Requiring Emergency Contact Information (Enforced starting June 1st)
Shreyas Chand
Hey Sailors,
Did you know you can add your phone number and an emergency contact to your account profile on the club website? Sadly, less than a third of members have shared this info - info which could be invaluable in case of a variety of emergencies on and off the water.
It is also, unfortunately, not uncommon for situations to arise where time is of the essence but we don’t know if there’s a real emergency. For example, if the dayleader is getting ready to close and realizes there’s a boat or board still checked out - did someone simply forget to sign the gear back in? Or do we need to mobilize a rescue operation, maybe even including the USCG, before the sun fully sets?
To ensure we have good contact information for all members, for use both in actual emergencies and to help prevent unnecessary emergency responses, ExComm plans to institute the following changes:
All members will be required to provide a phone number, emergency contact name, emergency contact relationship, and emergency contact phone number on their account profile on the club website.
Starting May 4th, this information will be required during sign up for all new members.
Starting June 1st, the digital signout system will block you from checking out gear if your account doesn’t have this required information.
Enable currently active Dayleaders, in addition to Excomm members, to access the aforementioned information through the website.
We want to keep this sensitive information highly confidential, but the current setup where only Excomm can access this information creates unnecessary hurdles for DLs when they need this information during an emergency.
We have conducted an audit to ensure that the Dayleader access is only currently applied to our paid DLs and active (i.e. regularly being scheduled) volunteer DLs. Various other sensitive website capabilities are bound to the DL role and Port Captains already manage adding/removing this access promptly when folks get added or removed from the DL schedule.
If you want to get ahead of these changes, you can add the soon-to-be-required information through the website now. After signing in, click on the “Membership” tab, and then click “My Account” to find the page where it can be added.
We don’t want anyone to unexpectedly get blocked from sailing - that’s why we’re giving everyone a month to enter the information. We will also remind everyone of the June 1st deadline at the May GMM (date to be announced soon!) and via postings around the club.
If you have any questions or concerns about these proposed changes, please share your feedback! You can raise them with me directly, and we will also be having a GMM before these changes go into effect where you can raise them publicly.
See you on the water!
Shreyas Chand
Commodore, Cal Sailing Club