Commentary by Tom Stauss January 2012

Reaffirm the Yacht Club business plan as suggested by General Manager Bob Thompson that envisions the Yacht Club as primarily a summer destination, with some room to accommodate “open for business” in the shoulder months. As recently described by Thompson, a new Yacht Club would close during the winter months, except for special banquet events at the amenity that would be held on the new building’s second floor. This is a business with historical roots – it was the original operating plan for the Yacht Club in its earliest years – and it remains a plan that has produced a break-even operation at the Yacht Club as recently as two years ago. This past October, the Yacht Club produced a modest surplus open seven days a week; imagine what that profit could have been if it had been open during the prime Friday to Sunday period only.

Thompson has announced that kind of attenuated schedule beginning this month; it will be interesting to see whether the results will more closely resemble October, with its modest profit, or November, in which the club lost more than $45,000. If January replicates November’s results, then the board and Thompson should apply that new found knowledge, by affirming that a new Yacht Club’s business plan will call for the facility’s closure for four or five months during winter, with the possible accommodation of special catered events on an ad hoc basis.

 I came across the above in the Article section of the Forum  when trying to get a better sense of the “institutional memory”  of OPA. (I know Joe, yes, there are mental health clinics here and indeed after reading these articles I may be in need of their services)

But, in all seriousness, what happened between this time frame and opening of the new yacht club to so dramatically alter the operational plans that were apparently articulated in public?