Bulletin Board

Newport Sail and Power Squadron Burgee

Our 50^th Anniversary pennant has been approved and our Supply Officer, Dave Duggan has a quantity of them on hand. These are high quality and are available for just $25 each. They are 19 inches on the fly.

Newport Sail and Power Squadron Bylaws

The latest revision of the NSPS Bylaws has received final approval by the USPS Rules Committee. It is available on line for viewing and/or download. It is an 18 page document and could take up to 4 minutes to download over a dial-up line. You may also request a paper copy from any member of the NSPS Rules Committee.

Free NOAA Chart Downloads

NOAA is now providing free downloads of their entire library of raster digital charts. These are the absolute latest charts available. The NOAA Raster Navigational Charts (NOAA RNCŽ) are compatible with the Chart Navigator software provided with America's Boating Course 3rd Edition and The Squadron Boating Course. You can work with these charts for cruise planning and then uploading routes, waypoints and marks to your GPS - or for printing your own charts complete with plotted courses. These charts will also work with virtually every navigation program on the market. This is an invaluable benefit.

To access the NOAA web site, visit the USPS EdDept web site at www.usps.org/national/eddept/freecharts.htm, click the "NOAA" button in the right-hand column and follow the prompts. The downloads are immediate, but the files are large and should not be attempted over a dial-up connection

Squadron Property

Dave Duggan, NSPS Supply Officer and NSPS Property Officer has been tasked with cataloging all NSPS property. If you know the whereabouts of any NSPS property, please contact Dave at Dave Duggan or call him at 401 683-6175 with a description, location, date of aquisition, condition and approximate value.

Newport Sail and Power Squadron Name tags

Lose your name tag? Never had one? Want a second one?
You are requested to wear your name tag at Squadron, District and USPS events.
E-mail Dave Duggan or call him at 401 683-6175 to order one.
They come with stick pin fasteners for $6.50, or
with magnetic fastners for $7.50 each.
Please specify exactly the way you want your name to appear.

New USPS Operations Manual

The USPS Operations Manual has revised and is available on-line for viewing or downloading at Operations Manual.

The new bylaws as approved at the February 2007 Annual Meeting in Jacksonville have been included as appendix A. As well, several sections were affected by these new bylaws. You may download either the entire manual or individual chapters.

Please note the March 2007 Operations Manual is a major release and supersedes all previous editions.

New Member Orientation Manual

The New Member Orientation Manual has been made available on-line for viewing and downloading. It is available in PDF format. It does, however, require a special program to open. If you do not already have Adobe Acrobat Reader

on your computer, you may download one for free. Go to the Adobe website, and follow the on-line instructions. You may store it in your Programs folder or anywhere else in your computer. Then whenever you download a PDF file or double click on a stored PDF file, your computer will find the Reader and open the file. The Adobe Acrobat Reader will take about an hour to download (over a dial-up line) and will use about 20MEG of disk storage.

Click here: New Member Orientation Manual to start the download. Be patient, it is over 500K bytes and will take about 6 minutes. If nothing appears to be happening after about two minutes, you may coax it a little by clicking on the recycle icon. For AOL users, that's the circular arrow pointing clockwise in the upper left part of the screen. After downloading, you may save it for viewing again later and printing.

Mill Grindings by E-mail

In order to save printing and mailing costs, E-mail has become the preferred method of distribution of the Mill Grindings. They are being distributed in PDF format because it requires less storage space and remains more stable than Word. It does, however, require a special program to open. If you do not already have Adobe Acrobat Reader

If you haven't already done so, please register your address with: The Mill Grindings Editor and Publisher, Dave Procaccini at dapro@cox.net.
For a current copy, e-mail your request to: NewportPS2@aol.com
Archived copies of past Mill Grindings are available for download. Call or e-mail either the Mill Grindings editor or the webmaster for the password.

Bent Prop Award

For many years, the Newport Sail and Power Squadron has been presenting the Bent Prop Award each year to a Member or Members thought to have most seriously violated the rules of safe boating during the previous year. An example is P/C Don Levesque who was caught on film transferring gasoline from one container to another with a lighted cigar in his mouth. Other examples include collisions and passing through congested areas at excessive speeds. You can help assure that the award goes to those most deserving it by watching for violations and sending a report of your observations and, if available, digital photographs to Cdr. Bill Loeseke, P