Description | Results

Annual MITNA Meeting

Wed 13-Dec-2023

17:00-19:00

Results

MITNA Notes 12/13/2023
Meeting began 5:12pm Adjourned 6:21pm

• Bluewater report:
o Sails: overall successful, went South of Canal, didn’t go to Maine, very active camaraderie group

o Repairs: Many new additions, continuing to fix electronics, Dion has been met with to do repairs

o Trainings: Zach, who is graduating soon has been doing many trainings with Libby, looking for more skippers

o Many training – driver Zach(graduating soon), leaving, put together training with Libby

o Regattas: Mashnee won the Flip Flop regatta, C class o Spring: no IAP class, but many classes in the spring

• Reports on racing: o Tech racing:

▪ Spring: 41 races, 44 individuals total
▪ Summer: weather suboptimal, 87 people total, 93 races

(normal is 115), many new sailors, ran out of techs every

Tuesday due to high demand
▪ Fall: weather suboptimal, 36 races, 39 people
▪ Overall: good mix of age and ability

o Team racing

▪ Improving from last year: 99 individuals, up 15 from last year(significant)
- several high schoolers, averaging 4 teams a week(3 boats per team)
- volunteers for RC every week
- potentially expanding out past Boston area next year
▪ Timeline: 3 months(started earlier), last weekend was end of august, not enough interest in September

• Report on Learn to Sail

o Midweek series – 3-day series:

▪ Very good weather and good help, including encouraging friends, family, etc. to come down and sail
▪ Timeline: 1st week was mid April(typical), 2 weeks after opening, this year

• 24 weeks through end of September

▪ Midweek alone had 575 new sailors, 400 brand new, 75 from intro for experienced sailors.
▪ Many volunteer-taught catboat classes o Intermediate

▪ Goals: To go onto the next step after learn to sail, teach people to sail well upwind and downwind, improve boat handling, coaching focused, focus on weather, telltales, finding wind, tiller extension, etc.
▪ Classes limited to 8, some people returned for more coaching, some continued onto learn to race(420, laser, foiling boats), most got a provisional afterwards
▪ Logistics: 2 classes a week, 6-8 per week, 150-175 people this year
▪ Looking forwards: Help could be useful next season to expand (limited this year due to time/tester)

o Sunday

▪ Logistics: 16 classes, 20-30 per class, just over 400 people total, Start middle of May, run until Labor Day weekend
▪ Leading to Provisionals – about 2-3 each day
▪ Interest in other boats: not just lynx, a lot of laser/420 classes
- 13 420 classes (1-8 people)
- 17 laser classes (most ever), all 8 lasers out on one day
- Informal teaching of Waszp, 29er, UFO
  
  o 950 new people between Sunday and midweek

o 1636 active memberships, last year only 943 since mid July

Report on Windsurfing:
o Logistics: 26 classes starting June 9th, ran through mid-October, 130 people total, 6 advanced classes (including a visit from former polish Olympic windsurfer), 10 different instructors
Report on High Performance boats (Waszp, 29er, etc)

o UFO: boat needs a lot of repairs (80% of time fixing)
o Waspz: Easier than UFO and stronger than moth, only a dowel pin lost and a 5 people waiting to sail if above 8 knots

o Logistics: 20 people trying UFO and Waspz
o 29er: new mast section, new people unrelated to team/pavilion that took good care of boat

o Boats getting use outside of usual demographic, shows need for designated people to take care of within group • Report by Dockmaster

o On track for record setting year
o Rentals: lot of rain and cancellations, 100 events, mostly on roof deck, but occasionally on grill, same revenue at 2019 – 55,000$ o Sailing events on dock: normally 300, last year had 100, this year had 400 events, more variety in events

o Summer learn to race: 8 weeks, 20 people or so

o Learn to race taught in fall Fridays at noon: time caused lower participation, 5-6 consistent people, attendees moved into tech racing

• Report by Sailing Master o Personnel Changes:

▪ Fran retired in June after 30 year career: had send off in May
▪ New cohead coach Caroline Young started in august
▪ Dan tucker started in March: weekend dock master

o Both women’s and open ranked top 10 nationally
o Membership numbers: in 2023 - 2900 members(similar to before covid)

o Spring: 2024 ICSA nationals championships, hosting with Harvard – April 25th-April 29th and May 20th-May 27th

▪ May impact some regular sailing activities, will attempt normal operation outside of racing hours.
▪ limited recreational sailing, no normal classes on those weeknights.
▪ This is a large undertaking and will show off facility/team.

o Budget: rental revenue strong, renegotiated contracts(incremental increases), diversified revenue streams

▪ Most of budget increase spent on full time positions

▪ Standardize within areas of MITNA, have meetings to understand needs of each group

o Fundraising:

▪ Fran Charles head coach endowment
▪ naming 420s(8 named), $12,500 to name, $37,500 more to endowment o Winter work:

▪ 3 catboat masts replaced, need to replace at least 1 more, hinge masts not available they were custom, may impact harbor trips in catboat(need bridges to open rather than go under), 2 hinge masts working in fleet
▪ Techs: centerboards and rudders breaking, Jibe Tech RI producing replacements and spares, replaced 6 of each, 5 built each and need to be picked up, reglassing all thwarts
▪ FJs: New jibs
o Website: waiting for approval to proceed and spend money

▪ next phase is to create the website in word press and transfer info
▪ Goal: find more functions and increase responsiveness, phone accessibility

• Report on MITNA website
o meeting soon to identify goals/plan

o Timeline: month or two behind planned timeline, goal is to have new website by opening day

• Report by Sailing Team Captains:
o coed 11th at Fleet Race nationals, women’s 8th at Fleet Race nationals, women’s 4th at TR

o New personnel: Caroline, Jasper, anna
o 9 new freshman sailors
o Results: won Smith trophy and Toni Deutsch, qualified for both

Atlantic Coast Championships, 7th at Schell trophy, 3rd at Urn trophy, 5th at Nickerson, top 3 at a decent amount of B level events

o Postseason: captain’s practices till November, team racing talks, team meetings, helping derig the fleet

o Overall Rankings: Women are 8th, Coed are 9th nationally

o Sailing team helped derig

Report by the Commodore

o Thank you to everyone, has been a calm year
Nominations for the Hatch Brown Service Award for 2023

o Nominated – Zach Berzolla, Cassiano Alves
o Zach – Bluewater program, Mashnee, run most of the trainings, finishing up at MIT, moving on in Spring, above and beyond over many years including learn to sail

o Cassiano – teaches someone new daily, brings people from all walks of life

Elections

• Commodore
o Exec officer – organize and preside over meetings. o Nominated: Lucy Brock
o Elected: Lucy Brock

• Vice
o Help commodore.

o Nominated: Lucas Escandon

o Elected: Lucas Escandon

Secretary

o Take notes, edit them and send to commodore. o Nominated: Samantha Karlson
o Elected: Samantha Karlson
Treasurer

o Deals with budgets – zero dollars, involved as much as wanted by talking to Matt

o Nominated: Gavin Neal West, Julius Heitkoetter o Elected: Julius Heitkoetter

• Member at Large
o Duty is appreciating sailing pavilion, support MITNA and executive board, give opinions, stay part of community.

o Nominated: Peter Stasiowski, Yichi Zhang, Alex Bost, Trevor Long, Cassiano Alves

o Elected: Peter Stasiowski, Yichi Zhang, Alex Bost, Trevor Long, Cassiano Alves

• Fleet Race Chair

o oversees evening fleet racing, make sure race committee and courses, explain to new people how it/scoring works, score races

o Nominated: John Pratt

o Elected: John Pratt • Team Race Chair

o laid out above in fleet racing, reach out to teams/individuals, organizing, finding RC, rig boats, courses races, rules, coordinate for CRO

o Nominated: Zach Shapiro o Elected: Zach Shapiro

Organizers

Questions about this event should be directed to the organizer(s): MITNA Exec