In This Issue

Message from the GM, 2 Letter from the Board President, 3

Foundation News, 4

Nominating Committee, 5

September 11 Tribute, 5

Employee News, 6

Clubhouse Corner, 7-9

Golf, 10-11

Harbour/Yacht Club, 12-13

Tennis & Pickleball, 14-15

Clubs, 16-17

Croquet, 17

Wexford’s History, 18-19

Member Photo Gallery, 20-21

Calendar, 22-24

Wexford Briefly

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Officers:

President:

Stephen Carter

Vice President:

Terry Ramey

Treasurer:

Keith Poisson

Secretary:

Lynn Looby

Directors:

Mary Boland

Michael Fajgenbaum

Harry Mellon

John Presley

Chris Wycoff

ADMINISTRATION

OFFICE:

Monday – Friday 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

843-686-6950

Dear Members,

I hear vinyl is making a comeback?

This past year my daughter and I took a stroll down memory lane and decided to satisfy my nostalgic urges. I purchased a “New,” old time record player. You know what I’m talking about that thing with a needle that you place on a black disc and as it spins around it plays music through an amplified speaker. This was mostly my daughter’s idea, but I found it fascinating that an eleven-year-old was interested in vinyl. There isn’t much nostalgia listening to Taylor Swift but it’s vinyl nonetheless. It took all but a couple of hours for my daughter to realize that her new exciting toy was nothing special and that it really didn’t compare to the quality and convenience of what she plays her music on in her room.

Is our club a Victrola?

Patrick McGuire General Manager

clubhouse interior looks just fine. The record is still spinning and “Old Blue Eyes” sounds as good as ever. (That’s Frank Sinatra for you whippersnappers). But to the new generations, they are asking where that skipping and cracking noise is coming from as the needle reveals every physical flaw on the vinyl disk. You see — or should I say, you hear — that in order to appreciate tradition and nostalgia you need to have a familiar reference point. It’s hard to be retro without familiarity. Our next generation of members listens and sees things from a different perspective –their perspective.

Do you remember the day the music died?

Please do not misunderstand me; it is important to advance our club’s traditions and history. When I was at Dorset Field Club in Vermont, I witnessed the Flaming Maple, an annual golf tournament traditionally hosted in the fall when the foliage was at its peak of color. The tree dated as far back as the late 1800s and was recently taken down due to disease, but the tournament continues.

After getting over the lack of enthusiasm that she displayed, I couldn’t help but reflect on how the different generations of our membership view our club. Wexford, like most clubs, is the same in the fact that the older members tend to entrench their views a little more firmly than the younger incoming members. This passion of preservation also gets applied to events as we host golf tournaments or dinners for whatever the occasion. Tournaments get traditionalized, events become stale; furniture becomes fixtures and very little ever gets archived. Just like a record; it just goes around and around, playing the same old tune.

Many new members who come from Generation “X” and Generation “Y” are filing through our doors. Do they have the same emotional attachment to our club that our older members possess? Sure, they will see the immediate tradition / nostalgia of the clubhouse, but just like my daughter with the record player, it’s pretty cool for the first couple of visits, then it becomes old and stale in a hurry.

To our older established members our

Not for a moment do I suggest that we should end our timeless traditions or alter our history. It’s like that old pair of slippers that fit just right that you can’t bear to replace. It is familiarity, the known commodity. As they say, “you know what you know.”

What I am suggesting is that as a club community we need to ensure that our surroundings represent the make-up of our membership and that we review our environment so that we may start new traditions that our younger members will be able to identify. In other words, add a little Drake (ask our kids) to our music mix. The value proposition will shift, and we have to create and adopt elements real time. But at the same time, we must maintain the honor of our established members and resist taking away what makes them most comfortable. It’s a difficult juggling act but one that must be done in order to keep our club relevant.

When do we know it’s time to turn the record over?

It’s important to be a visionary!