Joined
·
12,366 Posts
I started this thread in the hoipes of cleaning up the 2014 Cjesapeake Sailing one as we started a discussion on the merits of both
Many of you think that the young people are the key to the future of the yacht clubs. While I understand that the prevailing thinking may seem to be that, I dont beleive it is so cut and dry.
First lets differentiate between the RHSC and a full service yacht club. One is really just a racing association with an occasional function and some slips in most cases
A full service yacht club may have the same ammenities as the sailing one with the addition of paid professional staff, a clubhouse to maintain, possibly a pool, possibly a restauarant, possibly fuel docks and pumpout facilitiues.
I belong to one like the later. While I agree to some extent the racing programs, may help excite and entice future boaters and sailors in the long run, there is no way that they are even close to spending the $4-5 thousand a year to become a member of a full professional yacht club. Therefore in our case the future is not the 12 year old sailors, the struggling ( time and financial) young families who will not volunteer to help and be part of a full service yacht club.
As I stated in the other thread, the young family members of my and other similar Chesapeake full service yacht clubs for wahtever reason do not volunteer their or their familys time in the running or the upkeep of the full service club which it desparatly needs, just like a marina does. Therefore it fall on the other members to volunteer or pay more professional staff which inevitably would price it above the means of the younger families and force it to complete with business money making marinas.
Glibly speculating that the future is the young family looks at only one aspect the fact that people will age out of the club. The fact is the two groups have different expectations of what they want their "club" to be. I have seen clubs based on young families and they have a very difficult time getting volunteers when their kids are not involved in an activity to help with the ,maintainence of the club.
WE as a club are going through a transition and searching for a different paradigm to run our club as more of a business so it survives and therefore its traditions and structure survives into the future. The old model of uniformed commodores running the club has passed. The newer commodores and Boards of Governors are much more business minded and understand the different groups the club must pay attention to and attract in order to stay financially solvent for the club to continue to exhist.
The younger generations are less likely to volunteer ( this is a fact which has been studied) , which means unless their is a volunteer group aside from them it may not be able to sustain the club or its infrastructure. If the activities are run...they are geared toward the people who will volunteer.
Many of you think that the young people are the key to the future of the yacht clubs. While I understand that the prevailing thinking may seem to be that, I dont beleive it is so cut and dry.
First lets differentiate between the RHSC and a full service yacht club. One is really just a racing association with an occasional function and some slips in most cases
A full service yacht club may have the same ammenities as the sailing one with the addition of paid professional staff, a clubhouse to maintain, possibly a pool, possibly a restauarant, possibly fuel docks and pumpout facilitiues.
I belong to one like the later. While I agree to some extent the racing programs, may help excite and entice future boaters and sailors in the long run, there is no way that they are even close to spending the $4-5 thousand a year to become a member of a full professional yacht club. Therefore in our case the future is not the 12 year old sailors, the struggling ( time and financial) young families who will not volunteer to help and be part of a full service yacht club.
As I stated in the other thread, the young family members of my and other similar Chesapeake full service yacht clubs for wahtever reason do not volunteer their or their familys time in the running or the upkeep of the full service club which it desparatly needs, just like a marina does. Therefore it fall on the other members to volunteer or pay more professional staff which inevitably would price it above the means of the younger families and force it to complete with business money making marinas.
Glibly speculating that the future is the young family looks at only one aspect the fact that people will age out of the club. The fact is the two groups have different expectations of what they want their "club" to be. I have seen clubs based on young families and they have a very difficult time getting volunteers when their kids are not involved in an activity to help with the ,maintainence of the club.
WE as a club are going through a transition and searching for a different paradigm to run our club as more of a business so it survives and therefore its traditions and structure survives into the future. The old model of uniformed commodores running the club has passed. The newer commodores and Boards of Governors are much more business minded and understand the different groups the club must pay attention to and attract in order to stay financially solvent for the club to continue to exhist.
The younger generations are less likely to volunteer ( this is a fact which has been studied) , which means unless their is a volunteer group aside from them it may not be able to sustain the club or its infrastructure. If the activities are run...they are geared toward the people who will volunteer.