I made this response to a thread about OD racing but part of it belongs in here.....

With the Seacats in Columbia, SC we have (and I'm guessing) about 30 members. I live about 90 miles away from most of the group so I'm a little out of touch with the day to day activities and details. However, I believe that of those thirty we see about 6 to 8 at two local regattas a year. Only two boats from this club (David M and myself) regularly travel to regattas around the eastern coast. The club has camping / sailing events and used to do a lot of Kayaking and Mountain Biking excursions - there is still some of that but it's gone down some. I think that the 'racers' came to power and those events didn't get the focus that they used to - which brings up an interesting point.

Racers are passionate about their sport and I think they tend to rise to the top of these kinds of organization because of their strong and very dedicated personalities. But I think that that hurts some of these organizations like the Seacats because in reality only a few of the members share the same interest in racing. I could be wrong (again, because I've been pretty out of touch with the group this past year), but I sense that the group is in a bit of a decline in activity.