From the Secretary:

This drizzly day brought a good turnout.

President Bill called the meeting to order and discussed the change in dates and venue for the fall meeting. NEIYA had to move their meeting to a new date, Sunday November 19. The CIBC meeting does not align with the new date, and Dave Fortier’s house does not follow logically as a location for people traveling from the NEIYA meeting. Damariscotta Lake Farm was the new location for this fallSan. It is also a whole-house B and B in the winter for those wishing to stay for several days of iceboating.

Access to the lake from Lake Farm is still allowed via the beach.

Scouting is a cooperative effort. Bill asks any iceboaters to check ponds and lakes near them and to report back to him.

The club welcomes new members, among them Steve Zizza and Amy Steele, Brian McNiff and Sandy, Bruce Dow, Brian DeWolf.

Bill introduces the idea of posting the roster online, password protected, as a way to make the roster more accessible when iceboating, rather than relying on hard copies. He notes that Secretary Curtis struggles to find content for the newsletter since the day-to-day sailing events and stories are all reported online via the website. Curtis seconds the idea. John Stanton thinks modifying the website to include it should be no problem.

Dave Fortier discusses his efforts at archiving race results over the years. He is doing it via documents and hard copies. Once finalized perhaps that could be moved to the website as well.

Awards: President Buchholz presents the Warner St. Clair Award, originally for the highest points in racing over the course of a winter but now repurposed as an Iceboater Appreciation Award, to John Stanton for all his work and consistent support of the website.

Discussions follow on the weather and ice, with a note that because of last years warm winter, trucks and snowmobiles did not venture out on the ice, thus it was much smoother.

Once again, the club discusses how to attract younger iceboaters to the sport. Tom Nichols notes that he got into it at a very young age because his father was an iceboater. Chris Conary notes that when he was working it was a very rare day when he had ice, wind, and a day off. Bill Buchholz observes that because the nature of the sport requires the flexibility to chase ice and wind on any given day, most people don’t start to have that flexibility until they are into their fifties, with kids off to college and a car that works, so that is when they can get into iceboating. That demographic makes up most of the new blood of the sport, and they fill in as older iceboaters age out of it.

Secretary Rindlaub reads Treasurer Gagnon’s report, since Jim was unable to attend the meeting.

Meeting is adjourned, followed by a bountiful potluck.

Meanwhile in Mass, dear old Long Lake Lakeville had ice this morning, as reported by Doug Sharp.

This lake south of Boston used to be a major New England venue, but warmer winters has kept it out of the loop lately. Let’s hope this is the year we get it back.