Greetings fellow Sailors.
As we reach the midway point of the season, I wanted to pause and reflect on the great year ECSC has experienced. It’s truly a pleasure to be part of such an active organization that has developed so many social and racing activities that encompass all skills, age levels, and interests. Currently, we are blessed to have a thriving healthy club, but we must look to the future to maintain our club’s health.
Last weekend as I listened to Peyton Manning give his Hall of Fame acceptance speech, he spoke of everything football had given him as well his responsibility to the future of football. It made me wonder, just what is our responsibility to ensure the future of sailing? Sailing has given us much joy and has taught us all many lessons. I have had discussions at several other sailing clubs around the country and know that although we are healthier than most, the trend is sharply declining in participation. There are several reasons, but most clubs have aging members with very few young people showing any interest in the activity we love.
Our Junior Sailing program team and its camps are extremely successful, but that won’t fill the void alone. All types of volunteer organizations are struggling to meet their needs. That means we need to continually ask and collaborate on the following questions: How do we save sailing? Are we attracting new people to sailing? Are we serving as good ambassadors to sailing? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but hopefully I piqued your interest to volunteer in some capacity. This is a volunteer club and change begins here-and-now with you. Please step forward with suggestions followed by actions to help us improve our club and to ensure the future of sailing.
Chuck Goff
Commodore
