TLS&PS History

Frank & Verna Clayton transferred their membership to Savannah River Power Squadron during summer of 1998. Frank taught three Boat Smart courses in the fall of 1998, spring and fall of 1999. Eighteen people joined the Savannah River Squadron during that period. The 18 of us traveled the 40 to 60 miles to functions of the Savannah River Squadron in Augusta, GA and Aiken, SC. We discussed on our long rides what would it take to start a new squadron. We learned that there was a new way to do it.

So on 17 Jan 2000 15 of the 18 of us met for 5 hours to plan the start of a provisional squadron. After lots of brainstorming, we selected a name for the squadron, selected a name for our newsletter, scheduled 18 boating activities, scheduled 10 dinner meetings, and selected officers and committee chairmen for this new squadron.

The Clayton's, Daly’s, Haffeman's and Powers' agreed to go to the USPS Annual Meeting in Orlando. None of the eight had ever been to a national meeting. We studied the agenda and each person was assigned meetings to attend so that we could bring back as much information as we could. The first meeting we all attended was the one on “Building New Squadrons”. V/C Lance Jensen, SN, told us he would authorize the formation of Thurmond Lake Provisional Squadron.

We received approval of the provisional squadron and bylaws on 22 Feb 2000. We had enough members at that time to request approval for a charter kit from V/C Ted Smith, SN, the National Executive Officer. He approved and headquarters sent us the charter kit. A special Organization Meeting was called for 21 Mar 2000 and by then we had 53 Members and 9 Family Members. We adopted the name of the squadron, adopted the bylaws, elected the bridge officers and committees, and approved the design of the squadron burgee.

The 30th of March, 2000 Thurmond Lake Sail & Power Squadron was informed our charter was approved. The formal approval was June 10th at USPS Governing Board Meeting in Grand Rapids. At the time of Charter our squadron had 91 Members and 13 Family Members.