SPSC Club Meeting Minutes – Tuesday, June 9, 2026

 

The Club meeting was held in the usual back room at District 850.  (One of these days someone will get the sign outside the door changed to read, “Shell Point Sailboard Club” instead of “Shellpoint Sailboard Club.”)  The room was pleasantly full with a total of 22 Club members attending.  As mentioned in a prior Club e-mail Bob Graves had brought a quantity of spare stemless wine glasses and insulated plastic cups with SPSC regatta logos on them and put them on the tables along the front wall for anyone who wanted them.  There were many takers.  

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Commodore Rick Upson called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. 

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Commodore’s Report: Rick welcomed the attendees and said he hoped everyone took advantage of the free drinkware.  He then repeatedly apologized for being tech challenged as he had mistakenly attached the Board Meeting Minutes instead of the Club Meeting minutes to e-mails he sent out before he got the correct attachment to attach.

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Vice-Commodore’s Report: Vaughan Williams felt it appropriate to first move to approve the minutes from the last Club meeting. Since Bailey hadn’t arrived yet, who probably would have moved to approve them by acclamation, the motion was seconded, “aye’s” were voiced, and the motion declared passed.  Vaughan then gave kudos to the Board for the work done on the Constitution revisions, and he wished Bailey was here so he could congratulate him on getting the nice business cards made which were complete with “Sic Semper Erat,” the new logo, and a QR code on the back.  Examples were passed around which received universal approval.  Vaughan also gave kudos to the Racing crew--John, Stan, and others their boats in setting up the markers and helping with other tasks.  Bob Graves also recognized his appreciation for Tina (Teensie) for identifying people and writing their names down.

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Scribe/Past Commodore’s Report:  Stated “IAGN.”

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Purser’s Report:  Bob Graves listed the amounts that were in the bank account, cash, the PayPal account, the CD, and gave the total amount of Club funds, which seemed healthy.  The insurance bill for the year wasn’t in yet which was expected to be hefty.  Bob said he now had a Club debit card which was nice because Amazon doesn’t take PayPal.  (Jack May cat-called something about “segregation of duties.”)  Bob said he wanted to move some more money into a CD.  He then said the five new booms that had recently been approved and purchased were very nice, and Perry mentioned that they really made a difference.  Bob said that the Club had 89 members.

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Ryne Least, who was absent in body, was nonetheless represented in spirit by his wife Laura who was present, and, speaking on his behalf, stated that his report was “IAGN” and that he further reported that “wife not at fault” for why he was absent.

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Commodore Rick then discussed the Board’s recent edits to the Constitution, stating that they were just tweaks mostly, that not much changed, they got rid of some committees.  Vaughan chimed in and said we got rid of some superfluous stuff and that now it’s more streamlined.  Kudos were acknowledged to Deb for getting the last-minute revised Constitution in the Newsletter.  Bob Graves then thanked the previous Constitution Committee—“Digger” Dave Denmark, Tina, and (someone else).  Dave seemed to be surprised that he had been on it and after some reflection asked where his salary for having done that was.  Commodore Rick said it’s the second time the Club has amended the Constitution, and that the Club will vote on this amendment at the Club’s Annual Business Meeting in September, which will require a quorum of at least 25% of the membership; that would be the same meeting where we will elect new Board members. 

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Rick also discussed the award we received from the Sailors of the Sea organization for the admirable measures taken to help make the Smith Regatta a “clean” regatta, meaning one with low environmental impact.  The measures included using kegs at the Beer Truck instead of serving canned or bottled beer and using recyclable aluminum beer cups instead of single-use plastic cups.  Rick stated we’ll do more in this regard in future regattas, taking small, incremental steps.  He pointed out that the little triangular “RECYCLE” symbols on the bottoms of plastic items were more or less deceptive tricks by the oil companies to make people think single-use plastic items were “OK” because they’re recyclable, where the reality is that only about 5% of those plastics are ever actually recycled, even those placed into recycling containers, and 95% ends up in landfills or randomly spread throughout the environment (including the ocean).  Rick announced he’s looking for people to be on the “Green Team” to assist us in this endeavor.  Jack May piped up and nominated Digger Dave to be the Club’s Lorax. Chris Lane volunteered to be on the Green Team.  Rick said he would call Sailors of the Sea to get some ideas on other things we could do.  Things to think about included having different bins available, such as a composting bin, and maybe using silverware if possible could later be washed rather than plasticware which just got thrown away.

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Rick then discussed the upcoming Endless Summer regatta, of which he is the Chair, noting that it’s coming up fast, and he opened the floor to the discussion of ideas concerning it.  Bob Graves suggested that maybe we make merchandise as an added option instead of just offering T-shirts as part of the registration fee.  Joe Sisson suggested “hot pants,” which got a chuckle from the male members who had reached puberty by 1974 who likely had fond memories of that interesting but short-lived fashion trend.  Rose Lane asked if there was a minimum number of items that had to be ordered, and Bob said no, the minimums were just to be able to get a quantity discount on items which wasn’t really much of a discount anyway, so we could just order however many different items we wanted to offer.  Digger Dave asked if we could have pre-stained shirts as an option.  In the end Bob said we should have a better idea of what optional merch we might offer by the Atlanta Fall Classic. 

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Rick said it’s never too early to look for sponsors for the Endless Summer regatta, so be thinking about it.  He said he will send out information on that, including a tier of amounts for different levels of contribution and what the sponsors get, such as having a logo on the back of the regatta shirt.  He also reminded everyone to be asking various people and businesses for swag and door prize stuff that we raffle away at the Saturday night dinner.

 

Bob returned to the topic of the Constitution revision, stating that we got rid of a second signature requirement that was unused and outdated, got rid of several committees that didn’t exist and may have never existed, and got rid of a discounted “non-resident membership category” that was virtually never used except long ago by one “cheap bastard.”  Vaughan Williams chimed in that there had been numerous grammatical problems in the Constitution which caused Microsoft Co-Pilot to light up about every other sentence in it.  These were all fixed now. 

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Rick observed that joining our club was a great deal since just about every other Yacht or Sailing club he’s ever heard of charged at least $500 per year.  Vaughan glanced around the room and archly quipped “if we charged that we’d have a different crew than this.”

 

Deb mentioned that she wanted to be involved in whatever event details we were going to have for the Endless Summer regatta.

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Rick announced that two awards would be given to the Past Commodore/Scribe Ted Avellone, which were presented by Bob Graves.  Ted was very appreciative over these unexpected awards and stated he would hang them up in his office at work.

   

Rick proceeded to the topic of upcoming events.  Rum & Root Beer of August 16th was first discussed, where he noted that Laura and Rose were co-chairs, who, being very experienced and brimming with imaginative exuberance, were expected by all to come up interesting and memorable games.  Digger Dave cried out “Tater Drop.”  (The Scribe dutifully recorded this utterance at the time but did not know its meaning; only after the meeting did he receive a detailed, graphic, and demonstrative explanation of its meaning by Laura and Digger Dave.)  Other events and their dates were briefly discussed, all of which were accurately set forth in the Agenda.

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Rick then asked the members to please send him ideas for the T-shirt design, as he, as Commodore, is theoretically in charge of what the design is going to be.  Bob Andrews (Baab) offered that maybe, given that this being 2026, the 250th year of American independence, we might want to have something on the design acknowledging that, but nothing MAGA-related.  Rick quickly retorted that he absolutely did not want anything MAGA-related on the design.  In the end it was not clear whether a reference to the country’s 250th milestone might be construed as MAGA.  What appears clear though is that some of the submissions to Rick are likely to be AI-created designs prominently featuring Trump/MAGA/Gulf of America themes just to mess with him.

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Deb Berlinger mentioned that last year we tried a new registration method, which cost 4% more than the method we used the previous year, and asked if we wanted to do it the new way or go back to the old way.  She said that one day she’ll be gone, and whatever way is easiest for someone to be able to pick up what she does is what we should consider, saying it’s up to us what we wanted to do.

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Rick offered that some businesses are giving discounts for people paying with cash or checks, and that maybe we wanted to consider that.  The Scribe observed that Bob Graves’ glasses were nearly ejected outwards from his face due to centrifugal force caused by the rapid back-and-forth movements of his head.  After brief consideration this idea was deemed too complicated and was dropped.

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Digger Dave, Club Ambassador, talked up how great the recent Shoals trip was, noting that despite there being short advance notice of its occurrence there were 31 heads in the water that afternoon.  (A “Shoals trip” refers to various members hauling people in their boats to the Ochlocknee Shoals, a shallow sandy area out in the bay about 12 miles south of Shell Point where people could lounge around in the shallows and socialize.)  He stated he wanted to get as many new members as possible to attend the next one as it was a great way for people to get to know each other. Someone referred to him “the Mayor of Ochlocknee Shoals.” 

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Bob Graves announced that the Board meetings have been moved from Tuesdays to Wednesdays so Bailey would be able to attend them.

 

Sandy dimmed the lights and Bob rose and announced that we would now watch a video presentation which consisted of two short videos.  The first was a pleasant slideshow-type display of a series of photos taken at the Smith Regatta, featuring high quality colorful pictures of numerous racers on their boards and other pleasant beach scenes. 

In contrast the second video had a forensic feel to it, featuring a Zapruder-esque film clip of a historic and controversial event where each of the viewers seemed to have their own interpretation of what they were seeing.  The only thing everyone could agree on was that it showed two sailboarders near each other going in the same direction, and then one (whom for confidentiality purposes we shall call Pee-Wee) dropped his sail and collapsed in a sad crumpling slow-motion fall while the other, evidently stronger and more able sailor (whom we shall call She-Ra) maintained her wits, assuredly held her stance, was believed to have said to Pee-Wee, “how does that boom taste?” and continued on to victory.  The palpable tension and electrically-charged atmosphere in the room was due to the fact that Pee-Wee and She-Ra were both physically present at the meeting and trading barbs, accusations and counter-accusations.  Acrimonious debate among the present members ensued, with some ridiculing other’s theories as being dependent on a “magic mast” able to miraculously move in three directions at once, while still others questioned the deceptive perspective of the videographer who may have been on the “oyster-shell knoll.”  In the end, Bob pointed out that that’s the kind of fun we have at the Sunday Racing Series races, so come on out to the next ones.

   

The meeting adjourned at 8:03 pm.