2019 Ontario Sailing Awards Luncheon

by John F. Kerr, Commodore

This fall the Rear Commodore, Vice Commodore, myself and two representatives from the Junior Sailing Committee attended the 2019 Ontario Sailing Awards Luncheon, AGM and workshop meeting at the Ashbridges Bay Yacht Club in Toronto. The meeting was composed of multiple parts, the first part presented by Boating Ontario, the rest by Ontario Sailing.

The first part was quite the eye opener regarding the high water levels of the Great Lakes. The Boating Ontario speakers definitely had a specific point of view and agenda and hit us with a lot of information regarding the current situation, how they think we got there and what they think we should do now. In brief they say factors leading to higher water include an increase in rainfall and a change of the plan to regulate water levels from legacy plan 58DD to plan 2014.

They urged us to spread the word and get people to contact the IJC to demand an increase in the outflow through the Moses Saunders Dam in Cornwell. Who are the IJC? What is outflow? If you do not know what this all means (I am still learning myself!) check out Lower Water Levels and unitedshorelineontario.ca.

Your opinion may vary on their conclusions but it is well worth your while to take a look at those resources to gain a fuller understanding of what the situation is regarding the water levels in the Great Lakes.

The second part of the meeting was full of very important internal content for us. It concerned the governing aspects of a club, including bylaws, policies, our stated goals, new regulations, and more. Fairly dry but very important stuff to be on top of. There’s not much to share here, we just have to sit down and go through it all and make sure we are doing everything as we should. All new regulations we follow will be announced to the membership and information will also be posted up on the website and at the EYC as needed.

The rest of the meeting was broken down into the awards portion and then the AGM. We used that time to do some networking with other sailing clubs in Ontario.

Much thanks to thank Jessica Dillon-Mallory (Vice Commodore), Heather Boswell (Rear Commodore) and Doug Kerr and Meghan Roulston (of the Junior Sailing Committee) for attending this meeting with me, we now have a lot of thinking to do while preparing for next season!