Page 12 - The First Ten Years

Indian Mound Park, only to have the application see no action. In this year, Sarasota County bought the property on Perry Street. We made appointments with each of the county commissioners to present our case for using the property as our home base. Craig Keller, Ellen Sogalow and I visited with each of the commissioners. In talks with John McCarthy, preliminary plans were put together to allow us to quietly move on to the site. Unfortunately, a couple of the residents of the area got wind of our efforts and made a very loud strong case that this would cause them great financial loss. The idea died on the vine. We continued to operate an organization worthy of support by Sarasota County. Chapter III Changing of the guard 2008 was a year of change. Bob Hill had resigned and Hugh Moore became treasurer. Ron Brewer took over as Safety Officer and made many positive changes. The footware policy was put into place and Ron stocked a box with acceptable foot ware for emergency use. He also developed our “base box” which we have as our base station. This unit includes a battery operated VHF radio for shore to boat communica- tion, a first aid kit, our lightning detector and other safety related items. John Clements earned the “Any Old Bird” award for a double grounding of his boat and John Newman’s boat going into Everglade City. This award had been a standby of the Rag Haulers and, without hesita- tion, we stole it for our use. The history of this award goes back to Russ Hayes getting in trouble in Boca Grande Pass. Russ called for help but could not remember the names of people on a boat sailing with him. In frustration Russ boomed over the radio, “Any Old Bird, come back!”. This award continues the tradi- tion of the sea that allows other sailors to tease you when you do something that is “just a little bit off center”. Subsequent recipients of this award include; Hugh Moore, John Newman, Charlie O’Donnell and John Richter. The Day Sail Divas continued to expand activities. Membership continues to grow in this important seg- ment of our organization. Moving into 2009 Andy Paine was elected treasurer and Charlie O’Donnell was elected secretary. Sailor of the year went to Tyler Kaub and member of the year was John Richter. We expanded awards given. At this point, I felt that it was time to have an infusion of new blood and new management skills into the organization. We were able to gain more and more of Hugh’s time from his other interests. With all of these factors in place, I decided that it was in the best interest of the organization that I step down as president. In February of 2009 I submitted my resignation as President of Englewood Sailing Associa- tion, Inc. to the Board of Directors with the recommendation that we appoint Hugh Moore as interim president until the election of new officers in the fall. My resignation and recommendations were ac- cepted by the board. Somehow some greater force must have been working because we made the transition very smoothly with minimal disruption. Within two months I would have an accident at work with complications that would put me on the disabled list for the next two years. Handing “my baby” to someone else was not easy. At times, when I wanted to come on strong, I had to back off and say to myself “Hugh is now in charge. Be supportive. Be positive. Be an asset not a liability.” Hugh proceeded to manage our organization in a methodical, organized, manner. After a transitional period, Hugh came into his own. In this period we looked at our accumulation of photographs and de- cided to produce a compact disc about the organization. I had the pleasure of developing the story line and script for the copy and voice over. Arnie selected all of the slides. Joe Chan did the mechanics of putting it together and Charlie O’Donnell did the “voice over”. For background music we used a steel