First sailing day marred by wind

THE South Gippsland Yacht Club held its open day at Inverloch on Sunday, to mark the start of another sailing season.
The very windy conditions meant few boats took to the water; however it was still a successful day.
In his opening speech, commodore Allan Driver reflected on the clubs current and past members who have learnt to sail at the club, and become successful at state, national and international events.
“Since I joined the club around 20 years ago, I have been welcomed by all members, both now and in the past,” he said.
“I hope we can continue to operate in a fun loving way while developing our members of all ages, but particularly our junior members.”
Mr Driver’s plans for the future include increasing membership and to pay more attention to the club’s history, which he said should be recorded.
Alan Gostelow is the chairman of the Inverloch and District Community Bank, and was the special guest speaker at the event.
He talked to the club about how community banks raise their funds.
“The Inverloch and District Community Bank has raised $280,000 since our inception. Community groups can assist us to raise more by encouraging their members to bank with us,” he said.
“For each dollar of profit we raise, 80 per cent goes back into the community and the remaining 20 per cent goes to share holders, who are predominantly local.
“This means all of the capital is kept within the community.”
The club has around 80 members, quite a few of which are families.
Committee member Tim Wilson said the membership is gradually building up, which is good news particularly as similar yacht clubs have folded in the recent past.
“Our membership seems to be building, which has largely come about through the promotion of our children’s sailing programs,” he said.
“Our normal sailing day is Sunday, but we do have a lot of extra days during the Christmas period as it suits holiday makers.
“The majority of our club members are local, but a number of people are based around Melbourne as well.”
The club will sail each Sunday from now until early May.

Best spot: from left, Oscar Llewellyn, Grace Biram, Abbey Argus-Smith and Ava Biram from Inverloch weren’t too keen to leave dry land on Sunday.

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Posted by Sarah Vella on Nov 4 2014. Filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry