can put their names on
the ballot. If there are other members in good standing that you would like
to put forward please contact Oscar Wientjes oscarwientjes@hotmail.com as
the head of the nominating committee.
I asked Nick Hayes to come and talk to the group at the AGM, after the
official business, on the subject of Saving Sailing (the name of his most
recently released book). Nick has been studying with a passion the state of
sailing and with the participation dropping precipitously has written and
talked on this extensively. Many of you know Nick as the owner of Syrena , a
B32 that races and wins regularly on the lake.
As the outgoing commodore of the group I want to thank everyone for the past
two years. When I look back at the group and reflect on why it is so popular
I have to put it down to the members and the atmosphere they create within
the group. This combined with a "racing formulae" that works in a period
when there are many other distractions and pulls on everyone's time
I firmly believe that the group will continue to build on its present
status. It has a stated goal to bring safe and fun social racing to the
Milwaukee bay. We have started to fulfill a role providing a next step for
those in the MCSC organization who wish to try the next step in racing. We
create a safe environment where new members can learn about racing without
feeling awkward. It's such a pleasure to see so many diverse boats out
there racing with crews of all ages and skills. Most boats may not know who
wins each race but they know in detail the boat they personally want to beat
and there is always a story in there somewhere.
We also tie into the clubs within the bay, sharing many members and some
events with SSYC and MYC. We need to continue to take our social
responsibilities seriously. We have the ability and the duty to help save
sailing for the future generations. All of this comes back to one thing,
the volunteerism we see within the group. It works because of the people in
the group who are willing to step up and help with the racing, the finances,
organizing events, the membership, recruiting new members etc.
A big "thank you" to the Officers and all the members for allowing me the
privilege to be the commodore of this great organization for the past two
years.
Glyn Livermore
MAST Commodore
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