CSC ExComm Rolling Agenda Minutes
1/09/2025 – 12/31/2025
List events in reverse chronological order
Dec 23rd
Motion to accept $2500 grant from Ava Community Energy for electric outboard for keelboats
Passed unanimously
December 18 2025 GMM Minutes: Voting meeting
Agenda
Reports from Officers & Chairs
- Commodore: Mariya Ryazantseva, Nicho Waton
- Vice Commodore (Open Houses): Isha Mishra, Dennis Tai
- First Vice Commodore (Dinghies): Robert Spark, Memo Gunay
- Second Vice Commodore (Windsurfing): Sofien Sehiri, Ted DeBonis
- Third Vice Commodore (Keelboats): Ryan Alder, Shreyas Chand
- Rear Commodore (Teaching): John Bongiovanni/Stephanie Evans (sailing), Randi Shapiro/David Gadarian (windsurfing)
- Port Captain: Birk Huber, Audrey Yen
- Secretary: Sara Zimmerman, Marco Falconi
- Treasurer: Peter Kuhn, not present, quarterly financial report
- Marina Planning Chair: Camille Antinori
Voting Items
-
Ex Comm Officer elections/appointments
- Preliminary item: Is anyone contesting any of these positions?
- Vote: Does the general membership vote to reappoint the current roster of Ex Comm members to their roles?
- Ex Comm: Does Ex Comm vote to affirm that and reappoint the current roster of Ex Comm members to their roles?
Notes:
- Nicho and Mariya stepped down from their Co-Commodore positions (we all thank them for their tenure and amazing contributions to the club). Shreyas was elected to be the new Commodore.
- Stephanie Evans returns to ExComm as Co-Rear Commodore for Sailing.
Officer Reports
Commodore
Vice Commodore
Frequency & Attendance: We planned 6 and successfully hosted 5 open houses from May through September, providing a total of 1,077 rides (882 adults and 195 children). The busiest event was on August 24, with 278 guests. The October event was unfortunately canceled due to inclement weather.
Safety & Operational Adjustments: Following 4 capsizes earlier in the season, we implemented stricter guidelines for reefing and capsize prevention. Additionally, we have been working hard to manage a low PFD (personal flotation device) count for our keelboats, adjusting our operations to ensure all guests remain safe despite the equipment constraints. We are hopeful this inventory issue will be resolved for the 2026 season.
Training & Mentorship: To further bolster safety and skill-sharing, we established an apprentice setup. This program encourages skippers with less experience to work alongside and learn from our more experienced members during these high-volume events.
A huge thank you to all of our volunteers and instructors who make these events possible. We also want to give a special shout-out to our amazing kitchen crew and our kitchen leads, Dawson and Irfan, for keeping everyone fueled with incredible food throughout the season!
Rear Commodore
Sailing:
I want to welcome my Co-Rear-Commodore, Stephanie Evans, who has a long history with the
Club. She was Commodore when I joined in 2013 and brings a lot of energy and experience to
this.
I’m a numbers guy, as you know, and this is what we’re seeing for our instruction program. On
the dinghy side, we are teaching about 20% more students than we did last year at the same
time (the last 3 months), both on Saturdays and during the week. And we have been able to
meet this demand with instructors coming out to teach.
On the keelboat side, we are still not meeting student demand, turning away about 28% of signups. Lack of instructors remains the big issue, but we are doing better than we have in
recent years. The keelboat lesson coordinators, Liang and Timur, have had a big impact on
getting instructors out. And recently we have started keelboat lessons on Sunday mornings in addition to the usual Wednesday evenings.
Our winter program is in full swing, with both a Senior Study Group (organized by Jeremy
Gillespie) and a Cruise Study Group (organized by Owen Shea).
Rick Merlau’s “Junior Incubator” program has been running for a few months. It’s a great idea, to
keep focus on Junior skills in the off-season, with a session every third Saturday. The first three
sessions have been fantastic. I want to recognize Rick and highlight this as an example of how
you (anyone) can come up with an idea to improve our program and make it happen.
We are already planning for the next season, with Lucian Beebe as the overall Fast Track
Coordinator, and, yes, there will be a Women’s Fast Track again this season.
We had a bumper year in terms of new Senior and Cruise ratings earned, 9 in total.
Congratulations to all of you who achieved that. Our standards are very high, and you should
feel very proud for accomplishing this. This is also the first year of our Keelboat Senior rating,
meaning a Keelboat Senior rating without having to pass a Dinghy Senior test. Three members
have achieved this. I want to say that I have watched all of them progress, it was a long and
hard process for them, and that in my opinion they are as good as our Keelboat Seniors who
went through the former system. Learning sailing on dinghies remains an important principle at
Cal Sailing, but we’ve realized that there can be different paths to Keelboat Senior after
proficiency on dinghies.
And in this context, I want to recognize Saul for his focused instruction on a group of members
who got this rating this year. We all know that getting Senior Keelboat requires serious
mentoring over a period of time. I personally benefitted from several members who went out
with me every week to work on the skills required. Saul has worked with all of the new
Keelboat Seniors over a long period of time, getting them to where they needed to be. And if
you have ever sailed with Saul, you will know that his standards are very high, sometimes
frustratingly so. I mean this as a compliment.
Of course, Saul is not the only senior who has been mentoring others on that path, both on the
dinghy and on the keelboat side.
As always, I will conclude by thanking all of the instructors who have kept our sailing program
going at a very high level.
Windsurfing:
This season:
- We continued the work we were doing over the past three seasons to increase consistency of Novice instruction via instructor courses, introducing curriculum guides for the Novice 2 and 3 classes.
- We also introduced WIPA programming for intermediate instruction and put through an inaugural group for WIPA Level 3 teaching planing and water start.
- We scheduled a couple testing sessions to make sailing tests feel more accessible—thanks to the several Seniors who participated in that effort this year.
- Continued to offer our intermediate and advanced level classes.
Numbers:
2025: Offered 121 classes this year, with about 658 students. That's down 11 classes from 2024 due to a difficult early season tide schedule, and down 150 students overall in the program—I suspect the cold summer "dampened" folks' appetite to get wet. When a warm autumn hit, we were able to extend the program further into October than usual, but it wasn't enough to make up for the significantly reduced demand for classes in June and July, typically our peak months.
We saw this carry through to the number of new Novices joining the sport: we had 241 Novices, which is about 80% of our 5-year average. Numbers for new Juniors and J+ ratings were also a little down this year.
Thanks to:
- As always to John who reduced the administrative overhead of instructor and student communication tons this year, building on his work from last year!
- Field Trip Coordinator Christine Page, Board Repair Chair Ivan Bankov, and Youth Windsurfing Co-Chairs, Julien Traisnel and James Peroulas, all of whom continued their roles from last season with aplomb and excellence
- Steven Lee for covering me during vacation!
- Our many continuing and new volunteer instructors! You are the lifeblood of the windsurfing instructional program AND it's not much of an exaggeration to say of the sport itself.
First Vices
- Congrats to our new dinghy seniors! James Codega, Brian Nishi, Thibault de Poyferre
- New signout system, work in progress so please report bugs. It currently allows members to create dinghy log issues on sign-in but full dinghy log is coming soon.
- New boats!
- Venture SE #5 is available to members
- We have bought two variations of 420's:
- i420 is designated as a sr boat
- c420 is a jr boat.
The signout will be similar to a JY.
- We are now doing bi-annual inspections on all of our boats. Thank you to everyone that showed up to help lead the repair party.
- Thank you to everyone that puts in time and effort to maintain our dinghy fleet.
Second Vices
Windsurfing
The windsurfing equipment is in good standing but it could use some improvement as the intermediate boards get lots of beating. As of today our budget is down to 55%, the remaining funds will be spent on mid size boards, masts and other rig components.
The supply chain isn’t getting any easier but we are still able to receive our orders in a timely manner if we order 6-9 (months or weeks?) in advance.
What happened in 2025?
- We partnered with S2 Maui sails to supply us with sails across the spectrum. It’s a small sail maker based in Maui known for quality and durability. This should solve some of the issues we had with our previous novice sails ripping near the foot within a one season of use.
- To make windsurfing more visible during open houses we started the “Windsurfing Booth project” . It's a simulator run by a qualified member. We know windsurfing is intimidating, people walk along the path and think the water is too cold, sharks are going to eat them and need lots of strength and balance to windsurf. The windsurf booth will allow them to try it on land, answer questions and resolve any misconceptions.
- It was so much fun racing with the sailboats at X-buoy. The wind was very strong and the swell was huge. The shortest time we recorded was 36min for the round trip!! Thank you James Codega for the invitation and let’s do more of those next season.
- We had 3 Sherman island trips in June, July and August. Kudos to Christine Page for keeping those coming.
- Our newest seniors are Steven Lee and Cassidy Laidlaw.
We are so grateful for this amazing community and the amount of help we get every time we ask! Thank you to all the volunteers for teaching, repairing, rigging, cleaning, organizing… Your time and efforts are greatly appreciated!
Third Vices
- Keelboat log has now moved online and works similarly to the Dinghy log
- We are ordering two new Commander booms to proactively replace them after a boom failure on Daisy
- Digital signout on J dock will be coming soon as soon as all the ducks are in a row
- Winch clinic coming up asap
- J/80 is ready for new standing rigging so we will be having a mast dropping party soon as well
- Alejandra and Steph have succeeded in acquiring grants to replace one of our Merit outboards with an electric, so that will be coming later this year. It will be a proof of concept to see if the power and range is adequate for our usage.
Port Captain
- David E has stepped back from day leader coordination. He will continue to hold DL shifts and focus on power boat training for operations while also leading the rewrite/revision of our day leader manual.
- We have grant funding to train up another DL powerboat instructor for support of club operations.
- Our scheduling is solid through to April, we will be working on the schedule after that.
- We continue to staff day leader positions with a mix of sailors/windsurfers as well as CAL work study students.
- Please welcome Marley Salangsang, Avery Wexman, Owen Caldwell as our new additions since last GMM.
- Let’s also thank the entire DL team for their hard work keeping the club open!
- Talking to the day leader may or may not get back to the port captains or other day leaders:
- Please don’t hesitate to file an incident report if you encounter a safety issue or a conduct issue. These are not just for conduct issues but serve as a formal notification of something that needs addressing.
- If you just encounter a situation you want the Port Captains or all day leaders to be aware of you can also send email to port_captain@cal-sailing.org or reach out to both of us on slack (or speak to one of us directly, do NOT leave us notes at the desk).
Secretary
No updates.
Treasurer
Quarterly Statement of Financial Condition November 1 2025
As of this date we had $66,829 in the bank accounts, up $13,815 from 8/1/25. We were reimbursed by the California Parks and Recreation Department Division of Boating and Waterways (DBW) for the new novice windsurf sails we purchased, and we expect to be reimbursed over $5,000 more for items we’ve already paid for. Regular membership dues for the quarter were 15% more than the expected amount used in the budget for this fiscal year.
|
Income 8/1 - 10/31/25 |
|
|
Regular memberships: |
$83,332 |
|
DBW grant reimbursement: novice windsurf boards and sails (2025 grant) |
$9,084 |
|
Donations: big thanks! |
$2,780 |
|
Credit card cashback rewards, reimbursement |
$412 |
|
Interest on savings account |
$412 |
|
UC Berkeley workstudy reimbursement |
$2,617 |
|
Total Income |
$98,637 |
|
Spending 8/1 - 10/31/25 |
|
|
Dinghies -- deposits on dinghy sails and sail covers and used Club 420 sailboat, furler drum, blocks, trap cleats and rings, filler, eyestrap, spinny repair tape, line, dinghy paddles, vinyl tubing, scrubber, loctite, fasteners, dinghy dolly tires and tube and valve extenders, RS500 rudderblade, eyebolts, drainplugs, solvent, bobbles, mesh bags, snap hooks, tiller extension universals, trapeze handles, rivets, cleats, caulk, cotter rings, rigging wires, metal for mast base brackets, repairs 8 trapeze harnesses, epoxy, rivnuts, carbon rods, sail repair tape and lube spray, sail repairs |
$13,137 |
|
Dayleaders: wages, payroll taxes, payroll processing, dayleader gift cards for helping with Trilbus |
$35,343 |
|
Windsurf -- remainder payment novice windsurf sails (DBW reimbursed), ten 5.7 - 6.8 sq meter sails, epoxy resin, sail sewing supplies and repair tape |
$9,025 |
|
Clubhouse and Yard -- portapotty service, trash service, printer toner, tape, wirenuts, compression sleeves, propane, kitchen supplies, gloves, doorknob, tape, trashbags, marker, rope, lunch bags, hot cups, yellowjacket traps, silicone sealant, paper towels, disposable gloves, broom and dustpan, contact cement, hinges, disposable forks, extension cords and outlets, BBQ ignitor, water hose |
$3,480 |
|
Activities -- cruise dock fees and van rental and gas and bridge tolls for windsurf cruises, food for Open Houses and women’s social sails, whistle and buoys and anchors and horn for racing |
$3,675 |
|
Keelboats -- hull cleaning, sail repairs, fasteners, shock cord, shackles, lightbulbs, line, sealant, sewing needles, paddle, snaps, rivets, wiring connectors |
$1,893 |
|
Rent--rent on clubhouse and yard space |
$3,191 |
|
Taxes -- use tax on wholesale purchases, property taxes, DMV registration fees |
$2,712 |
|
Safety Equipment: sunscreen, used foul weather gear, 1st aid kit supplies |
$474 |
|
Bank and Credit card processing charges |
$1,994 |
|
Rescue Skiffs -- 136 gallons gasoline, oil, propellers, diagnostic laptop, engine parts, steering oil, switch, carabiners |
$1,393 |
|
Tools -- dremel bits, screwdrivers, pliers, rope cutter and blades, shears, voltmeter, drill bits |
$131 |
|
Communications -- internet service, fees for DBW meeting, lunch for Erin Diehm sail, shipping and postage, printing |
$401 |
|
Teaching expenses -- WIPA windsurf instructor training (DBW 2025 grant), deposit for 1st aid CPR training, food for Fast Track dinners |
$7,972 |
|
Total Spending |
$84,822 |
Big thanks to everyone who worked hard for the club!
Chairs
Marina Chair (Camille Antinori)
Parking in South and East Cove and J&K lots:
- A group of CSCers put together a letter to BCDC and State Lands Commission challenging the paid parking proposal as a possible contradiction of tideland trust guidelines, i.e. the area is supposed to be equitable, low-cost access to water for all, and not just for local benefit. Will send to State Coastal Commission too. See marina planning channel for document/letter.
- CSC will send another letter, this time to BCDC, restating our concerns.
- Stay tuned and fingers crossed.
- Thanks to Ed Schlesinger, Emma Chrisman and Sarah Lindsay Anderson for heroic work on this.
CSC presence at city meetings
CSC volunteers attended 5 marina-related city/regional meetings (and earned hours) to either make a public comment or take notes on marina issues that affect CSC. See marina planning channel for their reports. Thanks to Ed Kuczynski, Brandon Doherty, Liz Heym, Julian Aveling, Emma Chrisman and Sarah Lindsay Anderson. Contact Camille Antinori if you want to get on the team rotation for upcoming meetings.
Further action:
Want to do something for the waterfront but CSC not exactly the place to do it? We have a place for you - and we need you! Contact Camille A for more information on non-CSC upcoming spring events to shape waterfront development.
Dec 15th
Motion to approve Tanja Geis as Keelboat Senior
Passed unanimously
Dec 13th
Motion to approve Audrey Yen as Keelboat Senior
Passed unanimously
Dec 12th
Motion to accept $6k grant for an electric outboard for a keelboat (to replace gas outboard) (Ale got the grant) and to increase keelboat budget by $6k.
Passed unanimously
Nov 18th
Motion to approve Owen Shea's Senior Project - Cruise Study Group Coordinator
Passed unanimously
Nov 12th
Motion to approve senior windsurfing rating for Cassidy Laidlaw who completed all the bylaws requirements.
Passed unanimously
Nov 2nd
Motion to approve Senior Project for Brent King, a registered nurse and water safety swim instructor. The Club will pay for his Red Cross certification for First Aid and CPR. He will teach three workshops in a twelve month period: First Aid with an emphasis on boating, CPR, and open water swimming and rescue swimming.
Passed unanimously
October 18th
Motion to approve Senior Project for Jeremy Gillespie - 2026 Senior Study Group Coordinator
Passed unanimously
October 16th
Motion to approve Senior Project for Scott Snow - 2025 Advanced Dinghy Coordinator
Passed unanimously
September 23
Motion to approve Senior Project for Timur Perlmutov - Keelboat Lesson Coordinator
Passed unanimously
September 17th
Motion to Approve Cassidy Laidlaw’s Senior windsurfing project which consists of filing the DBW grant application for 2026.
Passed unanimously
September 12th
Motion to Approve senior windsurfing project for Mackenzie Hridel which consists of designing and running the windsurfing booth during open houses (a minimum of four open houses).
Passed unanimously
September 4th
Motion to approve Michael Needham as Cruise Skipper pending completion of required First Aid/CPR Class
Passed unanimously: @Marco Falcioni, @Dennis Tai, @Nicho, @Robert Spark, @Birk, @Ryan A, @Peter, @Memo, @Sara Zimmerman, @Mariya - she/her, @Isha, @Sofi
August 30th
Approve @thibault.de.poyferre's senior dinghy rating
Passed unanimously: @John Bongiovanni, @Nicho, @Ryan A, @Marco Falcioni, @Birk, @Peter, @Robert Spark, @Sofi, @Shreyas, @Mariya - she/her, @Isha, @Dennis Tai, @Memo, @Sara Zimmerman
August 24th
August 20th
Motion to approve a lifetime membership for John Mankey for outstanding contributions to the club over many decades
Passed unanimously: @Dennis Tai, @Nicho, @John Bongiovanni, @Memo, @Peter, @Ryan A, @Ted DeBonis, @Audrey, @Marco Falcioni, @Robert Spark, @Sofi, @Isha, @Birk, @Sara Zimmerman
August 7th
Motion to approve Brian Nishi's senior rating. He has completed all requirements.
Passed unanimously: @Marco Falcioni, @Memo, @Ryan A, @Audrey, @Robert Spark, @Peter, @Shreyas, @Isha, @Nicho, @Mariya - she/her, @Sofi, @Birk, @Sara Zimmerman, @Ted DeBonis
August 5th
Motion to grant James Clarkson, Mark Playsted, Seamus Vanecko, Joshua Leihe, Memo Gunay, Dan Z permission to organize dinghy cruises beyond the standard dinghy cruising boundaries for 2025 and 2026.
Passed unanimously: @Ryan A, @Dennis Tai, @Marco Falcioni, @Nicho, @Sofi, @Isha, @Birk, @Robert Spark, @Sara Zimmerman, @Mariya - she/her, @John Bongiovanni, @Peter, @Ted DeBonis
July 21
Motion to approve James Codega's senior rating. He has completed all requirements
Yes: @Memo, @Robert Spark, @Marco Falcioni, @Ryan A, @Shreyas, @Peter, @Dennis Tai, @Nicho, @John Bongiovanni, @Sofi, @Mariya - she/her, @Birk, @Sara Zimmerman, @Isha
June 28
Proposed OR change (discussed extensively on a channel for this purpose)
New Section A.11 Reassessing Member Privileges
Members are expected to operate equipment in a safe manner using sound judgement according to the conditions (e.g. wind strength and direction, water level, etc.)
The Day Leader or an Excom member may suspend a member's privilege to use equipment if in the Day Leader's judgement, that member has consistently failed to meet the requirements of A.11.1. This will then be escalated to Excom to investigate and determine the action path of either disciplinary hearing or skill reassessment.
A disciplinary action will follow the procedures of the Club By-Laws section X.
When an action described in A.11.2 is taken and Excom determined it is a skill-reassement incident, a group of qualified members will be appointed to investigate and will recommend any necessary remedial action. This action may include suspension/revocation of rating and rating requalification, restrictions on the member's use of equipment, and other restrictions. It will also include what the member needs to demonstrate to regain a rating or remove restrictions.
Yes: @Ryan A, @Birk, @Peter, @Robert Spark, @Marco Falcioni, @Randi, @Isha, @Dennis Tai, @Ted DeBonis, @Mariya - she/her, @Nicho, @Memo, @Sara Zimmerman
June 23
Motion to approve Jaewon Kim's Senior Windsurfing Project: 2 CSC-located waterstart clinics and 1 full-day CSC Sherman Island Fieldtrip waterstart clinic
Yes: 11, unanimous
June 23
Motion to approve George Posner as Senior Keelboat, having met all of the requirements
Yes: 13, unanimous
June 12
Motion to Approve Michael Sulkis’s senior project of creating a consolidated club dinghy repair manual for the RS Quest, Toura, and Venture boats.
Yes: 13, unanimous
June 11
Motion to Approve Steven Lee’s rating as a Senior windsurfer. Steven has completed all the senior requirements and his contribution towards the club is particularly outstanding!
Yes: 16, unanimous
June 2
Motion to Approve Mirella “Elli” Vassilev’s senior project. Elli will be laying the foundation for windsurfing promotion to become a staple of open houses activities. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rb9y3CKXJyI-bpUWHI9agUEDk4NAflmcgiz-meFIn-A/edit?usp=sharing
Yes: 15, unanimous
May 24
Proposed OR Changes to Section N.5. New:
1. S kipper must post cruise notice on web site at least 10 days in advance of cruise; skipper must administer lottery.
2. A Senior may skipper another boat with the approval of the Cruising Skipper giving the cruise.
3. Club cruises take precedence over private cruises.
4. Skippers and each club member signing up may take one guest.
Yes: 12, unanimous
May 8
Motion to approve Senior Project for Preston Thomas as described in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lV3ZUWDCOcUrpYtzZRaTajG4grAhQg1MtVRccAIwK_U/edit?usp=sharing
Yes: 11, unanimous
April 30, 2025
Motion to approve changes to ORs section I as described (change section I of the ORs to replace some of the charts with a single one)
Yes: 12, unanimous
April 23, 2025
Approve the budget (pdf) for fiscal year 5/1/25 - 4/30/26 and authorize spending up to the amounts listed for the purposes shown
Yes: 11, unanimous
April 13, 2025
approve James Codega Sr project to make a rudder for the Quests and Touras
Yes: 15, unanimous
Mar 7th 2025
Passed motion to approve Senior Project for Fast Track co-coordinators: Claire Perhach, Daniel Brazil, Jessica Synder, Jay Karimi, Sarah Peach, Emma Chrisman, Marley Salangsang
Yes:
@Memo, @Dennis Tai, @Ryan A, @Marco Falcioni, @Birk, @Peter, @Robert Spark, @Shreyas, @Sofi, @Isha, @Sara Zimmerman, @Nicho, @Mariya - she/her
Feb 26th 2025
Passed Motion to Authorize $10,000 additional spending this fiscal year for Dinghies and Rescue Skiffs
Yes: @Peter, @Ryan A, @Dennis Tai, @Marco Falcioni, @Memo, @John Bongiovanni, @Birk, @Mariya - she/her, @Nicho, @Robert Spark, @Randi, @Sofi, @Ted DeBonis, @Isha
General Membership Meeting (February 22, 2025)
Meeting minutes
Feb 19th 2025
Passed motion to approve and publish OR changes
Yes: @Ryan A, @Marco Falcioni, @Memo, @Shreyas, @Peter, @John Bongiovanni, @Nicho, @Birk, @Isha, @Sofi, @Mariya - she/her, @Robert Spark, @Dennis Tai
Jan 30th 2025
Passed Motion by john to approve OR changes to implement Senior Keelboat Only
@Ryan A, @Marco Falcioni, @Memo, @Shreyas, @Peter, @John Bongiovanni, @Nicho, @Birk, @Isha, @Sofi, @Mariya - she/her, @Robert Spark, @Dennis Tai
1/27/25
ExComm Annual Retreat
Present
- In person: Robert, Memo, Marco, Nicco, Mariya, Ryan, John, Isha, Sara, Ted, Sofi, David G.
- On zoom: Randi, Shreyas, Birk, Dennis
Agenda
- Sailing Rating Committee Structure/Revamp
- Ensuring Chairs Are Active
- ExComm Member Topics
- Automating things on windsurfing side (John & Randi are working on this)
- Documentation of practices
- Volunteering opportunities
- Open House Dates
- Exploring Possibility of Guest Memberships: Windsurfing
- Complaint process: general discussion about what is needed to create a more consistent/functional system
- Diversity
- Update on Keelboat Only Senior proposal