Ormond Yacht Club

 

Below is also a speech made at the Ormond Yacht Club's 2006 Annual Dinner.

 

It is fitting that the Ormond Yacht Club should have it's annual meeting here, at the Anderson-Price Building, where it actually all began. At the beginning of the 20th Century, this was the site of the Village Improvement Association. The men and women members had been taking care of Ormond's public streets and they had maintained a library and reading room in the small wooden building that originally occupied this site. However, the women decided they would enjoy this Village Improvement Association much better...if there were no more men. That group would later change it's name to the Women's Club. And so it was, that on a February evening in 1910, 40 of Ormond's founding fathers met on this site to finalize plans for their own club. They adopted a constitution which stated that the "object of this club shall be to increase the sociability and general upbuilding of the town of Ormond and to promote boating in its broadest sense." Among the founding members were: John Anderson and Joseph Price - builders of the Ormond Hotel, and John Andrew Bostrom - Ormond's first settler and Great grandfather (Ancestor) of current member Don Bostrom.

 

The City of Ormond granted the club an easement at the foot of Lincoln Avenue. Plans were drawn up for the clubhouse building, and a long dock extending out beyond the clubhouse to the main channel of the Halifax with a boat shed and stalls at the end. Sadly, the additional dock and boathouse were destroyed by a storm about 1920, and were never rebuilt. But, the rest of that unique and vulnerable-looking structure has withstood all the storms of the last 95 years. Now, the three hits in 2004 did make us a little weak in the knees...but, we didn't go down.

 

So, although it was named the Ormond Yacht Club, after the loss of the dock extension and boat shed, there were no more boats or yachting activities. Activities of the members included card playing (but, NO GAMBLING),  reading, playing billiards (but, NO GAMBLING) and having dinners and dances (but, NO GAMBLING). In its heyday, the club was a central part of the social activity of this community. Along with the dinners and dances held at the Yacht Club, there were meetings of Ormond's Chamber of Commerce, Board of Realtors, the Garden Club, the Boy Scouts, Girls club and other community organizations. And to allow the exiled men a chance to prove there were no hard feelings, the Women's Club even met there while they were building this glorious structure that houses us tonight. Things really have come full circle - this year we welcome women members to the Ormond Yacht Club -and who knows, perhaps we'll go back to calling it the Village Improvement Association - now that the men and women of Ormond are together again.