Dear Friends,

I take great pleasure in welcoming y’all to the 2024 Yacht Club season.  As I write this, Rachel and I are at Moosehead Lake, having arrived a few days after ice out.  This was planned last September as our short spring trip to open the camp for the season.  There are several days of work and time spent with our local friends catching up.  Then there are rainy days involving cooking, relaxing, reading and napping.

The Yacht Club is similar in that the Board of Trustees developed a 2024 schedule of events last August and planned for venues, equipment rentals and other sundry services.  In early July of this year members of the various party committees will meet to discuss events and talk strategy.  Unlike our camp, the club requires many, many hands to pull off a successful summer season of events.

Ours is a volunteer club and requires plenty of action in the background to make it work.  I particularly enjoy working on the pig roasting crew.  We spend all day (literally) around a fire, sampling a variety of sausages and other tidbits to “keep the cooks happy”, and abide the pig.  Stories are told and friendships strengthened.  If you look around and see something you would enjoy helping with, please volunteer for next year.  You’ll be glad you did!

We start the 2024 season on July 13 with the ever-popular Commodores Reception aboard the Katahdin, then on July 27 we travel to Tel and Karen Allen’s camp in Rockwood for the Pig Roast.  The Kineo Cup competition and picnic will be held August 10 and hosted by B Hilton and Karen Hilton Fresne at Squaw Point.  The Annual Meeting and Dinner will be on August 24 at the Moosehead Aero Marine Hanger.  In between will be opportunities (weather permitting) for hiking, paddling your canoe or kayak, gardening, boating raft-ups and, after the season, helping shuttle pilots for the Fly-In September 5 - 8.  Please visit our website at https://mlyc.me as it is updated for 2024 and is loaded with information.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you of a little business that was covered at our 2023 Annual Meeting.  Our club continues to grow, and we have not raised dues to keep up with the cost of partying.  In the past we have benefitted from members who pay dues, but do not come to events, therefore subsidizing the rest of us.  Now we have a w023, he or she must attend at least one event in 2024 to maintain membership in 2025.  Also, in 2023 dues were increased beginning in 2024 to $175 per member per year.

All this to say, a good time is about to be had by all this season.  Please give of your time as you are able and enjoy this summer on the lake.

See you around Moosehead!

Zed Howell, Commodore