.: A Message From Our President
Hello to
all:
Welcome
once again to spring! After a long,
snowy (140 inches), and cold winter,
this is so refreshing. It was my
winter of discontent, I must admit.
My beloved Patriots lost the Super Bowl to the Giants, much to the
delight of Howard Harris, who has been a life long Giants fan.
The ice
went out entirely on April 21st and Mike Lynch won our “ice out”
pool. Amazingly, four loons returned
to the lake on April 19th, along with a dozen golden eye
ducks. The hardy soul of the year
has to be Teddy Osier who was actually out riding his Jet Ski on April 19th,
while there was still some ice floating around on the lake! As I write this letter on May 4th,
we have ten visiting loons – what a nice sight – and the first Baltimore orioles have
arrived.
The
Watchic Lake Association bylaws
committee, in conjunction with our attorney, completed the necessary work
for filing with the IRS seeking tax exempt status as a 501(c)(3)
organization. This filing took place
late in 2007 and I am extremely pleased to be able to announce that we just
received approval of our application and the IRS has issued the letter of
exemption. This status opens up
opportunities and gives us flexibility and leverage as we move
forward. We will be giving you
details of how meaningful and important this is to our organization at our
annual meeting.
We have applied for a grant in the amount
of $152,000 available from the Cumberland County Soil & Water District
to address erosion problems which pose a potential risk to our water
quality. As part of this process, we
have gone before the Standish Town Council to request a matching grant of
$1,000 for 2009 and 2010. Speaking
of water quality, Wendy Garland of the DEP has informed us that Watchic Lake is no longer on Maine’s watch list for
water quality. Thank you all for
doing a good job on your properties.
After all, everything you do affects the lake and that is a concern
to all of us.
I am
pleased to announce that the Watchic Lake Association will be sponsoring an
Invasive Plant Workshop conducted by the Maine Volunteer Lake Monitoring
Program. The workshop will be held
on July 22nd from 3:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Kiwanis Clubhouse and will teach
participants how to identify invasive plant species and also native
non-invasive plant species. Our goal
is to have more eyes around the lake to monitor for early detection of any
invasive plants. I attended a
workshop last year along with two other lake residents and it was very
educational. More information will
be available by June, with a list of contacts, to sign up.
I would
like to remind everyone about the web site.
We will be using it more as a communication tool now that we have
Martha Drew volunteering to take over updating it with current news and
information. Membership forms can be
downloaded at your convenience. If
you have pictures or any funny stories or information you would like to
share, you can contact me via e-mail at pattyme13@fairpoint.net.
This
year our annual meeting will be held on Saturday, July 5th. We hope that the change from Friday to
Saturday will allow our members who have to travel from out of state to
attend. The social hour will be held
in a tent outside of the Standish Congregational Church, giving us much
more space for greeting old friends, meeting new ones, and, of course,
participating in our annual silent auction.
We will be adding additional booths this year so that members can
ask questions about various topics of interest to individual property
owners. Dinner will be served inside
the church building. Please join
us! The faces around the lake are
beginning to change with property sales.
This is a good time to meet and welcome our new members.
Also at
the annual meeting, the nominating committee will present their list of
nominees to serve on the board of directors. Elections will take place along with the
business meeting immediately following dinner.
I look
forward to seeing you all in July.
Sincerely,
Patty
Guenthner
President,
Watchic Lake Association
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