YCS Activities, November 2023
Greetings from your President!
We have a busy month of activities awaiting your participation and interest this month. Our Welcome Back Party was planned to accommodate so many members who were away during the summer and early fall, and I certainly welcome everyone back. However, as a result of this, we have to hustle on notification and response this month. Please pull up the Yale Club of the Suncoast site on your computers and/or phones ASAP, and note the following:
1. It is time to renew your membership in YCS. This year we are using the website as that resource and not sending out letters and forms. As indicated in my earlier message to you, realities have demanded that we recognize the increased costs in our lunches and other activities. The dues for the Club are now $50.00 per year. You must renew by December 1,2023 to be included in the 2023-24 Directory. Please renew at the membership link on this website.
2. We have a most exciting luncheon program coming up on Tuesday November 14, 2023 at the Sarasota Yacht Club. We all know that one of Sarasota’s greatest assets in the arts is the Asolo Repertory Theatre. Our speaker at that program will be the new Producing Artistic Director, Peter Rothstein. He has directed Man of La Mancha, Sweeney Todd, and Ragtime. Mr. Rothstein has served for 25 years as Founding Artistic Director of Theatre Latte Da, a Minneapolis based company dedicated to new and adventurous musical theater. He has collaborated with multiple theatres nationally. He received the Drama Desk Award in New York in 2018 for Unique Theatrical Experience. Mr. Rothstein has Music and Theatre degrees from St. John’s University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Peter Rothstein will be accompanied by Ross Egan, Managing Director of the Asolo. Mr. Egan was previously Managing Director of the historic Barter Theatre in Abington, Virginia, where he successfully navigated the pandemic challenges, including producing Barter at the Moonlite Drive In, one of the first theatres in the world to produce during that time. Mr. Egan was also Director of Operations for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.
YCS Members: As soon as you view this information on the website, please RSVP whether you will be attending by Friday afternoon, November 10, 2023, so we can give the Sarasota Yacht Club an accurate count for the number of lunches.
3. We will be viewing the Yale/Harvard Football Game with the Harvard Club on Saturday, November 18, 2023 at Raffurty’s Sports Bar, 1888 Main Street, Sarasota, Florida. We need to have an RSVP with how many Yalies will be attending. It is at 12:00 noon. You order your own lunch from the menu. It is an opportunity to schmooze, and to remember your lyrics to Boola Boola, and March, March on Down the Field.
President’s Message 2023-24
For those who are members, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you and greeting you at our monthly luncheons. To those in the area who have not become members of YCS, perhaps you will see if you view our Website the many interesting activities of the Yale Club and those will entice you to join us. I have the pleasure for the next two years of serving as President of the Yale Club of the Suncoast. In coming into that responsibility, I must thank our Past President, Elizabeth Spahn for her stellar leadership during the difficult time of coping with the COVID pandemic. It has not been an easy time for any officer at the helm of an organization such as the Yale Club, but she is most persistent, seems to be able to be everywhere one can be in service to the Club, and always carries on with the strength and determination our university shows and deeply appreciates. My personal thanks to her!
In addition, YCS is lucky to have an extraordinary, dedicated board who do not hesitate to take on multiple responsibilities, all voluntary, and they plan their personal and business time to be on the team that leads. I am happy to report that we have had some new, interested, and creative members to join the board — an essential updating that portends our club will continue to operate with vigor, planning events that continually refresh our activities. It is also a sign of our strength that members who have chosen to move on from board activities continue to offer advice, counsel, and wisdom to the board, as well as taking the lead in planning some activities! They may have left the board but their interest and loyalty to YCS remain, and we all must be continually grateful for their work on our behalf.
We have a great season of activities currently in the works. Our last seasons have met with success, and the current season will be exciting. We must recognize at the same time that we like interesting events and like to have a good time at them. After many years of trying to cope with aspects of cost of events, the remarkable talents of our board members cannot reduce the overall local and national inflation of prices that accompany holding gatherings so everyone can have lunch and/or other amenities (it’s fun and none of us forgets that), so you will note an increase in cost of events.
Many of our members are away on vacations and family visits during the summer, but we will have Tuesday drop-in lunches at Marina Jack during those months. They will be coordinated by a member of the club during those meetings. They are informal, but the Website will list who is the host during those gatherings. Those who wish to attend will see on our Website who is the host, and those persons should notify the host, who can then inform Marina Jack how many will be attending lunch. Each person pays for his or her own lunch during those gatherings.
Our fall will begin with a Welcome Back Party at the Sarasota Yacht Club on Sunday, November 5, 2023 from 4:00 – 6:00 PM. Our schedule of Tuesday luncheons begins November 14, 2023 with Peter Rothstein, the new Producing Artistic Director at the Asolo Theater Company. Our luncheon on December 12, 2023 will feature the City Manager of Sarasota as our speaker. During that fall season we will gather with the Harvard Club to view the annual Harvard-Yale football game at Rufferty’s Bar and Grill in Sarasota.
Stay tuned as a number of activities take place in 2024, with exciting luncheon speakers, tours, and other social gatherings during January through May.
I welcome hearing from any of you about your concerns, interests, or ideas about YCS. Please do not hesitate to contact me.