Thank you all for your comments, and I'd like to report-out what your comments meant to us. In addition to this forum, we called several yacht clubs in our area, and conducted brainstorming with our board leadership. In summary, we are not going to strengthen our vetting process because we do not see a risk of allowing new members to join. The experiences reported on this forum, and the area clubs, reflect our experience -- it's not the new folks that cause the problems, but the long-term members. I will not presume to conclude why someone who has been a member of a club for a dozen years begins to feel comfortable behaving badly after drinking, or stealing from the till, or damaging property, c., but that's the profile of the bad actors. We are not in the enviable position of some of the clubs represented above that we have a long waiting list of qualified people, so we are also concerned about driving people away unnecessarily. Good luck to your clubs in promoting boating and sailing in your communities.
