2014 February Beacon

What a great start to the year! The Commodore’s Ball seemed to be a success by the reviews of folks attending it. That satisfies me because my whole determination in putting on this affair was to have our members and guests enjoy themselves having a good time all the while. Much thanks and gratitude has to be sent out to everyone involved. It takes many hands to have something like this a success and believe me, many hands were there making sure that all was perfect. My deep appreciation goes to Kim Miedema for all that she did in capturing this special night with her camera. This went far beyond the duties of Club Photographer, a position that she accepted for this year. Thank you, Kim! I hope you saved some time for yourself to enjoy the festivities.

Our member from the Buckeye state, Bill Edens also did a fine job of capturing precious moments for me. Without these folks … I don’t know … it was all a whirlwind of an evening and I’m sure I wouldn’t have remembered a fraction of the fun that we had. The Salty Dogs had a special treat for me. It was their rendition of the Marine Corps Anthem. Thank you, fellas! Speaking of things Special … great big congratulations goes out to two couples that have done so much for the good of our Club. NCYC Spirit Award winners Greg and Yvonne Murray and NCYC Member of the Year Award winners P/C Harley and Linda Burris. None else are more deserving to win these awards for this past year. Thanks to all of you for what you have done for us … and thank you P/C Don Vanover for recognizing the value of these fine members. As we go along this year, you may realize little changes in things. I’m going to be trying to improve the way we do things in little ways. If they work … fine, we’ll continue. If not, well then nothing lost. For instance, in order to improve communication to the membership I’ve asked that we put a Fan-Out shortly after our Board of Directors meetings highlighting anything that we’ve discussed and have come to a decision, in acting on it. It will give you, the membership, a fast-track on what’s happening instead of relying of hearsay at best or a month or two delay until these items get published. A couple highlights of the January board meeting were the discontinuance of the printed Beacon. The monthly Beacon was more of a nuisance than anything else with a little more than a half-dozen members subscribing to it. It was becoming too costly to continue it’s publishing and the little interest in it couldn’t justify the effort. Of course, the printed Roster will continue to be offered and multiple copies can be ordered with your request. In order to continue to bolster our membership of the Club we decided to continue a reduction in initiation fees until May 1 st . The fee is set at $750 until the May deadline at which time we will revisit this issue and determine it’s effectiveness.