I’m writing this ahead of time in case we don’t have power by Monday – haven’t we all suffered enough this year? Now a hurricane too…. As we all know, and as Humberto reinforced last year, we cannot afford to be complacent with a hurricane on its approach and so we end up doing as much prep work for a non-event as we do for a storm and annoying as that is, I know we all welcome the non-event! With no house guests or parties this year, it seems that the Easter weekend spent cleaning all the lawn furniture was just the pre-curser to tying it all back up again for Paulette – did we even ever sit on it?
Ted went out to Pearl to take her sails off this morning before we move her round to her storm mooring; next thing was a hail from the waterfront: “I’ve dropped a clevis pin overboard; I think I can see it; can you get your bathing suit on and get it? It’s low tide, you can probably walk to it….” (not!). It’s been a week of massive numbers of jelly fish out at Burgess Point – eek! The next word from your ‘Commodorable’ was “it’s good we managed to retrieve that.” We? Team work 😉
So, we are going to postpone solar panels until next week and talk about teamwork. After a particularly frustrating day yesterday, some kind RHADC members made my evening when they happened to mention to Remy that they would like to meet the Commodore sometime as they enjoyed the weekly column in the newsletter (good to know that someone other than dear George, my Sat. tennis partner, reads them!). Remy responded that the Commodore was sitting at the next table. I was so happy to be invited to join them to chat; it’s hard to move around to engage with folks with the mask on, so sitting at their table for a wee while was a good excuse for introductions. It was lovely to meet them and everyone always loves to receive compliments – especially as any past commodore will know that mostly members seek you out to complain! It was great to hear what they enjoyed about being RHADC members and delightful to learn that they were encouraging their friends to join as well.
So, what sort of team are we? We join a Club because we like being part of a community and it has been particularly gratifying to me to see how the RHADC community has evolved into a more diverse group of like-minded souls. Sailing is important to us and our junior programme this summer has overcome all sorts of obstacles to provide a safe and nurturing environment for our young people – each one of them potential future members when they reach adulthood. Food is also important and I think we all agree that Luca and his team has provided us with a consistently high standard of food and beverage service; thank you to them and to the wonderful wait staff that make us all feel so welcome each time we visit the Club.
Each member is an important part of our community and so, whilst we love seeing all the young families in the Club, let us also all join in congratulating our oldest member, Sylvia Spearing on reaching her 100th birthday last week. We hope she has many bingo nights ahead of her!
Elspeth Weisberg
Commodore