Annual General Meeting

SISC Annual General Meeting – 6:30 pm at the Legion.  Members should check for an email dated November 14 with documents and details.  We will vote on a Bylaw change and the new Board of Directors.  We still need a nominee for Treasurer, BTW.  (Please contact Past Commodore Chris Cheeseman if interested, past_commodore@saltspringsailing.ca). Note date change from previous week.

In reference to a new membership category being proposed at this meeting, the following is submitted for member consideration…

The agenda for the AGM includes a notice of motion for a ByLaw amendment proposing a Senior Membership class. We would like to offer here some explanation of the rationale, to allow more time at the meeting for any questions or discussion.

The board has passed a motion recommending the establishment of a Senior Membership class, to be granted to those who have maintained a quarter-century of continuous Regular Membership. While Senior Members would retain the rights and privileges of Regular Membership, their membership fee would be reduced by half, and the expectation of volunteer time would be relaxed.

The club has made significant efforts to recruit new members, but we have taken no steps to retain long term members, nor to recognize or reward them for their decades of building the club community and facilities we enjoy today.

Should the motion pass and the Senior Membership class be established at this year’s AGM, fourteen members who are not already Honorary Life Members would immediately be eligible for inclusion. Normally very few members per year would reach Senior Member status; only one member who joined in 1999 and two who joined in 2000 have maintained membership to the present.

After twenty-five years of contributing fees, expertise, and volunteer time to the club, members are due some recognition by those who benefit, now and into the future, from their long service.

Respectfully,

John Lugsdin and Bo Curtis, mover and seconder