Everyone who plays a hand in running JYSailing is a volunteer, though when actually teaching, our main insturctors are paid employees who work full-time hours. On the administrative side of things, we're always looking for people to help spread the work around so that keeping this thing going is not only managable, but even fun!

There are two common refrains we hear from wonderful folks like you who want to get involved. The first is "I used to sail in college [or as a kid] and want to get back out on the water." You want to look into the Adult Racing series.

The next most common background is "I know boats and used to do a lot of repair and maintainance." That is wonderful, but we've found that the difficulty of arranging basic maintainance for the sailboats As-Needed is so time-consuming that it's easier to just do it ourselves. How your expertise would translate into a real benefit is if you became a designated JYS repair person and inspected the fleet on a regular basis, on your own initiative, and were available for emergency repair calls as needed. We need people who will take on a task and commit to it for at least a season. This sounds an awful lot like being a board member:

• More than anything else, we're looking for active board members. During the on season, there is a JYS planning meeting about once a month (or less). We hit the agenda fast, distribute tasks based on our season's outline, and then break. The more people we have there to take on these tasks, the longer we can keep the program going strong without burnout.
• After that, we're looking for inactive board members. These are folks who want to commit to a specific task, but can't stomach meetings more than a few times a year. Tasks you might consider include drysuit transportation to the repair shop, occasional dinghy maintenance, powerboat maintenance, junior instructor coordination, start-of-season outreach, fundraising, doing our taxes and payroll -and more! Most of these require self-direction, others are more of a "we'll call when we need you" type of deal, but the key to everything is that you're consistantly there when th eprogram needs you.
• And then we love to have people who are available for work parties (like launching the dock and boats). If you want to be on our Please Help list, send us an e-mail and we'll write you twice a way.
• Adult Races, when being held, are run by just a few experienced and responsible race managers. We'd love it if they were run by several experienced and responsible race managers.
• We also very much need responsible, able students who are 13 or older and have completed at least Level 2 to be Junior Instructors (the folks who go along with the kids in the Juniors classes). You don't need to be US Sailing certified to do this, just responsible and enthused. The position of Junior Instructor is unpaid (the free sailing time is well worth it), and it is the feeder system for becoming a (paid) Assistant Instructor, and Lead Instructor. If your student is interested, and their past instructors agree, we'd be happy to have them aboard. Send an e-mail.

Thanks a ton for thinking of us!