Burnham Park Yacht Club Monthly Newsletter ● April 2016

1500 South Linn White Drive Chicago IL 60605 www.bpyc.com 312-427-4664

Commodore’s Log

It’s officially “Spring,” kids! Happy Days. We are way ahead of last year even if we get a little more sn... (shhhh).

I overheard a recent conversation which went like this: It was be-tween “Joe” (a fellow boater but not a BPYC member.... yet!) and “Jack” (a present member and big fan of BPYC). They happened to bump into each other at the local yacht yard and were there to do some preliminary tasks on their boats.

Jack: “Hey, Joe. How was your winter?”

Joe: “Not bad. Quiet. I caught up on my reading, got some “Honey do list” items done. But not much else.”

Jack: “Sounds a little too slow for me.”

Joe: “Well, it was. Can’t wait to get into the harbor and see everyone.”

Jack: “Really? I saw so many people from the harbor all winter. We had a blast almost every weekend.”

Joe: “How? That must have taken a ton of hours to contact them all and organize the get togethers.”

Jack: “Not at all! I’m a member of The Burnham Park Yacht Club. You know of the club? We are on the east side of Northerly Island.”

Joe: “I don’t know anything about yacht clubs. Aren’t they expensive and somewhat stuffy?”

Jack: “Not at all! We are running a special of half off on initia-tion dues and the monthly fees are lower than surround-ing clubs. Plus, BPYC members know each other. There is a great camaraderie among us. ‘Stuffy’ just doesn’t exist with us!”

Joe: “That sounds great. However, what about the winter months?”

Jack: “Glad you asked. We have so many events over the win-ter. It’s hard to keep up. There’s live music on many weekends. We had a huge Super Bowl Party, an unbe-lievable St. Patrick’s Day Party with the Trinity Irish Dancers, a live five-piece band, and a terrific full Irish dinner. We also have a Kentucky Derby Party coming up that you shouldn’t miss! Our 2016 schedule of events is incredible. We have a poker run, a rendezvous, our very formal fleet review with uniforms and numerous sailboat

races. I can get you a copy of the schedule to see for yourself.”

Joe: “That would be great. If I want to join, what do I do?”

Jack: “I can arrange a personal tour. I can even do it myself. Our first membership open house is May 7th, Kentucky Derby Day.”

Joe: “Can you get me the specifics?”

Jack: “Absolutely! I can email, fax, or drop off the information at your office or home.”

Joe: “That would be great, Jack. Here’s my email address.”

Jack: “I’ll bet you’ll be kicking yourself, if you join, for not join-ing years ago. I’ve made so many friends at BPYC. We get together for dinner and have vacationed together and a bunch of us all took a cruise together last winter.”

Joe: “I’m in!”

Just a suggestion, everyone.

A number of your Board Members, through their articles this month, have assisted in giving you updates on some of what your elected members are doing for you and our Club. You may have noticed a common theme. Volunteer to give us a little of your time. It will show and benefit all of us. The Club is lined up for a “Rock Star” year. Food quality, staff service and amenities all ready to dazzle you, your family and friends. Hopefully, every new member too.

Thank you,

Chris Edmonds

Your Commodore

Hello BPYC Members!

With support of the Members and Board of Directors, I am confident we will have the best Season ever.

It’s almost time to enjoy the opportunities of the 2016 Boating Season. Those who came by had a great Winter as well. The Board looks forward to everyone seeing the improvements from the bar, kitchen and wait staff. We are hoping an increase in Member at-tendance with positive feedback will lead to more new members. Once you are comfortable with the services of our Club, we encour-age you to invite your friends and family to come and enjoy BPYC.

We welcome your comments and suggestions. If you are available, please come and participate in our Business meetings. (or better yet , serve on a Committee). The next Business meeting is April 1, 2016, and we will have a band to entertain afterwards. Hope to see you then!

Sincerely,

Scott Gordon

Vice Commodore, BPYC

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Vice Commodore

Rear Commodore

It’s that time of year again! Time to remove the shrink wrap and check the bottom paint. Time to get back to the club, see what’s new, and enjoy the spring weather. There is a lot that is happening behind the scenes!

Pam MacGregor is in charge of “Programs” and “Publicity” and doing a great job. The calendar is filling up quickly. She is constantly updating the web site with all of our upcoming events. Let her know if there is something you want to add.

Paul Stec & Brij Bharteey are working on two fun events, the “Fleet Review” & “Rendezvous”! They need our support. Let’s get in-volved this year!

Finally, Bill VanEmberg is chairing two committees, “Sail Fleet” & “Technology”. Thanks to Bill for all of the hard work!

It takes a lot of volunteers to help run the club! Join a committee and make a difference.

Steve Theis

Secretary

You may or may not know what exactly the Secretary does as a Flag member for the club. So I thought it might be helpful to enlight-en everyone. It is the duty of the Secretary to send out all notices required by the bylaws and to record in a permanent form the minutes of all regular and special meetings of the Board. I am in the process of organizing all past and present records for easy re-view when needed. Recording attendance at all meetings, receive resignations and completing the BPYC's annual report and for-warding same to the Secretary of State are just a few of the tasks.

I am looking forward to a spectacular 2016 boating season.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Riordan

Secretary

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Treasurer

I would encourage everyone to show up to the business meeting Friday, April 1st as I will be going through 2015 year end and an-swering questions regarding 2016 financials. We have done a lot of work over the last 2 months and I feel that we really have a good understanding of our financial status.

I would like to thank everyone that I have spoken to in the last month as I have tried to clean up all of the old accounts. I would also like to thank Bonnie Riordan, Rich and Geri Lauric, Brij Bharteey, Paulette Horne and our Commodore Chris Edmonds for sitting on my finance committee and putting in the hours to help reconcile our accounts. I couldn’t have done everything without your help.

My special thanks also to Samantha. She has been an enormous help to me as I was trying to learn the financials of this club. She has so much energy and is a pleasure to work with! Samantha has been working on our account receivables and has assisted in eliminating a lot of old debt.

We will continue for the next 30 days to try to clean up any old amounts owed to club. Anybody that is not current by May 1 will be receiving letters explaining suspension of privileges.

Respectfully,

Phil Edwards

Treasurer

Programs

Dock and Grounds

Happy Spring!!

Please join us for Club Clean-up April 2nd 8:00-1:00. It’s a great time to meet members while contributing to the beauty of the club.

Bring garden gloves and tools.

We can always use additional perennials to add to the gardens.

If you have extra sun loving plants please let me know and we can find a spot for them.

Paulette Horne

St. Patrick’s Day was an amazing event at the club. We celebrated with a delicious buffet, Irish beer, The Trinity Dancers and the DAVIDSON COUNTY BAND. Everyone had a blast!

Make sure to attend our Business Meeting April 1st @ 6:30pm. Followed by dinner and music by: TWO FOR THE ROAD

April 8th – Women’s Auxiliary Meeting @ 6:30

Directory Advertising Agreement forms will be sent to our members in their April statements. Please help support our club when it’s time to print our 2016 Directory.

BPYC is always looking for suggestions on future live music. If you have a favorite band or type of music, we would love to hear from you. Submit ideas to: pamela6341@yahoo.com

Pamela MacGregor

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Start Racing Fast

Are you new to sailboat racing and would like to get up to SPEED quick-ly? An intermediate sailor who would like to improve your standings in the fleet? Then come to Burnham Park Yacht Club’s two-day, Start Rac-

ing Fast, seminar from 10AM-3PM on Saturday April 23 and Saturday

April 30. You and your crew will benefit from topics including: boat preparation, rig tune, sail trim, crew communication, start strategies, race strategies, tactics, getting around the corners, and rules. The seminar will be led by Gerard O'Neil, USCG Licensed Master and Dennis Bartley owner of the J30 Planxity, both are long time Chicago racers with a long list of NOOD, Verve, and other regatta wins in one-design classes such as

J/30 and J/105. Dennis is also a US Sailing card carrying judge.

The cost is $75 per person which includes lunch for both days. All pro-

ceeds will go toward the BPYC’s Junior Sailing Program. Attendance will be limited to 75 persons, so

reserve your spot now by contacting Dick O’Connell at 630-456-3638 or emailing at

r.oconnell@sbcglobal.net. Burnham Park Yacht Club is located at 1500 Linn White Drive, Chicago at the

Museum Campus.

Junior Sailing Program

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2016 Grand Opening/Open House/Kentucky Derby Party

Join us at Burnham Harbor Yacht Club on May 7th starting at Noon for this Triple Crown Event

Meet and Greet potential new members, enjoy lunch or dinner, place Derby bets

And enjoy live music in the evening

Tender service will be available

More information to follow soon.

Larry and Susan Harris

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There are about 900 plus boats in Burnham Harbor and we have about 175 boating members plus a number of social members and crew members. I don’t understand why anyone who has a boat in Burnham Harbor would not want to be a member of our cub. I feel very fortunate to be able to be a member. Our dues are going up because we don’t have enough revenue to cover our costs so the members have to pony up if we want to enjoy the club as we know it now. If we had probably another hundred members we could probably afford to lower our membership costs.

We are now coming up to the best time of year to recruit new members. A lot of people who just got a slip in the harbor will be interested in joining. We get most of our new members in the ear-ly part of the boating season. We have a great guy as our mem-bership chairman, Tom OConnell. As great a guy as Tom is, he could use everyone’s help because there is no better salesman than word of mouth. What we don’t need is members complaining to non-members about problems at the club. In just trying to re-cruit a fellow who has been in the harbor for a while, he told me he heard we were going out of business. I asked him where he heard something crazy like that?

Nothing is perfect but tell me where can you go and have a better

view than what we have? Where can you go and meet so many genuinely nice people and some brilliant ones at that? We have a great facility that is very nice and comfortable and far from snob-by. It’s pretty cool when you see important people painting the walls of our club, cleaning out the shed, generously donating their time to work on committees. We have a lot of very generous peo-ple. I feel so blessed to have made some very good friends by being a member of this club.

We need more members and we need your help. Getting 100

new members this year may seem crazy but when you look at all

the boaters in the harbor it’s not impossible. PLEASE ask the

people who are not members that you know or don’t know on

your dock to consider joining our great club. Please ask your adult

children to get involved. The future of any non-profit organization

today depends on cultivating the next generation to takeover. If

every member just got one new member, just one, we would way

surpass 100 new members. If you need help in trying to get

someone to join please let me know.

Charlie Martin

Past Commodore

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Women’s Auxiliary

The Auxiliaries next meeting is April 8th at 6:30PM. We would be very happy to welcome anyone to our meeting, especially if you are new to the club, it is a great way to meet new people. The main object of the Auxiliary is to have events at the yacht club, while raising money for the beautification of the club. So examples of what we have been able to accomplish is the bar furniture and the patio furniture.

There is a $25.00 annual dues to become an Auxiliary member.

This year we plan on having a boating STUFF auction, which should be fun, and you may be able to sell or pick up boating item you may need. Example,, fenders, lines, etc.

We also will be having a Pirates Ball on July 15th. We will be looking for best costume, etc. On August 27th there will be a painting party on the patio, which should be fun. As we lock in more dates and events we will let you know.

PS.. Boating season will be starting in less than 30 days for early arrivals.

Geri Lauric,

President of the BPYC Auxiliary

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————Good Afternoon Everyone; 1. The April Women's Aux meeting will now be FRI April 8 @ 6:30PM. 2. The Event on May 21 will be a 2 parter.... Part One : the Auxiliary is planning a Boat Accessory Live Auction on May 21st. A garage sale for boaters, shall we say, which is open to the harbor. Items shall be either DONATED to the Aux (to be auctioned by the Auxiliary at whatever price) or Auc-tioned for the sellers, tagged with a minimum sale price offering, plus a 10% buyer's percentage going to the Auxiliary. The items would need to be brought to the Club tagged with name, boat, minimum price wanted, and phone number by 11:30AM. Auction would begin at 1PM and would end by 3PM or before. Part Two: Approximately 1 hour later approx 4PM, the Auxiliary is presenting John Staniszewski in his one of several boat problem solving seminars regarding "Taking the Mystery out of ________." (subject tba) Each participant in the seminar will receive one drink courtesy of BPYC as offered by our Commodore Chris Edmonds. All harbor participants will be free to purchase dinner at the Club following the seminar. Barb Hetzer-Maloney

Club Winter Hours Through May 6, 2016

Monday—Thursday - CLOSED

Friday Dinner 5:00 pm—9:00 pm

Saturday Dinner 5:00 pm—9:00 pm

Sunday Dinner 5:00 pm—8:00 pm

CLUB OPENS FULL-TIME MAY 7, 2016

RESERVATIONS ARE REQUESTED

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Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 April Fool’s Day

Business Mtg-6:30pm

Womens Aux Mtg-7pm

2

2nd Docks & Grounds Clean up

8am-1pm

3

4

March Madness

College Basketball

Championship

5 6

7 8 9

10

11

12

Board Meeting-

6:30 pm

13

14 15 16

Chicago Maritime

Festival

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

10-3 Jr. Sailing Seminar

24

25 26 27 28

CYA Meeting-6:30 pm

29 30

10-3 Jr. Sailing Seminar

April 2016

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Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3 4 5 6

Social Meeting 6:30 p.m.

7 Full time hours **

OPENING DAY

Kentucky Derby Party

1st Open House

8

Mother’s Day Brunch

(3 seatings)

9 10 11 12 13 14

WAX Educational Seminar

3:00 p.m.

15 16 17

Board Beeting

6:30 p.m.

18 19 20 21

Wax Sale/Auction

1-4 WAX Educational Seminar

22

23 24

25 26

CYP Board of Directors

Meeting 6:30 p.m.

27

Annual Naval Militia

Patio Party

28

Catalina Fleet

Margarita Party

29

BPYC Luau

30

Memorial Day

31

May 2016

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2016 Flag Officers

Commodore Chris Edmonds

Vice Commodore Scott Gordon

Rear Commodore Steve Theis

Secretary Bonnie Riordan

Treasurer Phil Edwards

2016 Board of Directors

Two Year Directors

Tom O’Connell

Paulette Horne

One Year Directors

Algis Baliunas

Brij Bharteey

Larry Harris

Howard Jacobson

Pam MacGregor

Dr. Paul Stec

Bill Van Emburg

Women’s Auxiliary

President Geri Lauric

Past Commodores

Janet McCarthy

Charlie Martin

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