The Opening Day party is celebrates the first "Official" Dayof the boating season, the first Saturday of May (double check with the Seattle Yacht Club if you are unsure). Boats line up past the Montlake cut to watch theboat parade. As part of our annual tradition, we watch it from thebalcony of the Waterfront Activities Center

How it's done
The event is free for members and their guests (however, people should be reasonable about the number of guests they bring -- such as their family, significant other or 1-2 friends). We keep it a potluck-style event. Members can bring a dish of their choosing (trying to coordinate what members will bring can be a large task -- I just left it to 'chance' and it worked out fine :D). The Yacht Club then provides some basic grilling food such as burgers and hotdogs (remember to get veggie versions too!), sodas, and some alcohol (see below for more info on the alcohol). The event in 2010 ran from noon-4pm. Jim (seagren@uw.edu), the WAC manager, sometimes reserves this day for the banquet room for us at the beginning of the year, but it would be good to send him an email a month or two before to check.

Alcohol
Visit the "Liquor Permit" page for more info!
To have alcoholic beverages, it would be best NOT to charge for them and NOT to be sponsered by an alcohol company. Charging/Sporsorship will make your life and the paperwork you need to do very hard.

To serve free drinks to 21+ people you will need "Authorization to Apply for a Banquet Permit to Serve Alcoholic Beverages" on UW Campus. This involves filling out an online form that gets bounced around some administrative offices and sent back to you when it's all approved. You can find it by typing "UW Banquet Permit" into google, or going here: http://www.washington.edu/provost/specialprograms/banquet.html. Visit the "Liquor Permit" page for more info! This is a VERY LONG process. Start it a few weeks before the party.

Attached (see below) is an example of my Opening Day party UW Banquet Permit application. Feel free to copy it!

You'll then need to go get a permit from the liquour store itself. UW's page says: "At the end of the process, take two copies of your authorization emailto the Washington State Liquor Store to buy your $10 Washington StateLiquor Control Board Banquet Permit. We assume that you keep one copyfor your files."