Join us for our first ‘dock party’ of the year. Wednesday Jan 19 @ 7 pm PT. Open to all members. Details on the virtual dock party page here

Member accomplishments that are normally acknowledged at our Year End Dinner did not take place due to the cancellation of this year’s dinner. We would like to acknowledge our Cruising Mile Award entrants and member boats that have earned fleet stars in 2021.

CRUISING MILES AWARD

The Cruising Miles Award was established to promote the use of cruising logbooks. Entrants submit the distances travelled, departure port, and destination ports that were logged in their logbooks. The boat with the most cruising miles wins one free year’s MYCBC dues.  All other entries are put into a draw for a one  year subscription to Pacific Yachting Magazine.

The 2021 Cruising Miles Award goes to Harmony.

Saymomore, Sunbird, Windchime, and Zephyr go into the draw for the Pacific Yachting Magazine subscription. The draw for the subscription will take place at the deferred Year End Dinner that is currently proposed to take place in early February. If the dinner does not take place the draw will be completed at our first Club Night in 2022.

The 2021 entry breakdown was:

Fleet Stars

Fleet Stars acknowledge and identify member boats that have belonged to the club for at least five years. Member boats receive an additional star for each 5 additional years they remain a member.

The following fleet stars were awarded in 2021:

The Club continues to be forced to cancel scheduled events due to forces beyond our control; first it was COVID-19 and now it is the weather.

The torrential rains that we recently experienced forced us to cancel the Year End Dinner (YED) that was originally scheduled for November 20, 2021. The rainstorm created severe flooding. The flooding washed out roads and rail lines, seriously disrupting our transportation system.

The damaged transportation system resulted in the cancellation of our restaurateur’s food deliveries and prevented twenty percent of the attendees from attending. This forced the cancellation of the dinner.

The restaurateur proposed rescheduling the dinner to December 4^th. A survey of the original attendees indicated that two thirds of them were in favour of rescheduling to December 4^th and one third could not make the new date.

The smaller size of our revised party and the weather forecast calling for continued rainstorms through the first week of December forced the Club to cancel the YED for this calendar year.

As there was enough interest from the original attendees to reschedule, a proposal was made to hold our YED in the new year. This proposal would:

• Prevent the Club from missing our YED two years in a row,
• Allow members enough time to arrange their schedules to attend,
• Avoid the potential scheduling conflicts that the upcoming Christmas Holiday season presents,
• Grant the opportunity to members that could not make the original date to attend,
• Presents the chance that the COVID-19 restrictions prescribed by the Province’s Public Health Officer will be eased allowing us to freely socialize at the event,
• Hopefully provide enough time that the COVID-19 related border restrictions imposed by the Canadian Government would be relaxed enough that out American members could join us.

Currently the suggested date to host our YED in the new year is February 5, 2022. The Club will survey the membership the first week of January 2022 to determine if there is enough interest in attending before reorganizing the event.

I would like to introduce myself; my name is Alvin Clarke, and I am the newly elected Commodore for the MacGregor Yacht Club of BC.

Introducing the rest of this years Bridge; Rick Thompson – Immediate Past Commodore, Steve St-Amour – Active Past Commodore, Ken Downes – Active Past Commodore, Darry Major – Active Past Commodore, Peter Rodenburgh – Rear Commodore, Ron Gillies – Treasurer, Kelvin Dueck – Membership Captain, Darren Jensen – Regatta Captain, Andy Sigrist – Web Captain, Alex Boronowski – Assistant Web Captain, Eric Manevich – Social Media Captain, Darry Major – Education/Safety Officer, Ken Poole – Photographer, Tim Nicholas – Quartermaster, and Alan Fisher – Member at Large

On behalf of the Club, the Bridge, and myself, I want to extend our thanks to our outgoing Commodore, Rick Thompson.

Rick led the Club though turbulent times. The bigger challenges that Rick took on were:

• Rapid growth in club membership. The club grew from sixty-one members in 2015 to 145 members at the end of the 2021 season.
• The membership profile changed from one dominated by local members to distant members making up the majority.
• The COVID-19 pandemic fell upon us in early 2020 upsetting our status quo and continues to have a detrimental impact on Club operations to this day.

Rick was selfless in donating his time to club duties, mentoring, tutoring new members, leading Club Cruises, and assisting members with boat repairs and modifications.

A few of Rick’s highlight accomplishments as Commodore are:

• Introducing hybrid Club nights using ZOOM to include our Distant members in our club business and presentations,
• Developing a completely online meeting format via ZOOM to continue our Club Nights through the COVID-19 period,
• Started the “Virtual Dock Parties,”
• Created numerous boat modifications and DIY sail gear videos,
• Developed our MYCBC Logbook, and
• Sourced sailing reference books and obtained Club discounts for volume purchases.

Rick now assumes the role as Immediate Past Commodore. We look forward to Rick’s continued involvement with the Club and the Club’s Bridge.

Everyone that takes on a role like the one I have just assumed stands on the shoulders of those that preceded them. I am lucky that the Club is built on a very solid base, and I can only hope to add to that foundation.

As well as continuing to support current Club operations I have the additional goals that I would like to accomplish over my tenure as Commodore. These goals include:

1. Engage more member participation in the Club’s decision-making processes.
2. Garner more input from members in selecting cruise destinations, presentation ideas, and suggestions to improve the Club,
3. Improve the quality of our ZOOM presentations during Club Nights that involve an in-person gathering.
4. Break down the duties of existing volunteer positions so that the time commitment averages two hours per month with a maximum of four hours per month.
5. Solicit new volunteers to become actively involved in the Club’s operations.

To date, the operation of the Club has been run by a small, dedicated core of volunteers. The rapid growth in Club membership and the expansion of Club offerings has placed an onerous time commitment on the existing volunteers. The Bridge needs a lot more volunteer assistance if the membership wants to see the Club continue to grow, evolve, and improve.

The talent pool that exists within our membership is vast and deep. New volunteers typically bring new talents, perspectives and fresh ideas that can only improve the club and move it forward. Hopefully with your support and active involvement, we as a team can make the additional goals a reality.

I look forward to another fun filled and challenging year with the Club and hope to see you on the water, at Club Nights, and other Club events.

The Annual General Meeting for the MacGregor club is on

Date:  Saturday, October 16, 2021

Time:  1 pm – 3 pm

Location: Zoom (from your comfortable couch on what looks like will be a rainy day) 

Watch for an email with the link to join the Zoom meeting

and appreciate if you post here if you are planning to attend