MYC Members Address
June 2025
It has been my responsibility and pleasure to work with 2 great commodores as vice commodore for the past 6 years. Greg and Andrew have had a massive positive impact to the club, as their work has been invaluable towards much of the progress that has been accomplished with the Board's management team over that period of time.
Now let's look back a little, when we started we had a huge $750K debt, $120K CEO wage cost p.a., moves to have the Slipway decommissioned and club facilities conditions that belonged to 1950's. Fast forward today, all debt will be retired in October this year, no CEO costs but an excellent upgrade of our Office manager to Club Manager and her additional team. A fully functional Slipway, with a maintenance program, as all ageing assets require, which has been one of my roles to ensure is completed and up to date. A vast club room and changing room renovation under the project management of Andrew.
My duties also included supervise replacement of our finger jetties, using sustainable materials where possible. The Board team effort to select the new 3ton crane to complement slipping day activities and necessary for safety of our members. The Board support of our T and D department programs for junior sailing, second to none on the bay, they have done a great job. The Foundation funds to assist junior sailors and the Women on Water program (WOW) which is starting with a bang.
The Future Directions committee has conducted challenging negotiations with Parks Victoria to achieve the best outcome for our members and all end users of Fishermans jetty, this still work in progress. All this happens with good leadership ,teamwork at board level and many volunteers which our club is blessed with, especially over the past 6 years.
However not all policies have full board support, for example I did not support "The transition time frame of 5 years to full membership" for the new Temporary Discounted membership Class for our friends at Martha Cove." But as a majority vote of the board I totally accept and support this MYC policy and we warmly welcome these new members to our club under this system. As chair of the Governance Committee I will always support full and frank discussions on any matters before the board and accept the consensus view of the board, as it should be.
Now we get to the boring subject of marine legislation , government regulations and the Constitution affecting MYC and every incorporated body. I can assure members I have "somewhat" of a handle on this subject. I am and have been for 2 terms (6 years) elected by berth holders at East Gippsland Shire Council Marina ,(at Slip Bight Marina Paynesville some 250 vessels) to represent them to the shires Marina Consultative Committee (MCC.) in this job basic knowledge of current laws and regulations is essential.
Not a particular happy job at first, just a rubber stamp for council to tick off. However after some time berth holder representatives began to establish a better relationships with council executives and this eventually significantly improved the working relationship with council. I would like to hope we could improve our club's relationship with Mornington council (our landlord) with it's new CEO and Councillors, with the same method of building relationships with council executive officers.
The culture and feeling around the club is excellent and has been for the last 2 commodores team approach with board members and that I can confirm. I would like to thank the following five board members, that are retiring this year ,for their hard work and dedication to the job, I enjoyed working with this team; Andrew Young ,Stuart Gooley, Mary McCauley, Joanne McKenzie and Ben Jones.
To conclude I am asking for your support for my nomination of Commodore, that I may have the honour to continue this cooperative team process that has been long established, for a further 12 months after Andrews retirement from the board.
Kind Regards
John Underwood
Vice Commodore (6 years)
Chair Governance Committee
Member Future Directions Committee
PS - For those that cannot make it please be a part of this election due process by registration of a proxy by 7pm Tuesday 24th June 2025 to the office.
Address for members supporting myself -Address for the form is ; 12a Mountain Ave Frankston South
