DATES TO REMEMBER

Happy March to all!

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade was held on Saturday March 11th. Our kitchen staff prepared a delicious corned beef and cabbage dinner with all the fixings after the parade. Although the weather did not cooperate it was a fun time for all. Big thank you to our staff and entertainment committee.

Delegates from our Sister City of Kinsale Ireland were in town for the parade and were invited to join our members on the main deck as guests of our Mayor.

During a visit to Kinsale, the Mayor will hand deliver a letter from me to the commodore of the Kinsale Yacht Club again outlining our reciprocation agreement and our desire to continue to foster a great relationship between our club’s and cities.

On Sunday March 12th, we all turned our clocks ahead providing us with longer light and warmer sun. With that in mind, the club is getting ready for the 2023 boating season with continued progress on our WiFi and Sprinkler systems. We are also working on many events including Easter Brunch, Commissioning Day, Racing, Boating Safety classes and Vessel Safety Checks/Head Inspections.

That’s just a few of the many items coming up. Wishing you and yours a happy spring!

Bob and Rosalie

STRATEGIC PLAN UPDATE

Greetings Fellow Members! The response asking for your suggestions and strategic planning input has been incredible and clearly shows our membership is looking for improvements in pretty much all areas of our club. Approximately one third of our full-time members responded and most of the responses contained anywhere from a single idea to more than ten from many people. The thoughts range from near-term, low cost suggestions to longer range ideas requiring planning out the major expense associated with them.

The next step is going to be to prioritize those that can be implemented quickly with little or no cost to those that require a more detailed plan. It is interesting to note is that your input mirrors much of what was done in the previous strategic planning work done in past years so we are going to make sure we focus on implementation and see if we can make up for some of the time lost due to the pandemic.

One  example of an inexpensive and awesome suggestion came from Dave and Kathleen Egan who suggested we work to create greater affiliation with yacht clubs in Newport’s sister cities around the world and specifically mentioned Kinsale Yacht Club in Ireland. As luck would have it, Kinsale City Officials were visiting Newport recently and Commodore Antignano drafted an invitation for affiliation of our two clubs to the Commodore of the Kinsale Yacht Club which will be hand carried back to Kinsale along with our club burgee. A great suggestion which expands our horizons on all areas of sailing, seamanship & camaraderie. Thank you Dave & Kathleen!

I hope to have a draft of the NYC Strategic Plan ready in the next month or so for Flag and BOD review and final approval and then readied for distribution to the entire membership. Thanks again to all of you who participated.

Steve Dolan, NYC Vice Commodore 

COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Our Season of Safety is off to a great start! About 60 people attended the introduction to boating safety classes offered by Better Bay Alliance at the Club, and 20 people are currently enrolled in Boating Safety Certificate classes conducted by the US Coast Guard Auxiliary at the Club.

COMING UP:

• Paddle Safety Class – April 11
• Second Boating Safety Certificate Class-April 18, 20 and 25
• Vessel Safety Checks and DEM Head Inspections-May 20 and 21
• All events are open to the public in support of our Club’s commitment to boating safety!
• For information or to register, contact Mark Marosits communications@newportyachtclub.org

FLOAT AND DOCK

We will be holding our spring 2023 dock day on April 8 at 9 am. We need about a dozen volunteers to prepare our marina for the 2023 summer season. If you are interested in volunteering, please send an e mail to Andy Vouras at andyvou@verizon.net.

Andy Vouras Chair, Float and Dock

JUNIOR SAILING COMMITTEE

Happy to report that less than a month after opening the registration system, the 2023 Marine Adventure Camp is about 85% full, with about 110 young sailors registered.  Additionally, an outreach to the Newport Elementary and Junior School has started, offering scholarships to get kids involved in the sailing program.  We have scholarship money available for up to 20 scholarships this year.

Progress has been made on staffing with a Sailing Director and several Instructors hired.  It will be an interesting summer as the Director and most of the Instructors are Irish students who will be visiting Newport and working at our Club for the summer.  Housing for staff has become more and more of an issue so if you have extra space or a room you would be willing to rent, yes rent, to the staff, please get in touch with Rudy.

There are still opportunities available to support the Club’s Junior Sailing Program by naming a boat for the summer.  Wondering how? Easy, a $500 contribution gets the name of your choice on one of the Junior Sailing boats to be seen on Narragansett Bay for the Summer Sailing season.  What a great way to recognize someone or something special AND support your club’s Junior Sailing Program. Don’t miss out. . . to secure a spot for the summer.  Call!

 Operators standing by!!!

Michael Barszcz 609-553-7258

Albert Sgambato 401-230-8804

Aedan Gleason 508

OFFSHORE COMMITTEE

We are currently up to 20 entrants for this year’s Bermuda One-Two.

If you know either your slip (preferred) or your mooring will be available for skippers of both the Bermuda One-Two and the New England Solo/Twin.

If you can see fit to make your slip or mooring available to a competitor please let me know.  The Harbor Master has stated that the time you allow a competitor to use your mooring will not be attributed to your 14 days of allowing someone else on your mooring. We have been told by the Harbor Master that mooring owners will not be charged against the 14 allowed days for our race boats using your mooring.

The dates we would need moorings/slips are:

Bermuda One-Two

May 27 – June 2: They leave for Bermuda on 2 June

The week leading up to and including June 24^th (Awards)

New England Solo/Twin

July 26-28: They start on the 28^th.

July 29

Thank you very much for helping out.

Roy Guay, Chair Offshore Committee

FINANCE COMMITTEE

As we approach the end of Q1-2023, the first two months of the year were very promising with one item to note

We exceeded January’s budget by $45,835.

February had no surprises except for Float and Dock. Monies for permanent dockage are coming in slower than forecasted because of our switch to DOCKWA.  As a result, February F&D was off by $300K resulting in the NYC being off by $270K for the month. This will be rectified in March because permanent dockage fees are due April 1. We expect the first quarter to finish ahead of budget.    

Food and Beverage

The 2023 overall goal for Bar and Food is to net 30% and 5% respectively. As mentioned in my last report, while we remain behind goal for food, we fully expect to meet this 5% goal for food during the heavy months of April – September.