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2019 Winter Commodore's Letter

Published on 1/3/2019
January 3, 2019
 
Happy New Year to all of you from the Whitefish Chain Yacht Club.  After a somewhat brown December the snow has arrived to provide opportunities for winter recreation in our beautiful area.  Last year I wrote about developing a better working relationship with other non-profits that support our lakes and community and I am happy to report that we have already made great strides in this initiative and are continuing to work on this to promote safety on the water.   
 
This year will be a busy one as WCYC will be taking on two new initiatives. First, our secretary Bob Nelson has been working diligently on migrating all our data, ie financial, membership, registration process, etc to a new cloud based software system. This will make it simpler for you as members to pay your dues, update your information and register for events. It will take some time to get this fully enacted and I ask you to read the second page of this letter to see how our new membership information system will work.   
 
Secondly our WCYC board has received several requests to consider adding solar lights to the Red and Green channel buoys this summer. As you know the solar lights are quite expensive but will be a great asset to promoting safety on the lake as boat traffic gets busier each year.  We discussed this at our fall board meeting and voted to develop a fund raising campaign called the Light the Buoys.  The board recommended using up to $10,000 from our reserve funds to match donations to fund this initiative. The WCYC board is asking for your support when you send in your membership. Would you be willing to add an additional donation to support this plan? Several members made generous donations at our Fall Dinner to get this campaign started.  Moonlite Bay Restaurant gave us $1,000 to get this campaign started.
 
Craig Simard at Waterfront Services will be ordering the new lights and installing them starting this spring. Our goal is to get lights on the busiest channels first and continue to the others as long as funding comes in. We currently has a 100 + buoys providing navigation help on the Chain. I personally thank you all in advance for supporting this effort to enhance boating safety.  
 
The WCYC and WAPOA will be sponsoring a booth at the Senior Expo to be held April 27th at the Log Church in Crosslake.. This event is being sponsored by a new organization called Crosslake Cares, which will be a resource for seniors in the Crosslake area.
 
I am looking forward to meeting new members and having a safe boating season in 2019. Also I invite you to join your fellow members at our spring and fall dinners.
 
John Pribyl,
Commodore WCYC