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More Than a DonaTion: Keeping costs affordable for schools & students

BaySail |107 5th St, 2nd Floor | Bay City, Mi 48708 | 989.895.5193 |info@baysailbaycity.org

At BaySail, we make it our mission to ensure learners of all ages experience a Great Lake, appreciate the importance of protecting our shared freshwater resource, and understand the actions that negatively impact the quality of the water we rely on. Most importantly, we foster long-lasting stewardship of the water and the environment that surrounds it.

We work hard at BaySail to manage costs and provide educational programs at rates schools can afford. Even so, many schools must ask students to help cover the costs of even the most important off-site programs. Please help us give students a solid appreciation for our precious freshwater resources.

I hope you will consider becoming a member of our fantastic organization. Your tax-deductible membership fee is important to defraying the costs of delivering our educational programs and keeping the costs affordable for schools and students.

There is a membership level to suit any level of giving with student memberships starting as low as $25. At any level, your support of BaySail directly contributes to the success of our valuable programming. Visit our website to join today!

Scott Ellis, Marketing, Communications & Special Projects

edition 7november 2015

December 1#GivingTuesday - show your support of BaySail by making a donation or becoming a member on December 1st or anytime.

December 31Today is the last day for educators to receive $100 off their spring Science Under Sail program(s). The date(s) must be reserved and a 50% deposit received no later than December 31st.

February 23BaySail’s Annual Meeting – join us for an evening of reflecting on past successes, charting our course for the coming season and showing our appreciation for our invaluable volunteers.

Welcome aboard!

Welcome to the November 2015 edition of ‘A View from Aloft’. If you’re new to our newsletter or ever want to reread an old issue, visit our page on Scribd. You’ll find every issue of A View from Aloft in one convenient place.

The sailing season may be over but things at BaySail are always moving forward. Keep an eye out for our annual year-end appeal mailing later this month. Sustained support from readers like you are the reason BaySail can continue to offer life-changing programs for youth, teens and adults aboard the schooner Appledore IV. Coming up in February we’ll host our 3rd Annual Meeting at the DoubleTree Hotel. We invite everyone to join us as we celebrate our successes from the past season, look ahead to a fantastic 2016 season and celebrate our invaluable volunteers.

-Scott Ellis, Marketing, Communications & Special Projects

BaySail would like to extend a special thank you to the McLaren Bay Medical Foundation for making it possible to equip Appledore IV with an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). This addition allows our annually trained captain and crew to immediately respond to a cardiac emergency aboard the ship.

Have you ever wondered what modern schooner sailors eat aboard the Appledore IV? The answer is a variety of hard-won delectable meals and scrumptious snacks. With a diverse full-time crew of four as well as an ever-changing string of volunteer Petty Officers and Senior Petty Officers, each with sundry tastes and cooking styles, the foods created in the galley comprise a spectrum of nautical nom-noms.

But where does the name “Galley Sweat” come from? A few years back on a boiling–hot July day in Lake Erie, Jason Paris and Emily Springsteen joked that they would make a cooking show called “Galley Sweat”, to be filmed aboard the Appledore, with the aim of documenting the heroic and extreme strategies employed by the cooks to get their jobs done. The cooking aboard Appledore IV is done on a diesel-fueled stove, so it can be a very hot job. Often the cooks must fight large waves on a roller-coaster like ride. A

tradition was born on that day, and we have been sweating in the galley ever since to accomplish daily culinary feats.

Many hands cooked this season’s meals. On occasion, the hands warmed themselves on the stove on cold mornings and they sometimes ran with sweat on a hot afternoon. Favorite breakfasts included Big Eggy (a big pile of eggs with cooked kale and mushrooms), homemade granola and yogurt, Egg Bakie (quiche for busy people), and Lumberjack Breakfast (French toast and bacon). There were many popular lunches made, such as homemade macaroni and cheese, Middle Eastern Extravaganza (hummus, tabbouleh, falafel and pita), Festival of Sandwiches (it is what it sounds like) and couscous and ratatouille. Finally, our most well-liked dinners were Mexican pile (kind of like lasagna, but with frijoles negros, tortillas and salsa), chicken and tofu curry (Jason’s specialty), and the beach

cookout (vegetable kebabs prepared on board, bratwursts, veggie dogs and s’mores!). The trainees loved the desserts made on board, which were mostly of the cookie pile variety (cooking them on a tray takes too long on the boat, so they are prepared in a rectangular tray). We also prioritize dessert. Usually this is brownies or a cookie recipe baked in a square pan like brownies. If the boat is heeling one side ends up thicker.

Food at home is all good ‘n well, but food formed in the magical domain of Appledore IV’s galley is truly special. The recipes cooked on board have been perfected over years of experimentation, and they are genuinely a great part of many trips. We have had trainees who are vegetarians, who have allergies, and one who ate exclusively sandwiches, but the Appledore Galley Sweat party has powered through it with grace and flexibility and with enchanting results.

-Jason Paris and Amy Olenzek

BaySail |107 5th St, 2nd Floor | Bay City, Mi 48708 | 989.895.5193 |info@baysailbaycity.org

a GiFT FroM The hearTVolunteers are the heart of BaySail. Their gift of time and commitment to work together for the betterment of our organization

is beyond measure. Over the course of the 2015 sailing season, we have been extremely fortunate to have worked with many terrific volunteers without whom our mission could not be achieved. I would like to recognize our new and returning volunteers Terry Benson, Diane Carey, Dick Crooks, Cilla Jones, Anne Kukla, Les Smith, Alicia Wallace, and Jacob Wright. BaySail also partnered with two great organizations this season; the DEQ Environmental Education Internship program and the Dow STEM Ambassador program.

The DEQ offers opportunities for unpaid student interns to work in a variety of capacities throughout the DEQ. Positions are offered across the State of Michigan in the DEQ district offices, the lab, or the field to match student interests and create personally fulfilling assignments and projects. Interns work directly on key environmental issues, alongside department professionals and executives, and often branch out to work on projects involving the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Agriculture. This fall, BaySail acquired two DEQ interns, Allie Shoffner and Michael Carter who provided their expertise in water quality and freshwater ecology to the benefit of the Science Under Sail program.

Dow’s STEM mission is to build the workforce of tomorrow by supporting teachers, motivating student achievement, developing careers, and collaborating with communities to transform STEM education into a driver for innovation, manufacturing, and economic prosperity. The Dow STEM Ambassador program partners current Dow employees with local schools and nonprofit organizations to engage students to pursue STEM careers. We were fortunate to have several ambassadors help out on our Science Under Sail program - with special thanks to William Foster III, Nancy Tseng, and Megan Zabetian.

While we are packing up the microscopes and putting the 2015 sailing season behind us, we are already very busy preparing for next spring. We’ll be introducing new content and new ways of delivering our educational programs, which will require more support from volunteers. You don’t need to be an accomplished sailor. You don’t need to be a professional educator. You just need to have a passion for the Great Lakes and a willingness to share that passion with the students who participate in our programs aboard the Appledore IV.

We will be scheduling spring volunteer orientation and training sessions very soon. Please consider joining us as we help to mold the next generation of environmental stewards.

Jodie Romzek, Director of Education

GalleySweatAgriculture and the food we eat have been included in conversations about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with greater frequency. The following article penned by two of Appledore’s long-time crew members presents a different—but very important—perspective on an unusual component of STEM education: the culinary arts.

There’s something soothing about the tree I see through my office window. I’ve been watching its leaves turn to yellow and orange for a few weeks now. It’s almost at peak color as I write this and I know someday soon I’ll look out my window and those brilliant orange leaves will be resting on the ground. It makes me think about how we seem to rush through our busy summer sailing season and, when we’ve reached our peak, the season is abruptly over.

While a part of us misses the sometimes frantic activity of the sailing season (the sailors among us most of all), work at BaySail doesn’t stop altogether when our ship stops sailing. We simply adopt a different pace in the off season. Our crew is already scraping and painting the deck of Appledore IV. In a few weeks, Captain David will lead a team of crew and volunteer cadets in putting the winter cover on the ship making it easier and more comfortable to tackle some messy jobs when the snow is flying. Captain David has a long list of regular maintenance items he’ll be addressing this winter, but he’ll be paying extra attention to a thorough review of Appledore’s systems in preparation for the 2016 sailing season and next summer’s TALL SHIPS® CHALLENGE in the Great Lakes.

Director of Education Jodie Romzek is busy updating educational program materials and developing new and better ways to deliver them. Next season, teachers will be able to choose from a number of different modules to create a custom SCIENCE UNDER SAIL experience for their students. Jodie is also honing her skills and keeping up to date on information impacting the Saginaw Bay and Great Lakes ecology by attending a number of workshops and conferences over the late fall and winter months. She’s been working with SVSU and presenting information on the “Michigan Environmental Education Curriculum” as professional development workshops for teachers and will soon be certified to present “Project Wet” and “Project Wild”

workshops as well.Communications and Special Projects Manager

Scott Ellis is reevaluating and updating all our printed materials. Communicating with our members and partners is always a priority so Scott is always busy managing our website, social media accounts and this newsletter. He’s already working with charter clients and motorcoach groups for next year and, as soon as our sailing schedule is finalized for 2016, Scott will be sharing information about voyaging opportunities aboard Appledore IV through our Windward Bound sail training program. And if that weren’t enough, Scott is taking on more responsibility for Tall Ship Celebration next summer.

And me? I am constantly looking for opportunities to make sure the talented people I work with have the resources they need to do their jobs. From managing our finances to negotiating appearance fees, from securing sponsors to writing grants, from improving existing programs to developing new collaborations, it’s all about having the resources to fulfill our mission.

At BaySail, we create environmental stewards.Unlike the trees I see out my window, BaySail

doesn’t go dormant during the winter. Because we’re not sailing and generating revenue at this time of the year, your support is even more important to us. Answering the call to contribute to our Annual Appeal or becoming a member of our non-profit organization helps us stay the course. While there is much to be done during the “off season,” we do try to appreciate the calm before the storm. We know next summer will be about as chaotic as it gets as we send Appledore IV to other ports around the Great Lakes and we in turn welcome other ships to Bay City for Tall Ship Celebration.

It’s a lot to do but, with your help, we’ll be ready!-Shirley Roberts, Executive Director

BaySail |107 5th St, 2nd Floor | Bay City, Mi 48708 | 989.895.5193 |info@baysailbaycity.org

Calm before the Storm