Month: September 2023

I hope everyone had a great July 1, for those who celebrated Canada Day and July 4th for our Independence Day. I can’t think of anything better than being with friends and family on a Nordic Tug on the water to celebrate both of our great Nations.

Its been just over a Month since our 2023 Rendevous in Sidney and if you ask me I would tell you it was a fantastic event, but we also asked members for your input and you most of you reported that it was a fantastic event. We appreciate the sincere feedback and we will be using the surveys as we plan Vous 2024. Congratulations to Paul Yancey for winning the Survey raffle prize. He will be receiving a gift card to West Marine.

I want to thank everyone that helped make this Rendevous so great. As I mentioned on Saturday night this last year would not have been possible without Sandra Piotrowski stepping up to the Role of Commodore. She was energetic and thorough in taking on the task and I can say she was the Anchor we all want in on our vessels in a storm and this Organization was blessed to have her in charge. I also want to remind everyone how much Jeff Brein contributed by staying in the role of Rendevous director for the last year. Jeff has coordinated several rendezvous and we are fortunate to have him planning such awesome events. Paul and Elaine Bulk as well as Gerry and Barb Guertin also contributed a great deal of time to make this event so successful. BIG THANK YOU TO ALL OF THEM.

For those of you that did not attend the Rendevous we missed you there and hope see you next year. At our general meeting we had Officer Elections. Sandra graciously nominated me for Commodore. I waited for someone else to be nominated and it didn’t happen. So I have taken on the job. I nominated Paul Bulk, our first Canadian board member, and he won without opposition. Congratulations Paul! We also discussed the financial state of the organization. The treasurers presentation was made to the membership regarding our annual dues and current reserves and an overwhelming majority voted to raise dues to $60.00 a year. This will go into effect January 2024. If your dues are renewed this year before January 2024 you will still pay the $30.00 for the upcoming year. We realize this is a large increase, but believe that the annual amount is still low when compared to other Boating organizations. I am working on contacting some marine vendors to try and secure more group discounts for members.

We heard from several members that they were not receiving our regular emails. We discovered this was due to the data link between mailchimp and member press (our website program). Our current system is only recognizing the first/main email address entered when signing up for PaNNTOA.

If you would like to have a spouse or other member of your family receive our emails please add their information with the link here. SIGN UP ADDITIONAL EMAIL

I thank you for taking the time to read our Newsletter and hope that you find the information important to you as a member of PaNNTOA. I am looking forward to being your new Commodore and hope that I can fill the big shoes left for me by my predecessor. Check out the links on this email for information about a Mini Vous in Friday Harbor and don’t forget to add photos of your fellow tuggers on our Friendships Forum. I hope to see you on the water.

Jeff Redmond
God’s Grace

Let us know if you are interested in more information

Our all-volunteer organization is STILL looking for a new Membership Director.

This is a role easily performed by anyone with access to the website. Our staff wizard has created several automated tools and processes to make the job straightforward.

The membership director provides information to the PaNNTOA board related to membership statistics, reaches out to potential members referred by other members, sends membership lists to sponsors that offer discounts (sponsors must pinky swear they will not send spam based on our supplied list) quarterly, and, if so inclined, thinks about ways to increase membership.

The membership director also works with the Communications director to reconcile bounced emails (did the member forget to renew? Sell their boat? Find a cooler group to hang out with? (Can’t be that!))

If interested (even vaguely), please email the Commodore. Thanks!