News from Linden House

Over the last few months a lot of changes have been taking place as a result of Chris and Maggie Eade's decision back in November last year to move on. Over the Christmas period we undertook a search for a new Manager and were pleased to find David Thomas, who started with us in February.

During the change-over period we took the opportunity to make substantial alterations to the 2nd Floor accommodation at Linden House, where our Manager is resident. This has achieved two things:

We have also completed a lot of rewiring work and renewed some lighting systems to ensure the building remains safe for our use in the long term. One further change made has been the removal of the peninsular unit in the bar, which has provided a small increase in capacity as well as hopefully leading to a more open atmosphere in the room.

Additionally, we have been looking at changes to:

on the basis of pilot projects that may or may not become permanent depending on what members think. And we have also been instituting some behind the scenes changes in our management systems at Linden House, appropriate for the growing club that we are.

At the same time that all these changes have been happening, we have reviewed the way that the Trust and Club co-ordinate together.

Before going into detail on this matter, it might be as well to recap on the difference between the two. Briefly, it is like this..... you will be aware that we share the Linden House facilities with Sons of the Thames Rowing Club. Essentially, the legal way in which we do this is by both us and members of the Rowing Club all being members of the London Corinthian Trust (you are indeed a member of this Trust as well as the Sailing Club if you signed the appropriate form - it was the other shorter form you signed when you joined or was sent to you when the building was purchased) and by the Trust formally owning and running Linden House.

In organisational terms, this means that while the LCSC Management Committee (the LCSC 'Man Comm') is and remains the group wholly elected by us sailors to manage our club and arrange all of our sailing and social activities, there is a Trust Committee - now called the Linden House Committee - (made up of Trustees of the Trust and others, both sailors and rowers, who are also ultimately answerable to us too, via our membership of the Trust), which has the responsibility of looking after the maintenance, use and scheduling of the facilities at Linden House (with the help of a Facilities Committee it has set up).

To ensure the best possible co-ordination all round, we are now making a few changes and arranging that there is more of an overlap between the LCSC Man Comm and the Linden House Committee. And this will happen as follows:

And to ensure that everyone is kept informed, we plan to issue an email report via the Discussion Group after every meeting of the Linden House Committee (expected, you'll be glad to hear, to be a lot shorter than this note......).

We hope this will ensure really good management of your club, easy and seamless co-ordination with the rowers, and you being better informed about, and able to participate in, plans and developments at Linden House.

So in terms of who is who now, and who does what, you should be aware of the following:

Again, here, if you have any particular comments or complaints or ideas for improvement of specifically the Linden House facilities, or indeed would like to help us here in some way, then please feel free to either:

We have the objective of running the most successful, open, friendliest and best value sailing club in London, and hope that these small changes will help us move closer to this goal.

Thanks for your time reading this, and please expect updates about what is happening at Linden House roughly every two months or so.