May 2011 - Evans Bay Yacht & Motor Boat Club

The Spinnakerbetween them and their volunteers they’re electricians, plumbers, chippies, lawnmowers, road crews, roofers andpainters.You certainly don’t have to be all of those things, in fact the ideal person for running the Facilities Committee issomeone who’s well organised enough to delegate the work to all those other bods...although it has to be said, alittle knowledge of building maintenance would help. Whilst there are a few meetings to attend every now & then,the job is really a practical one, prioritising maintenance needs, organising repairs, ordering and purchasinghardware, tools and paint, helping out with repair work, running the Working Bee, working out what renovationsand development needs to be done to buildings and land.If you don't want to be the head honcho in charge of all this, being on the Facilities committee is a great way togain practical skills, knowledge and confidence, all at the clubs expense, so to speak. Have a chat to GordonCooper or Matt McCullough if you want to know, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to give you all the gorydetails.Sailing AcademyRunning the Sailing Academy is a challenging job, but one that provides a lot of opportunity to make a real differenceto the club. Also, along with Vice Commodore, it is the role that has the most actual sailing involved! The mainchallenges by far are the lack of money for upgrading of equipment, and the incredibly hard job of persuading studentsto keep sailing after their course is over. The latter is where I chose to put the bulk of my effort, with noticeablerewards in terms of the numbers joining the club the year after their course - 12 being my record! If you reckon youcan beat that (or if you're good at finding sponsorship money), then we'd love to hear from you....Being a relatively inexperienced sailor myself, I really enjoyed the process of becoming a YNZ instructor and teachingbeginners the basics of sailing. Being involved with the Academy gave me the opportunity and the reason to gain anumber of new qualifications which enhanced my own boating knowledge as well as enabling me to pass thatknowledge on. For someone who already had this knowledge, the enjoyment would come from being able to pass thaton and see enthusiastic beginners turn into competent sailors and club members.I also got to know a lot of people around the club, with the result that I feel much more a part of it than I did before. TheSailing Academy Committee is a group of highly committed people, who did everything they possibly could to help meand would do the same for anyone else. So, if you're thinking about getting involved, stop thinking and start doing!CommunicationsCommunications is all about keeping you all informed about every activity that’s going on around the club, be itracing, social, sailing academy, financial, administrative or maintenance. We have three main ways of achievingthat aim. The Spinnaker reaches every single club member, every two months, but can be biased by what theeditor thinks is interesting. Email updates work in between the magazine, but of our 400-odd members, we onlyhave email addresses for around half of you, we’d really like to increase that number And lastly, we have thewebsite. This is available to all of you, and it’s also available to the outside world, so with that in mind we have tomake it the most informative place we possible can because it’s our sales desk.Outside of these three contact points, we also do signage - the big boards on the outsides of club buildings, wedeal with any external sources that require input from the club (newspapers, internet), although these are rare.Any printed item that is provided to a large number of members usually has some Communications involvement –the annual report, notices of meeting, membership cards, the Constitution, so our biggest cost is printing.Being on the Communications committee requires something of a creative bent, and preferably you should believein the importance of keeping people informed. If you want to feel you’re contributing, but don’t have a hugeamount of hours available, this might the volunteer role for you.EventsThe Events Committee, unsurprisingly, is responsible for organising social events for the clubEvents such as:• Opening Day• Christmas Party• Quiz nights• Movie showings• Mid year partyThis involves booking the venue with the Club Manager, discussing the event with the House Committee, contactingthe Communications Officer for event promotion, doing posters for advertising, discussing and organising thecatering as required and, in some cases, sending out invitations to invited guests.- 9 -