Commodore’s Log                                                                Marilyn Allen

Sailing season for the Salty Dog Sailing Club will officially open at our May meeting on 5/9 (weather permitting). This early season has been challenging because of the work being done on Chatfield and the closures it entails. Most of our early season events now will be held at Cherry Creek. Our May meeting will be in our summer format with a brief presentation, updates on Salty Dog events, and then we head to the water for a wonderful evening, sunset sail.

There’s now a Members Only section on our web site. It currently contains our By Laws and Policies and Financial documents. There was discussion about adding the club roster but our web master tells me hackers can get to our members’ personal information a little too easily, even being password protected. Members will be emailed an updated roster soon in a web blast. Please save it to your CPU and/or print out a couple of copies. The new format has a column to indicate members’ availability to sail and ability levels. We’re hoping both boat owners and crew will use this to schedule other fun sailing events throughout the season.

I’ll be meeting with Community Sailing of Colorado to formulate a plan to build membership for both organizations. They have lots of programs to encourage sailing in our area. VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY: They do adaptive sailing programs to help folks with physical/cognitive challenges enjoy our sport. Check their web site: https://www.communitysailing.org/sailing-programs/#_adaptive-sailing.  I see this as an opportunity to enjoy sailing, while helping others and encouraging membership in Salty Dogs.

Your board continues to formulate plans to make the club bigger and better in 2019. There’s a book called “Going from Good to Great” and that’s where we hope to move the Salty Dogs. Our club goes back a long time to when it was an offshoot of Beyond Divorce, a Denver singles club. It then became Red Sails, a sailing club, but the singles kept meeting and marrying each other, so a more inclusive club was founded called the Salty Dog Sailing Club.

Current improvements include:
1. an improved web site that allows on line payments for events. We’re #1 or #2 when folks look for Denver sailing.
2. a robust sailing season with multi day events and some events with other metro sailing clubs.
3. Colorado Water Sports/Victoria Sailing School now is offering discounts to our members on most if not all their products. They offer sailing classes, ASA certifications, Dinghy racing events and other water sports as well as the Why Buy Club.

Be sure to check the 2019 sailing schedule. There are some wonderful events planned.
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