2024 Social Events

Our social director Tom is putting together a few outings this winter while we wait for our warmer weather to return. He also has a number of events planned throughout the summer but more details to come.

On Sat Feb 17th we’re catching a local band called Capital Beatles at Buster’s Bar & Grill, tickets are $11.98 and can be purchased from their event link here. If you’re interested in going please RSVP to Tom directly.

If there is enough interest, sometime in March he will be organizing a snowshoe outing in Gatineau, which will take members for a 1hr guided loop ending at a nice bistro. If you’re interested in joining them please let Tom know.

2023 Annual Meeting & Highlights of the Year

This may have been a first: the meeting was held at the Britannia Yacht Club due to a “scheduling kerfuffle” at NSC.  Sweet digs! We spent little time admiring, and got down to business.

Commodore Corinne oversaw a Very Very Good year. A few of the highlights touched on at the Annual Meeting below. The entire 2023 KSC AGM presentation can be found online here.

Financial Statements

KSC Financials are looking healthy, and we have hopes and dreams to build on this going forward. There were some minor issues with the CRA but the purser will have those sorted soon. We’re entering into 2024 in a very strong position in no small part due to the grants awarded to the club.

Grants

Fantastic news, we look forward to delivery of our new floating dock in the spring of 2024. The Ontario Trillium Foundation is generously funding this essential infrastructure to support community need for access to recreational facilities on the waterfront in Dunrobin/West March. We call for a party to recognize this OTF Grant in the spring! See the news item on our previous post: New Dock Coming in Spring 2024.

Harbourmaster Steve and Training Director Ken shared instructors’ feedback that the club’s RS Quests were easily the most popular, versatile family-friendly boats that KSC owned, and we could do with more. Having two more would allow members to sail their favourite boat recreationally even while classes were going on. We invested in number four in September, and we have applied for an Ontario Trillium Foundation grant to purchase the fifth. We’ll know by late February.

KSC has received over $146k in grants over the last 3 years, huge thank you to the volunteers who’ve made that happen!

Membership

Membership has grown! Counting every single head, KSC membership stood at 135… a recent record! Another reason we really need two more RS Quests. Single & Family memberships are up this year, and a new member survey results were positive overall.

Comms/Web

Lots of website cleanup and a new membership/training sign-up form was setup for 2023. There are quite a few website updates planned for 2024, if you see any pages that could use some sprucing up please contact Devin our website director.

Site

Members re-shingled the clubhouse roof in a single weekend in late September. If we’d known it was going to be such a source of merriment, we’d have done it sooner. Shout-out to Capital Services of Stittsville who provided much-appreciated expertise and labour-saving heavy equipment.  We were fortunate on the day of the big push, in that the winds were as low as they could be at 0 knots gusting to 2… Great for roof work… Tragic for sailing. 

Hydro-Ottawa first teased us by installing new poles in April. Then we waited…In Hydro’s defence, the May derecho redirected their manpower, and then they went on strike for 3 months during which time KSC was not a high priority.  But, in early November, Hydro completed the final touches, energized the lines, and voila! Hydro is back.

Training

Learn-to-Sail adult and junior training programs went extremely well with seasoned instructors Heidi and Connor at the helm, both of whom are moving on in their lives and careers. Our pleasure at this is bittersweet, as we will miss them and their calm expertise. New instructors will be needed for next year, if you know of anyone who would be interested (and has their CANSAIL training certificate) please contact Corinne & Carla, the new training directors.

Also if you notice new green tags on the board this is a new category for members who’ve completed their first cat sailing course and are eligible to sail the RS Cat 16s. Once they have some experience on those they can take a more advanced cat course to get their red tags for sailing the Hobie 18s.

Harbourmaster

Fleet renewal has had a very positive impact on the club & membership. A RS Quest was purchased at a steep discount at the end of last year and as mentioned we are applying for another grant to purchase our fifth Quest this year.

KSC also welcomed a sporty 470 to the fleet at the end of the season. This boat was a donation (thank you!) and enthusiastically refurbished. It’s a technical boat, and a blast for experienced sailors.

The RS Cat 16 has had warranty repair to its hull and will be back for 2024 season.

A very sweet white Kevlar canoe was donated to the club, and is another item available to all members. On low wind days, it’s an option if you aren’t in the mood for low-wind practice.

Social

Social Sailing events contended with the full range of challenging wind conditions, high to low, but we enjoyed outings to Aylmer Beach, Pinhey’s Point, and Twelve Mile Island to boot. One particularly memorable September event was cannily re-branded as a high wind monohull training session, with plenty of capsize recovery practice.  Beehive manoeuvres, anyone? Sailpast offered fine winds, and Commodore Corinne continued the grand tradition of offering a non-denominational, even secular blessing to the fleet as it sailed past under fine control. The new tradition of BBQ suckling piglet was repeated, and as every part of the animal was well-received, we’re likely to continue. Tony’s roasting program is spectacular. After dinner, two facilitators, Bianca and Barbara, arranged entertainment and made certain that we got to know each other a little better. Bravo: we’d like a repeat!

Sailing

There 6 race nights and 11 races total, unfortunately weather didn’t cooperate well this year but fingers crossed for the 2024 season.

You can find race & regatta award results on our post KSC Awards and Race Results.

Trivia!

The absolute sailing season this year extended for a total of 204 days (almost 7 months), from April 15 to Nov 4 inclusive. October 27 would have made a spectacular last day, with winds gusting up to 28 knots. Only one experienced sailor ventured out and enjoyed 4 near capsizes in a Laser, discouraging the pair of wafflers on shore. That might have been the last day, but the water was still warm enough for obsessive types in wetsuits who ventured out November 4 in forgiving winds. 

KSC Members Facebook Group

If you haven’t yet joined our private Facebook page, consider it. The name of the page is “Kanata Sailing Club Members” and is available to past/present members. It’s where you can post KSC experiences and news you want to share, or announce your interest in having company when heading out sailing / hiking / skating, whatever. 

Make sure we can recognize your name! If KSC knows you as Paul, but your Facebook name is unknown to us, lend us a hand figuring out the connection. If you’ve requested to join and we haven’t replied please send Mike our membership director a reminder.

Governance Items

Outgoing Directors: Ken, Rob and Mike

We are losing two long-term directors, Ken Skublics and Rob Zgraggen, who merit standing ovations for their outstanding direction at a difficult time.  

You may not have known this, but Rob opened members’ eyes to the dire straits we were in, in the “before-times”, calling for action in no uncertain terms. The club appreciates his directness, as it was so valuable in challenging times. Rob served as Purser for three critical years, starting in 2020, and hands over a healthy reserve to the incoming board! 

“Not so much a directorship, more of a lifestyle choice” is a fair description of the KSC Training Director’s role. Ken served as Training Director for four years, and training, you should know, is the front-line mission for the club. Things happen that must be handled, and tough calls made, and Ken was there with the swift well-balanced decision. People needed information, often the same information more than once, and Ken made himself (patiently) available. To give you an inkling of the job, two people will be taking it over now that he’s retiring from the position. If we could just remember the details of his decision-making process and bottle some of his reliability, we’d be solid.

Ken, and Rob: thank you both so much for setting us up for success. What we do with that generous set-up is up to the new board now.

Mike Reece is formally leaving the Sailing/Racing Director position, but we hope he volunteers to return in future to implement his plans. This year, he had to focus on immediate issues, and hand-off this year’s racing agenda to Acting Sailing director, Carla Millar. We so appreciate that Carla stepped in to run the racing program in 2023, not to mention her design of the newest trophy.  We’re fortunate that Carla has agreed to second our new training director this year. As mentioned above, that’s a big ask.

New Board of Directors for 2024

Commodore – General Inquiries	Deb McPhedran	commodore@kanatasailingclub.com
Vice-Commodore	Tim Stahl	vicecommodore@kanatasailingclub.com
Membership	Mike Lepard	membership@kanatasailingclub.com
Training	Corinne Civalleri & Carla Millar	training@kanatasailingclub.com
Instructor	(varies)	instructor@kanatasailingclub.com
Site	Tony Hendrikx	site@kanatasailingclub.com
Social	Tom Neumann	social@kanatasailingclub.com
Harbourmaster	Steve Harrington	harbourmaster@kanatasailingclub.com
Purser	Genevieve Segu	purser@kanatasailingclub.com
Website/Comms	Devin Linnington	web@kanatasailingclub.com
Sailing	Jason McKenna	sailing@kanatasailingclub.com
Corporate Secretary	Olivier Clerc	corporate@kanatasailingclub.com

Worthy of note is that three new/relatively new club members with plenty of experience, either sailing or board position experience, have agreed to join the new board: Tim, Genevieve, and Olivier. We are very excited to have them.  Sailing (aka Racing) is also looking very interesting with Jason returning to direct us. Corinne and Carla will brilliantly cover training challenges, starting with finding new instructors. If anybody knows a potential candidate, do not hesitate to reach out to them.

Let’s welcome back returning board members Mike, Tony, Tom, Steve and Devin in the same roles, but now to fulfill their plans for world domination.

Strategic Planning Committee

• Anne-Marie Miller: Lead
• Genevieve Segu
• Corinne Civalleri

What do we cherish most about the club, and should we make moves to preserve those aspects? Can you see particular challenges ahead? Where do we want to go from here? We’ll hear from the members of this committee in 2024, asking us questions like that. The aim is to tap into members’ knowledge, inspiration and hopes to guide the club’s direction the following five years: 2025-2030.  

By-Laws Committee

• Tim Stahl: Lead
• Liz Prentice-Hudson
• Jean Mullan
• Deb McPhedran

Our by-laws, articles of incorporation, and related policy items require updating to meet current governance requirements. We’re highly motivated to complete these, particularly the bylaw update, to retain control of the details, and prevent the application of boilerplate government-authored bylaws instead. You’ll be hearing from this committee too, as special meetings will be required for your votes.

Safe Sport Team

• Carla Millar: Lead
• Olivier Clerc: Screening Officer

Treat others well. Don’t be inappropriate. There are safeguards in place, and rules and repercussions around this matter. The club will continue to advance a respectful sport culture that delivers quality, inclusive, accessible, welcoming and safe sport experiences.

Looking Forward to 2024

With the line-up of volunteers above, and all the generous ongoing volunteer efforts we continue to enjoy, the Kanata Sailing Club is poised for a sparkling 2024! 

To all members and their loved ones: Fair Winds and Following Seas! See you on the water!

Deb McPhedran, Commodore

(And a huge thanks to Jean for her help putting this newsletter together -ed)

Land acknowledgement

The Kanata Sailing Club is located on the traditional, unceded territory of the Anishnaabe Algonquin nation. We are guests on this land, and commit to honoring these peoples, lands and waters.