It's only February but things are already heating up. Last week, a WPR radio show got a surprise caller. It was Joe Silverberg, long-time Hoofer sailing instructor and the elder of that exclusive club, promoting HSC as a volunteer organization. What's wrong with that, you say..? HSC is no more volunteer than Walmart is. More than 60% of the club's $300,000 annual budget goes directly to pay instructors and shop staff [ref]. The rest goes to buy beer for instructor parties, to purchase new boats, etc.
It is grossly inappropriate for a long-time Hoofer Sailing instructor, e.g. Joe S., to misrepresent the club to the public. Nor can Joe claim he doesn't know how things work at Hoofers, i.e. that the vast majority of instructors are paid, because he's one of them. Most HSC sailing instructors wouldn't even teach lessons unless they got paid. In fact, not one instructor who was paid last year offered to volunteer this year! That shows how committed most club "leaders" are to having a "volunteer" club. [NOTE: "instructors" should really be in quotes too since so many of them are incompetent, but that's another story.]
Even former commodore Matt Duerst wrote "yes" next to "Paid" and "NO" next to "Volunteer" on his instructor application. Want more evidence of the "volunteer" club that Joe imagines..? Check out the club's BOC minutes. There's a recent motion to let BOC members get paid too!! Hey, they just want their piece of the pie.
The culture of lying and duplicity and general criminality is slowly infecting everyone who comes into contact with it. Even good ol' Joe.
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Joe held out for a longtime before getting sucked into the culture at Hoofers. I am surprised he didnt' say more on the radio then he did. There is some volunteering but yah, not nearly enough.
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