December Update!!! December Update!!!!

It's the Holiday time of the Year! The Spirit's first and incredibly successful education sail season finished on Wednesday, December 5th. Bookings for next season are already brisk and few slots remain open! Well done to the crew and the office staff who made it happen...not to mention the volunteers who contributed to many sails, dockside events, and donor events.

The holiday season is rapidly approaching and this is a reminder of the Holiday Party on December 15th at 3 pm. At 2 pm there will be a volunteer appreciation ceremony to present rewards to volunteers who have reached their major hour milestones. There is also a new 750 hour level reward which will be presented to those who have reached that level.

Mark your calendars and be ready to sign up at the Holiday party for the watches we will be standing from Dec 23rd through Jan 1st. The ship will move to the City Boat Yard for a scheduled maintenance period and the seasonal crew will shrink -- so we have the wonderful opportunity to supplement the crew and stand overnight watches in that time frame. If you can't make it to the party, please email jeteske@sbcglobal.net to let me know when you can stand watches overnight.

Check out these pictures from the season--this is what it's all about!!!

Thanksgiving 2007 Update

Thanksgiving Update for Spirit

Hello valiant and faithful Spirit Volunteers! It is the week of Thanksgiving and all is well on the Spirit. See below for some upcoming events we need help with. You may have seen the latest email from Captain Arrow about the latest news.

The metal fixture repairs was an incredibly well orchestrated logistics exercise that resulted in the ship being off line for only two weeks! Every metal fixture was replaced in that time with galvanized fixtures. Many, many thanks to the volunteers who made speed runs back and forth between industrial sites, who stood watches, and who watched in awe as the crew put the ship back together!

Educational sails started in earnest again on November 5th and are continuing. The Sea Spray Scout program continues through December 7th and the ship will commence a Christmas stand-down followed by a deck replacement in January.

If you happen to be in the vicinity of the Maritime Center over Thanksgiving wear your volunteer garb and please greet the crew -- they have asked for volunteers to feel free to visit the ship, come on board, and look around. The crew sends their thanks to the volunteers. The crew may be the host for the crews of the Spirit of Massachusetts and the Westward for Thanksgiving dinner -- originally you may have heard we were asking for volunteers to stand watch, well now, since they will be onboard cooking, they won't need us on Thanksgiving day (or, come down and take the watch so they can cook without making ship tours!!)

Mark your calendars and Save the Date for December 15th – join the Spirit crew at the Maritime Center for the Foundation Christmas Party!!

There is plenty to do in the next few weeks – if you can help out with the following please email Dewey Teske – Jennifer Holtsclaw is out of town until mid-December, so Dewey will handle the volunteers for these events (assisted by Tom Sweeny!):

November 29th – Dockside tours – may involve some children in wheelchairs, need 6-8 volunteers to help out
November 30th – Donor sail at 3 pm – need 6-8 volunteers for crew, if you have been in training or already certified as crew and can help, email me
December 1st 4-8 pm – 8-10 volunteers to assist as host ship of the Parade of Lights for our guests the Charleston Power Squadron
December 6th – 11 am-2 pm -- need 8-10 volunteers to assist in the dockside tours for 60-80 corporate visitor tours – these visitors are corporate executives visiting Charleston

Again, email Dewey Teske if you can assist in any of the above. There also may be some more donor sails for training over the next few weeks. Also, the calendar has been shifted to our "old" calendars.net calendar -- link to it from the Blog.

Coming soon: Spirit Trivia Contest!! Stay tuned!