Commodore's Summary of the Past Commodore's Lobster Stew & December Club Meeting

We had a very nice turnout on Friday evening for the Past Commodore's Lobster Stew event. There were 72 people in attendance. Dick Ingalls, Jack Callahan and Guy Gledhill led the kitchen effort with Mike Snow, Andy Howe, Tom Dobbins, Chuck Barr, and Paul Morin assisting. All the other PC's who attended lent a hand service the stew and cleaning up. We gave out every drop of stew and all the comments about the meal were positive.

Around 7:15 or so we called the club meeting to order. I gave a brief introduction and did an informal poll on how people had heard of the event. There is a large contingent that comes every year (3/4?), there was about 1/4 of folks who had seen it on the website, about 1/2-2/3 noted seeing the email and about 1/2 received a phone call.

Guy read the minutes from the November meeting. At that point I opened it up to comments from the floor. We had about 10-15 members speak on their concerns surrounding the closing of the clubhouse in January, February and March. Here are some of them (not direct quotes, but my notes)

- If the club was closed would club events still be able to be held, mentioning the dance lessons done a few years back, club meetings, etc.

- We have built a 12 month club and this restricts the membership to use of the facility to 9/10 months. - The social dues have increased and yet the opportunity for social usage of the club is decreasing.

- There is concern about the physical situation within the clubhouse if the heat is completely turned off and water shut down. Issues with the floor, interior decor, etc.

- What is the cost savings by doing this - from the Treasurer - the difference between heating cost in 2010-2011 verus 2009-2010 is nill.

- Some questions about 2009 being a warm year compared to 2010, even though we did "shut" the clubhouse in 2010-2011 for the rip-rap construction. (We did not turn off the heat)

- If we wish to stimulate the membership to be more involved, closing the club sends the wrong message.

- Is there a compromise position? Keep the club closed for 1/2 the week and open for the other half?

Tom Osborne asked if we could get a poll from the membership on this issue, we had 26 members requesting the trustees to reconsider with 1 suggesting we stay with the original decision. There were maybe 35+/- members in attendance? With that the meeting wrapped up. We had a good conversation and I was approached by a few members who had additional comments or thoughts, mainly along the themes provided above.