REMEMBER?
By: Doug Owen
Although it may have been a long time ago, remember when you first joined CYC? The interview and recommendation process may have been somewhat different, but if it's been within the past few years, things haven't changed much. Once you received your membership card and everything was official, remember the first few times that you came to the Club? Perhaps you had friends that were members already, or perhaps you were new to the area, new to boating, new to belonging to a yacht club; but whatever the circumstances, one thing was sure...you were going to be confronted with a lot of people that you hadn't met and didn't know.
We're all individuals, and we possess varying degrees of intestinal fortitude and social ability. Some of us are more gregarious than others; some of us meet new people more easily than others. As a new member, did you fall back on your proposer or seconders on your first few visits to the Club? Did you keep mostly to yourself as conversations among groups of people that obviously knew each other well went on around you?
On those first few visits, did people come up to you and introduce themselves, engage you in conversation, find out about your interests, invite you to share a drink, a meal, or become involved with one of the myriad of volunteer opportunities that exist within CYC? Watch the Race Committee perform their magic on a Friday night, or sit in on a committee meeting that might be of interest to them, or be in an area of which they have some expertise? That committee may not need additional help at the present, but what about next year?
Do you introduce yourself to new members, or people that you might not recognize, when the opportunity presents itself?
We all look forward to seeing our friends at the Club. All those friendly faces of people that you have sailed with, crewed for, eaten with, traveled with, had to your home, been to theirs...it's so easy when you walk into the bar to rush up to good friends, talk about the past week, make plans for this or that...and not look any further.
I often say that I have made more good friendships at CYC over the years than I have ever enjoyed in my lifetime in any other setting, and that's true. But first I had to meet them. Then I had to get to know something about them, and they about me. We each had to take the time to explore what we might have in common, what our mutual interests were, and then came to realize how much we enjoyed spending time together.
I once had the experience of introducing myself to someone at the bar that I didn't recognize, and when I found out that he was a very long time member, I felt sort of embarrassed; (I probably asked him if he belonged to the Club!) But I got over it, and we had a very nice conversation as a result.
It probably isn't very easy for a new member to break into a group of friends carrying on a conversation; someone would probably have to introduce themselves first, and be a little outgoing, and a little social.
Since we promote ourselves as such a darn friendly organization, will it be you?