Merry Xmas from Commodore Andy Henderson

On behalf of the MYC Board, Merry Christmas to you and to your family. I hope your Christmas time will be full of joy, fine weather and lots of fun on the water.

Your club is celebrating 50 years. It’s an amazing achievement to think that we have reached this anniversary and have so much to look forward to.

The past year has been busy with lots of sailing and gradual changes in the administration environment at The Wharf. Many members have done the club proud with their sailing results in Brisbane, intrastate, interstate and overseas.

Our youth have taken the club name interstate and represented us proudly. James Hodgson and his Sunshine Coast Sailing Team have been outstanding in both their performances and their maturity in the tough match racing competition.

Our volunteers have been outstanding both on the water and on the land. Thank you to each and everyone for their enthusiasm and dedication.

For those members involved in dinghy competition over the Christmas break I wish them well and look forward to sharing your results with all the club members. For those of you heading south in the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race, I hope you reach Tasmania safely and successfully.

The new year is going to be busy. The new clubhouse should be opened by Australia Day weekend – there is a lot of news to tell you about the new clubhouse, but I will do that in a separate newsletter early in the New Year. I can assure you that the pathway forward is positive with a great venue and a partnership with a highly qualified hospitality organisation. I know a lot of members keen to plant their feet under a table within the new Mooloolaba Yacht Club building.

My thanks to Ian Griffiths, David Hawthorne, Gary Schulz, Gary McCarthy and Dirk Long for doing a lot of the hard work towards achieving this milestone. I look forward to sharing more information on the clubhouse with you, soon.

The sailing program for the new calendar year is packed full of great events – we will see a number of visits from Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron and Southport Yacht Club boats, a women’s sailing program funded by the Queensland Government, at least one more wounded veterans sailing experience session and of course, our very strong Mooloolaba Youth Sailing Squad are back on the water from April.

We are also planning a number of social events and a huge 50^th anniversary celebration for later in the year to be held in conjunction with the start of the 2017/18 sailing season.  The Sunshine Coast Council supported anniversary booklet of club stories from members past and present is being work on now and will go to print in August.

Right now I encourage you to enjoy Christmas and hopefully some great sailing weather, and I look forward to catching up with you early in the New Year when we will all hit the water with lots of energy and lots to look forward to.

Merry Christmas !

Andy Henderson, Commodore, Mooloolaba Yacht Club.