While San Francisco Yacht Club can hardly claim credit for launching Speaker Series events, we are thrilled with the return on investment it offers for our club and Members.

In late 2022, the incoming 2023 Commodore tasked me with a one-year assignment to lead Speaker Series efforts. Four years later, I’m still serving my one-year term in this position.

We are one of many yacht clubs on San Francisco Bay that host scheduled Speaker Series.  Partnering with our friends across the bay at St. Francis Yacht Club, we have formed an alliance of eight local yacht clubs to share speaker leads and recommendations. We have found success getting prominent out-of-town speakers when we can offer speaking at multiple clubs over a few days. While each club has their own scheduling and format, sharing best practices and speakers within other local yacht clubs is in the best interest for the future of our club.

CREATE CONSISTENT EVENT FORMATS

Building on momentum from my predecessors over many years, we have tweaked the SFYC Speaker Series to a winning formula. Our current event structure includes:

• 10-12 annual Speaker Series events
• Prompt start time of 1800 on Wednesdays and we finish no later than 1900. Based on food and beverage sales data, we know that Wednesdays are the slowest days of the club week, so this is an excellent window to drive engagement.
• Speaker Series events are held from January through May, and September through early November. We purposely avoid summer months and the holiday season.
• Events are marketed extensively within the club community. We announce the full year’s lineup by early January so everyone can preview the events and save the dates. We promote each event in the printed magazine, weekly email newsletters, flyers around the clubhouse, on a dedicated page within the Members website, on bulletin boards around the campus and more.
• While the events are not marketed to the public, they are “open to the SFYC community.” We encourage Members to bring along family, friends and prospective members.
• Reservations are never needed, and the events are always free.
• The Club provides a hosted appetizer station, and the bar in the room accepts credit cards for non-member guests.
• We set a theater-style room of approximately 100 chairs supported by a modern A/V system that includes oversized monitors, excellent acoustics, proper lighting and a podium for the speaker.
• While we have a strict policy of not paying speaker honorariums, we do offer our speakers a meal with our members in the dining room to follow, and a Member-hosted guest room for visiting speakers.

TO RECORD, OR NOT TO RECORD?

There is a legitimate debate about broadcasting and recording the content. After my career of more than 25 years in live event management, I strongly believe the Speaker Series are moment-in-time experiences. To record the content at broadcast quality is a significant investment with unjustified costs per view. Additionally, while the option for an on-demand experience may serve a non-resident club population, it diminishes the spirit of camaraderie and club engagement. These events are designed to draw people—members and non-members—to the clubhouse, where they can further engage with other members, dine, have a drink and check in with their club. Successful yacht club communities are built with in-person live engagement, not remotely (see global pandemic 2020-2022), and these events generate revenue for the club on slow days.

CONTENT THAT ENGAGES

As for programming, our mission is to deliver speakers focused on water-related topics, such as maritime history, marine biology and ecology, sailboat racing, destination cruising, boating safety, foundations that advocate for local and global seas, maritime authors and more.

Interestingly, our biggest crowds are often drawn by speakers who are longtime members with decades of remarkable sea stories to share. These are precious moments to hear living voices from our community, discussing days past. Often, these members are approaching their final years, and it’s a wonderful celebration of their lifelong commitment to SFYC.

While the old salts have great stories, so do the kids. SFYC invests significantly in youth racing, and when our young sailors bring home national and international trophies, or campaign at the cutting edge of modern sailboat racing, we put them on stage. This is a fantastic way for our club leadership and members to learn the dedication and talents of our young sailors, as well as hear the behind-the-scenes from their coaches, families and supporters. Creating a platform for a positive-feedback cycle of youth sailing success is an obligation we have for our sport and the future of all yacht clubs.

It can be tempting to invite speakers who are leaders in business, government, entertainment or the arts, or touring authors and comedians on topics related to trends, social issues, personal growth or culture change. We avoid any possible controversy from “land-based” topics, as we have a long pipeline of speakers that can inform and educate our mutual passion for being on the water.

A PIPELINE FOR INTERNATIONAL PARTERSHIP

San Francisco Yacht Club’s Speaker Series is a win for the Club in many ways. The Speaker Series host improves their public speaking skills each month. Bar and galley revenues noticeably spike during speaker series evenings. Finally, our club community receives a value-added membership benefit with essentially no financial exposure for the Club.

Perhaps the future of speaker series should include a collaboration across numerous global, national and regional ICOYC Member Clubs. We could schedule world-class maritime leaders, sailing champions, yachting historians, yachting journalists, trailblazers and visionaries for a speaking tour like no other. I welcome a lively discussion on the idea.