Volunteer Recognition, What's this Informal Instruction? Friday Night Sails under the stars, Lexicon

PLEASE NOMINATE VOLUNTEERS FOR RECOGNITION!
Anyone who has hung around CBI for more than a few moments will notice that volunteers do a lot of work here.  Most classes in the adult program are taught by volunteers. Volunteers work on boat maintenance, facility upgrades, and lead various projects. This past year volunteers completely replaced the crow’s nest up on the flag pole.  We have a computer network, database, and web site all thanks to volunteers. Each year CBI’s board of directors would like to recognize at the corporation’s annual meeting (3^rd Monday in October) outstanding volunteers for their contributions to CBI.  Please help us say “thanks” and “atta boy/girl” to one of our outstanding CBI volunteers. You may submit your nominations in writing, [email or letter], to me.  Please include a little narrative of how the nominee made CBI a place for “Sailing for All”.

WHAT'S THIS INFORMAL INSTRUCTION ?
Possibly the most important piece of the sailing education process at CBI is going out for informal instruction with other more experienced members. You put your card in at the dock house and ask to go out for instruction. You won’t wait long before another member, more experienced than you, will arrive on the scene and “show you the ropes”.  Learning to sail at CBI is like learning in the playground rather than the classroom.  Our playground is the sailboat on the Charles River and your teachers are your fellow CBI members.
Many of our most accomplished instructors learned to sail at CBI. I hope you will follow their example.   Get that Helmsman rating and start taking new members out for instruction.  It is a boat load of fun. You will love it! – especially a year or two later when your students continue to revere you as a master of the nautical arts (my favorite part!)

FRIDAY NIGHT ON THE CHARLES!
Night sails every Friday night!  Not only does your membership include full viewing of some magnificent sunsets over the river most evenings, it also includes joining in on our Friday Night Sails.  Check the web site and with the front office staff for details.  It’s a truly unique experience and view of Boston’s skyline.

LEXICON
Have you ever felt like you were being kicked when you were already down? You might think someone “rubbed salt in you wound”
Salt is often used to preserve foodstuffs. It can also be antiseptic.  There are many time honored traditions in sailing, but one which has happily diminished, is the use of the cat-o-nine tails.  Apparently for even the most minor rule infraction a sailor might receive a form of education and betterment by being lashed by a multi strand whip (the cat-o-nine tails) at the whim of the Captain (those were the sailing days when being captain meant something! Yuck!).  I have noticed that my crews, even though I remind them repeatedly, don’t fully appreciate how nicely they have it today.  Once the sailor had been suitably enlightened, his colleagues would lay his possibly unconscious body on the deck, and gently, with love and tenderness (I’m sure) rub salt into his wounds to keep them clean and allow for a complete healing. The sailor may not have fully appreciated the experience.

Charlie