Hello Everyone,

It looks like winter decided to show her ugly head this weekend.  After a beautiful spring like Friday and Friday night, Saturday morning was cold and windy.  We had 9 race boats for the racing series and 2 spectator boats.  Needless to say, we did not have a Shake Down Cruise.  The only shaking being done was to stay warm.  I will let Eddie describe the racing.  

After the race, many people and crew headed home, so we did not have the flea market.  We will reschedule that event later for in the Spring.  A core group of people remained behind for hamburgers.  Since the group was small, we grilled at several boats and ate inside.  The rain held off till 7 PM.  In the morning, several people saw snow.  We had a group of 10 head to Pegram’s for breakfast.  They just opened this weekend.  They also have, finally City Ham for breakfast, yeah!!.  

We left the lake early and pretty excited because this week, with the help of Jeff and Rich, we will be sailing our new boat (Catalina 350 (M & M)) down from Deltaville to Oriental. I have heard from Doug, our treasurer,  who said that membership checks continue to come in.  We have 33 of our 61 members from last year paid.  Please continue to send your checks in.  I will attach the membership form again.

Also, I would like to thank Diane Walters for her help in getting a Steele Creek Yacht Club website up and running.  Please check it out at www.SteeleCreekYachtClub.org.  We need club approval for the spending of $71.80 for the hosting of the site for 2 years.  The domain name is $10.  This will give us a fairly powerful website with the ability to password protect some pages and upload large files, including word documents, presentation files and video files.  Diane has asked for suggestions what we as a club want to see in the website.  Here were some questions:

•  Is the info on the homepage enough as an introduction? 
  
• What else is needed? 
• What about the FAQs?  Though we may not have a history yet of questions that come through the comments page, you may be able to think of questions that you commonly answer from new and potential members. We may want to put an officer and committee list on the FAQ page. 

If needed, Paypal and Google Checkout are good payment options, and there may be others.  I believe that Google Checkout would cost the club a little less in fees.  Because of the fee structure with online payments, we may want to think about whether it is really needed?

Please get back to me about authorizing for the more powerful site for $71.80. 

Our next club event will be Saturday April 9th.  The Commodore Chase and Fit and Trim Potluck.  Mark and I want a rematch of last year’s Commodore Challenge.  This time we plan to win.  Afterwards, the challenge for all our galley cooks is to make an Appetizer, Entrée or Dessert that is healthy, low fat and low calories.  Bring copies of your recipe.  We will have a judging committee.  Have a great 2 weeks.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress down the ICW on Facebook. 

Hello  Everyone,

The weather seems to be a bit iffy.  Most reports show the rain coming in late afternoon.  This time of year it is always iffy with the weather and we may be chasing a nice day.  

Hello Everyone,

Saturday will be a busy day.  Right now the forecast is for the 60’s.  Dress in layers and warmly.  

For those of our club members not racing, we will have a captain’s meeting at 10:30 AM at the top of C-Dock.  This will be a leisurely sail up to the dam (wind depending).  We will meet at the goal post at 11:30 AM and get out of the way of our Racers.  

We will return by 4 PM so that we can organize our 2nd boat oriented Flea Market. (Please look in your garage, shed, boat and dock locker for things you no longer need or want, didn’t fit or the wrong part.  Your junk might be someone else’s treasure).  Put a sticker on it with a price ( I will have some labels and markers at the flea market).  If anyone wants to donate their items or proceeds to the club, that can also happen.  We will flea from 4-5:30PM.  I could use help getting 2 tables from the shed to the top of C-Dock location.  

After that, we will have our Hamburger Cook-off. I will need help getting the grill and paper goods to the cook-off.   If each boat would bring 1 lb of chop meat and rolls plus fixings for your burger.  Use your imaginations.  Bring spices, veggies, sauces, cheeses to make unusual burgers.  Let the fixings be shared. Also if everyone can bring a side dish or dessert and something to drink.  We will have a shared meal.  Bring chairs to sit on.  Dress warmly.  We will need a clean-up group to clean up and return things to the shed.

Have a great week, keep looking for your items (think of it as Spring Cleaning boat style), keep thinking of new and unusual burgers and fixings and I will see you at the lake on Saturday.  Don’t forget your membership dues!

Hello Everyone,

Spring is here!!!! We had awesome weather this weekend to start the SCYC sailing season.  Saturday morning we had Rich and Jeff help at the shed to load supplies into our van to be taken over to the Glass House.  By the time we got there, Carl Staley was there.  We started to get things out of the van.  Shortly thereafter, our master chef Don Courtney arrived.  Our sous chefs, Paul Sullivan, Rich Kamens, George & Liz Lundy, Ron Honeycutt and Doug Miller started to man the grills.  The winds held off so we could cook the bacon, sausage, ham and hash browns outside.  We warmed up the sautéed veggies and biscuits, made the coffee, grits and scrambled eggs inside.  Some of the chefs sampled their handy work to make sure it was good enough for the club to eat.  By 11 AM, people started to gather.  The juice and milk made it, the bagels and cream cheese made it, and the muffins, sweets and fresh fruit made it.  At 11:30, we had over 40 people partake in the yummy brunch.  We started the meeting at 12:10 so that we could get people out early enough to watch the UNC basketball game at 1 PM.  

At the meeting, we discussed and approved having the Luau at the Moorings.  We need to check with Martha to make certain that there isn’t a problem.  In lieu of that boating overnight, we have scheduled “Castaway” weekend at Gilligan’s Island.  We asked that people get their 2011 dues in (I have re-posted a membership form).  We celebrated birthdays that occurred this week, Happy Birthday to Cary Wren, Helen Rock, Melanie Campbell, Bobette, Eckland, and Tom Pearson?.  We had the election of officers based on the nominations from the Fall meeting.  I remain as Commodore, Mark remains as Vice Commodore, Ted Tlsty was elected as Secretary, Doug Miller was elected as Treasurer and Donna Wescott in charge of SCYC Merchandising (if you would like to order T-shirts, burgees, caps please contact dwescott@embarqmail.com).   We will also order some extra T-shirts to have on hand and for sale at Club events.  

Two items that were discussed is the possibility of having an area available to work on your boat if hauled.  A committee is being formed to find out about it.  This committee will be spearheaded by Rich Kamens.  Pat Terry and John Hancock expressed interest in help explore the opportunities by contacting the Corps of Engineers and other agencies.  If you are interested in working on this committee, please contact Rich Kamens at kamens@unc.edu.   

The other matter of discussion was the possibility of having a Steele Creek Yacht Club website.  This website can be used to host these newsletters, FAQ, directions to favorite coves on the lake, sailing tips, etc.  Diane Walters volunteered to look into this after she completes her Master’s Degree in April.   A domain name might be secured earlier.  Again, anyone who has talent in this area might want to contact Diane (dwalters@nc.rr.com) and offer help.  I hope you all got a chance to see the SCYC flag/banner that Donna made.  Thanks for the beautiful flag, I hope we can fly it at our club events this year.  We ended the meeting with thanks to our cooks, going over the event calendar, offering a CD of the SCYC 2010 photos (if you would like a copy contact Mark at MAlexander24@nc.rr.com) and thanks to our clean-up crew (Helen& Rhonda and several others)..

The christening and renaming ceremony would be at 5 PM.  We had great help with cleaning up and emptying out of the glass house.  Not many people went out sailing (Tail Winds was all I saw out).  I think most people were watching the UNC game and later the Duke game and socializing at the dock.  

At 5:15 PM we gathered on the dock near Wrenegade for a Naming Ceremony.  Everyone was given a glass of champagne.  There were several bottles available.  We recited the speech, cheered at the name, cheered for the new owners (Cary and Ella Wren),placed greenery over the bow and poured champagne over the bow and drank up in their honor.  Then we moved over to the next boat, Tenacious.  We refilled our glasses, and recited the speech, cheered at the name, cheered for the new owners, Eddie and Diane Walters, placed greenery on the bow and broke a bottle of champagne over the bow, and drank our fill, then on to the next boat, Dead Stick, we refilled our glasses, read the speech, cheered for the name, cheered for the new owners, George and Liz Lundy, put greenery over the bow and popped the cork on the champagne and poured some over the bow then on to the final boat, RockReation.  We recited the speech, cheered the name , cheered for the new owners, Dave and Helen Rock, place greenery over the bow, popped the cork on the champagne that went 30’ into the air, poured some champagne over the bow and drank our fill.  We then staggered down the dock to partake in some finger food provided by some of our new owners. Thanks to Doug Miller for recording these ceremonies for prosperity.  I know that several owners would like to repeat this ceremony for their new boats a little later in the season.  Not a problem.  The socializing continued.  

On Sunday morning, we had a community breakfast with the leftover food from the Spring meeting.  Nothing goes to waste with our group!  People just were hanging around or leaving the lake early to watch the Duke – UNC basketball game.  Mark & I did go out with our son and his friend from Germany.  We listened to the game on the radio.  We had good winds to do a downwind run to the big island.  The winds shifted and we did not have a bad run back.  What a nice weekend.  I hope this is just the beginning of our wonderful 2011 sailing season.  I welcome our new members, Thomas & Kat Williams (Capri 22 on D-dock) and Konrad and Holly Schoen (Balboa 26 on A dock, formerly “the Duck”), and Line and Terry Dempsey (Catalina 30 on C-dock, formerly Chocolat).  If you have a good time in SCYC, pass it along.  I know we will have several other new members too.

Our next event will be on Saturday March 26th.  We have a Shake Down Cruise in the morning (first sail of the season to check out that everything is working).  (There is the first race of the Spring racing series too).  In the late afternoon, around 4 -5:30PM we will have a boat related flea market.  With all the boat upsizing and moving around, people should have many extra things to sell.  Bring your boat items to sell.  After the flea market we will have a Hamburger cook-off.  Bring the fixings (cheese, veggies, sauces, spices, etc.) for one of your favorite/different hamburger.  Like an Italian burger, and Mexican burger, Swiss/Mushroom burger, etc.  and a side dish or dessert to share. More info next week.  Have a great 2 weeks.