Wednesday, 18th March 2020
CORRESPONDENCE TO MEMBERS via email on Wednesday 18 March
Dear Members,
The SYC General Committee met last night to decide on how we should best respond to the Coronavirus situation.
We have a diverse facility with many stakeholders who use the Club for very different reasons, some recreational, sporting, social and or commercial / industry type reasons. Some of these activities involve gatherings, and some of our stakeholders use it for singular recreational purposes. Some just like mucking around on their boat. We have endeavoured to be considerate in the face of a raft of uncertainties.
Please note the following outcomes and implications to Club facilities, activities and Member services – all of which are subject to further Government announcements, the latest of which was 9am this morning, and ongoing advice;
- The Clubhouse will discontinue food and beverage trading immediately.
- Our Marina will remain accessible 24/7 on an ongoing basis to our Member tenants. Members will be free to make personal choices about their recreational use and access to their vessels. Boats visiting from other clubs will be welcomed but advised to defer any social trips that involve onsite gatherings. Boats arriving to enter the boat yard or requiring fuel will naturally be welcomed. Furthermore, SYC has always prided itself on being a safe harbour to boats or people on the water in distress – this will absolutely continue. Our launch ramp will continue to be accessible 24/7 providing unhindered access to our Members with authorised access e.g. those who chose to go fishing at 4am may continue to do so.
- Our Boat Yard Operations will remain open for business, for now including the travel lift. The open air boat yard will trade Mon-Sat and keep the travel lift in operation. Those staff will also respond to any Marina related matters. The eight onsite tenants & contractors we approached yesterday have advised they will be operating business as usual if Members require their services.
Various On-Water activities
- Recreational and or private use of Members boats will remain a personal choice for Members. And this is applicable to vessels not just in the marina, but also off the beach and the hardstand areas. It also applies to Members who keep their vessels off-site and use our launch ramp.
- In terms of organised racing, subject to volunteer availability we will run the scheduled races this week on our keelboat program including todays Wednesday Wonders, Thursday Twilight and Saturday aggregate. Any racing beyond this Sunday is unlikely but will be reviewed over the coming days. There will be no pre-race gatherings encouraged and no prize giving in the bar afterwards.
- Our off the beach will run their on-water activities through till Sundays race. Junior development squad programs this Sunday have been cancelled. There will be no pre-race or post-race gatherings.
- Our recreational boating group have a small event this Sunday which will currently proceed – the fleet is expected to be 7-10 boats, 2 up.
- The Women in Sailing program scheduled for this Sunday will be subject to volunteer availability and willing competitors. We are in dialogue with the other Club stakeholders today.
- Our Training & Academy Activities are partially cancelled & or winding down. Our school programs have been cancelled and all classroom activity is also cancelled. Our clubhouse based training e.g. radio courses in a confined room are also cancelled. Our after school, holiday programs and weekend courses at this stage will run to run up until the end of the 22/3.
On general matters we have also agreed all sub-committee meetings, if non-essential will be deferred. If they are absolutely essential we will conduct them where possible over the phone.
It should be emphasised that these decisions will be constantly reviewed and amended as appropriate. We have a wide range of other issues that we need to deal with and we will work through these as best we can, and as soon as we can.
For further information, please contact either myself or the CEO Richard Hewett for any further information.
I implore all of you as my fellow Members to stick with the Club during the coming months, we will need your unconditional and full support to ensure the Club’s livelihood moving forward.
Warm Regards,
Ashley Trebilcock
Commodore