Update From our Grand Poobah

Hail, fellow Cocktail Class racers! Are you getting excited for another season of CCWBRA racing? I sure am, especially since I am finally going to make it to Florida next month for the “Southern Leg” of the race schedule! Even with the very mild winter here in the Mid-Atlantic it will be terrific to soak in the Florida sun and get out on the water.
As you all prepare for a new season here are a few important things to know:
2017 Racing Handbook– There are no changes to the race rules for 2017. As we head into our seventh official year of racing, the Committee chairs and the Executive Team found that no substantive changes were needed this year. So, prepping for your first race of the year should be pretty easy if you were racing last year.
Opening for a new CCWBRA Secretary – Gretchen Granbery has decided to step down from the secretary position, so please contact Gretchen or me if you have interest. Thanks to the terrific work done by Gretchen and BreeAnn in the past, the secretary role consists of four primary responsibilities: maintaining membership data, posting of race events and results online, creation/send of membership emails via MailChimp, maintain archives of the CCWBRA official correspondence. Other executive team members or race volunteers do all race secretary duties, web manager duties, and the creation of the handbooks, annual reports, etc. I’d also like to personally thank Gretchen for her work this past year as Secretary, and for the yeoman efforts to get the CCWBRA off the ground and running smoothly!
New growth opportunities – Jack Pettigrew is working with two new yacht clubs that would like the CCWBRA to hold exhibition races at their facilities this year to showcase our family friendly racing class. The Gibson Island Yacht Squadron will host an exhibition day on June 10th and the Rappahannock River Yacht Club is planning for a July weekend event. If you are interested in participating (we need no more than 6 boats/drivers per event), please contact Jack Pettigrew or Keith Carew.
New CCWBRA website coming in March – Thanks to the long hours of work by BreeAnn Edmonds, Gretchen Granbery and Curt Bluefeld, we are preparing to launch a new website that will be optimized for all digital devices, have much stronger capabilities for the CCWBRA staff, have increased security and be much prettier! Stay tuned…
2017 Race Schedule:
Regatta/Event      City, State      Dates
Governor’s up      New Smyrna Beach, FL      4 March
Mid-Winter Regatta      Lake Placid, FL      7 March
Urbanna Cup Urbanna, VA      20 May
Skuas on the Lehigh      Allentown, PA      10 June
National Championships      Rock Hall, MD      19 August
Union Lake Regatta      Millville, NJ      16 September
Oktoberfest Rock Hall, MD      21 October

Thank you for being part of the fast-growing cocktail class. If you have any questions or topics you would like considered, please forward them to me or the appropriate committee chair.
I look forward to seeing you at events throughout the year!
Grand Poohbah – Todd Steffes