The post-COVID world brings lots of changes and we are doing our best to adapt.  In doing so, it is vital that we retain and engage our members, especially the younger ones, and attract new members.  It was music to my ears this week when the mother of a young family said to me “we are thinking about joining RHADC; we hear it is a lot of fun!”

This does not mean that our older members are not valued contributors to the life of our Club – they are, but with the world currently focused on “reproductive rates”, we need to do a bit of that too!  The demographics of the membership is not sustainable without an infusion of new younger members.

At the AGM, we changed some of the categories of membership, primarily for this very reason.  At the forthcoming SGM, members will be presented with some rule changes to actually change the types of memberships (not just moving members between categories) and introduce a new one.  There has been a lot of discussion, over many months, by various committees (membership, rules and Committee of Management) about this and the conclusion is that it is necessary to move with the times.  More details about the proposed changes will be sent to you in advance of the SGM and we would urge you to read the material and then come along to the SGM and vote on them.  I’m sure you all saw the article in the RG this week about families moving to the island, escaping the big cities elsewhere; we have an opportunity to make them feel welcome in Bermuda and at our Club.  Similarly, with so many being forced (or choosing) to stay on-island this summer, boat ownership is growing (Bermuda Radio reported that there were an estimated 3,500 boats out last weekend) and whilst we currently only have 2 berths available in our marina, we have plenty of space on our membership roster to welcome some of them!

Elspeth Weisberg

Commodore

8 July, 2020