MITNA Annual Meeting Notice and Minutes
| Thu 03-Oct-2013 | 19:00-21:00 |
Description
Dear MITNA Members,
The 2013 annual MITNA meeting will take place Thursday October 3rd, 7pm at the Sailing Pavilion. The agenda includes hearing updates from the different programs, discussing the path of the sailing program, election of MITNA officers, and voting on the Hatch Brown Service Award. Food will be served!
Nominations for MITNA officers and the Hatch Brown Service Award can be sent to hvincent (at) mit (dot) edu although nominations will remain open until voting begins at the meeting.
Hanna Vincent
MITNA Commodore
The MITNA officers are:
Commodore
Vice-Commodore
Treasurer
Secretary
Race Committee Chair
Members at Large
Of these positions, the Commodore, Vice Commodore, Secretary, and Treasurer must be current MIT Students.
MEETING MINUTES
(as recorded by outgoing secretary Keith Winstein)Commodore Hanna Vincent called the meeting to order.
- Vice Commodore's Report/Windsurfing (Paresh Malalur)
Very successful windsurfing program this year with classes every other week, sometimes more often. Classes were almost always full or overbooked.
Basic and advanced sailboard ratings are now available to show initial basic knowledge and more in-depth proficiency.
Two field trips were made to Nahant. This coming year, working on getting more equipment to accommodate demand.
- Commodore's Report/Sailing Team (Hanna Vincent)
Hard work, dedication, and a busy schedule have paid dividends with the Coed and Women's Sailing Teams, both very competitive last year and in the current Fall season. In Spring 2013, the Coed Team made it to Nationals (4th in the qualifying semifinals) and ended up finishing in 14th place (actually 12th in both A and B divisions). Meanwhile the Women's Team was just two places shy of a gaining a berth at Nationals.
Currently the Sailing World coaches poll ranks the Coed Team as 15th and the Women's Team as 11th in the nation after some fantastic performances in the first weeks of the season.
The Sailing Pavilion named a Tech Dinghy after Officer Sean Collier which was dedicated along with the other new Tech Dinghies this summer.
- Team Racing (Lianne Dusek)
Really successful year on Thursday nights. Team racing in Fireflies was very popular with an effort to balance experienced racers with others new to the format on each team. The boats are fun and highly maneuverable on the course.
- Tech Racing
Advanced Racing sessions were very competitive and busy to the point of creating wait-lists for Techs on many nights. Learn-to-Race was fairly successful in attracting a new group of racers (and a number of ringers). Thursday nights struggled to gain a regular set of dedicated sailors until near the end of the season - now that Team Racing is run in tandem most of the summer, need to consider ways to boost participation, possibly merging it earlier in the summer with an auxiliary Learn-to-Race session.
- Bluewater Report (Steve Bussolari)
Successful year on X Dimension. 109 MITNA members sailed on XD for a total of 250 person-days.
Participated in the Marblehead-Halifax race with a crew of six, followed by a weeklong trip down the Maine coast to return the boat to Boston.
Also three long weekend trips to Provincetown, and seven Lynx harbor day-trips (so far).
Congratulations to two newly qualified Bluewater Skippers: Scott Dynes and Adam Traina.
- Lynx Catboat
A Lynx catboat capsized and turtled last weekend in the river basin near CBI. Apparently they are very stable in that orientation. It required three motorboats to right even with the Sailing Master, coaches, and others on hand (web video available). Previously new Lynx skippers were told the boat had never capsized and was very unlikely to. Discussion about whether and how to disseminate this new information to skippers or whether it is worth altering the curriculum and procedures.
- Lynx Classes (Kenneth Sovie)
There were a record 27 Lynx Catboat classes held this year, bringing in more than 150 people to get their basic rating (with still a few more classes to go). Quite a few new instructors pitched in this year to make this possible and run smoothly.
- Learn to Sail (Eric Gibber, Tim Shepard)
Almost 700 people took the Sunday Learn-to-Sail class this summer. Needed to restrict to many fewer students than normal as the details of teaching classes in a new format are worked out. There is now more emphasis on getting immediate experience in rigging and sailing, with lecture time sprinkled throughout the class.
Wednesday classes also converted to a new format, and were able to pick up a lot of the slack and were regularly packed and often boat-limited. This year, class was limited to two segments, initial lecture/demos and Rig-Launch-Tack-Land practice (versus three in the past) - will want to explore options to better handle demand and possible followup classes next year.
A number of Firefly, Laser, and V15 classes were also run throughout the summer.
New videos for the Techs put together by Fran, Matt, and Stephanie this year have been very helpful as references.
- Sailing Master (Fran Charles)
Almost all of the new Tech Dinghies arrived this spring and into the summer and are now in service. Eventually we will have a total of 31.
Have added 6 stand-up paddleboards courtesy of the MIT Athletic Department. Sailors will need to get educated on basic safety and general guidelines on use prior to being allowed to take them out (using their MIT Sailing Card).
- Hatch Brown Service Award
Four worthy and dedicated sailors were approved to receive the 2013 Hatch Brown Service Award for their contributions to Sailing at MIT over many years of service:
Tim Shepard, Ted Young, Kenneth Sovie, and Keith Winstein.
Elections:
The following positions were elected for the 2013-2014 year (all nominees elected with no contest):
Commodore: Paresh Malalur
VC: Chloe Lepert
Secretary: Scarlett Koller
Treasurer: Rachel Reed
RC chair: John Pratt
Team Racing: Jeff Dusek
Members-At-Large: Stephanie Muto, David Strubbe, Tim Shepard, Bill Herrington, Steven Bussolari
Meeting was closed.
Organizers
Questions about this event should be directed to the organizer(s): MITNA Exec
