Over fifty club members participated in the first clubhouse design charrette May 8.

Charrettes – Part II

More than 50 club members completed the two-part round of clubhouse charrettes on May 22, discussing the results of Part I and advising the committee of architects about how they’d like the permanent clubhouse to wind up.

Talking over a strong southerly wind, Jim Swords, Chris Ross and others led participants through each of the eight designs prepared two weeks earlier by club members in eight working groups. Those designs had been transferred to paper by the club-member architects. The eight were distilled into three that had common elements.

One version formed an “L” shape with structures on the north and west sides of the concrete pad. The second version placed showers and restrooms up the hill near the lagoon, and placed the kitchen west of the pad. The third version grouped everything on the west side of the pad.

Using stickers, participants showed they preferred putting all the units next to the pad. A majority favored grouping everything on the west side. With that advice in hand – and with the limits of the club budget in mind – the club-member architects will begin bringing the permanent clubhouse closer to reality.

The architects, who have volunteered their time to meet every other week since late November, included Swords, Chris Ross, Mark Curfman, Adrian Eszter and Jackson Clark.

Monroe Dodd

Chair, long-range planning

s/v Heppy Ket

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Temporary facilities:
We’re almost there.

Permanent clubhouse: Come to the charrettes

The two temporary trailers – one containing showers and restrooms, the other containing kitchen and storage – are on site at the club. The new concrete pad was poured April 28 and our contractor is rapidly hooking up water, sewer and electricity.

That puts us on pace to be up and running by Saturday, May 8, the sailing season’s first big weekend. At 11 a.m. that day, we’ll have our first clubhouse charrette, or workshop. At 6 p.m., we’ll celebrate at the Ocho de Mayo party.

The charrette will give every club member a chance to hear and offer ideas for our permanent clubhouse. Many of us in early 2009 participated in a PYC charrette that led to a master plan for the entire club grounds. This charrette will focus on the clubhouse. It will also be shorter: two or three hours.

If the weather suits, we’ll do the charrette at the club, on our club tables on our new pad. If rain or high winds intervene, we’ll move to Commodore Bruce Liese’s property near Lecompton, where we can gather in the barn.

Club member Jim Swords, s/v Espadon and a senior architect with Populous,will lead the session, helped by other club-member architects who have worked through the winter to plan our temporary replacement. They’ll help all of us think about clubhouse goals and establish priorities.  We’ll break into groups and create our own clubhouse designs, which will help us consider our possibilities – and our limits.

Who participates? Any and every club member. Please mark your calendar and plan to attend.

Two weeks later, at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 22, we’ll all gather at the club again to see and comment on ideas that the club-member architects have devised as a result of the first workshop.

These workshops -- along with the clubwide survey last year and the work of advisory groups ever since -- represent the biggest component of PYC’s rebuilding project. Make sure you’re involved.

Monroe Dodd

Chair, Long-Range Planning

s/v Heppy Ket

Weather permitting, temporary facilities will go in this week

One of the two ModSpace trailers that will replace our clubhouse temporarily is on the PYC grounds. The other is scheduled to arrive Monday, April 26. After that, everything will be hooked up and the club will truly be up and running for 2010.

The trailer containing showers and restrooms arrived on the grounds April 22, but rain and mud prevented it from being placed on its site. If the rain stays away, and all goes according to plan, a ModSpace truck will tow it up to its new location -- where the caretakers' fifth-wheel trailer once sat -- April 26. Afterward, ModSpace will move the trailer containing kitchen and storage facilities to its site -- the level of the old clubhouse.

Allen Improvement Inc. of Lawrence, which has graded the grounds to allow the trailers to be placed, will attach electric, water and sewer lines to both trailers, build access steps for both and lay a concrete pad.

Once the pad is ready, we'll put in place a temporary shelter against sun and rain, courtesy of Gary and Nancy Templeton and their friends who attend the Walnut River Festival each year in Winfield, Kansas. The shelter is like our shelter on Leone's Landing, only bigger -- 30 feet by 30 feet. It will be available for club use most of the summer, until the Walnut River festival. By then, we plan to have ordered and placed a well-constructed permanent shelter.

All these facilities -- except for the shelter -- will be paid from our insurance proceeds designated for a temporary replacement.

Thanks for your patience. With help from the weather, it should soon be rewarded.

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December 2009 -- the ruins are removed