Category Archives: Association News

Posts about Clary Lake Association stuff.

2021 Courtesy Boat Inspection Season Finished

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We’ve concluded our 3rd season of Courtesy Boat Inspections at the State boat launch. There is still some boating activity but it has slowed  down considerably since Labor Day weekend and I think it’s safe to say that anyone trailering a boat to go fishing this time of year are both avid and conscientious fishermen and are well aware of the need to clean their boats and trailers of hitchhiking plants. Most CBI programs ended their season on Labor Day. We decided to continue through September.

The main purpose our CBI program is two-fold. First is to prevent the accidental introduction of invasive plants into Clary Lake and second, to educate the General Public about the risks posed to Maine lakes from invasive plants and to encourage them to inspect, clean, and dry their boats after use. This year we removed 4 plant fragments from incoming boats, none of which turned out to be invasive. Statewide there were a total of 2,539 plant fragments removed from boats and trailers, 19 of which turned out to be invasive plants. The Maine DEP’s 2021 CBI Dashboard shows the lakes that have CBI programs on them and where invasive plants were intercepted this year. Continue reading

21 September 2021: Dry Fire Hydrant Installation Complete

20210920_113534It’s been a long time coming, but finally the dry fire hydrant installation over at the Clary Lake dam is complete. The work was started on Saturday but we encountered ledge which required a redesign of the piping and a few more elbows. Work resumed on Monday and proceeded quickly. The hydrant is actually located on land belonging to Steve and Julie Cowles, adjacent to the Clary Lake dam property. Access to the hydrant is over the Association property. Many thanks to David Boynton for donating his time and equipment and for Steve Cowles for managing this project!

The Clary Lake Association provided the funding for this project and has plans to install another dry fire hydrant in Jefferson near the intersection of Routes 215 and 126 perhaps as soon as next year. Here are more pictures of this installation:

16 September 2021: Website Done For Now!

After three days of more or less non-stop work on the website (and a couple of sleepless nights!) I’m fairly happy with where it stands. On Monday I announced I was going to install a new responsive website theme, on Tuesday I did that, on Wednesday I completely redesigned the menus (after first accidentally deleting the old ones!) and today, four days later, after making some final tweaks to the menus, I’m proclaiming the site redesign done. More or less. Sorta. One thing I’ve learned over the past fourteen years running a website for the Clary Lake Association is that they’re never done, they’re always a work in progress. Continue reading

15 September 2021: Ain’t Life Grand?

I had a minor malfunction here in website land this morning. A simple and truly functional menu layout is the secret to a good website and I haven’t been particularly happy with the old menus since switching to a new responsive website theme.  In the process of “fixing” them I managed to break them instead. Badly. I should have had that second cup of coffee before sitting down to work! Fortunately I make regular backups and I’ve restored the system. Work continues, and I appreciate your patience.

14 September 2021: Responsive Website Theme Installed

I’ve updated the Clary Lake Association website with a new fully responsive mobile-ready and mobile-friendly theme. You might recall that I threatened to do this just yesterday! In fact I had no idea that I’d be cutting over to a new site so soon but I found a more or less suitable theme that required only minor changes and those took less time than I had anticipated. Continue reading

We’re Contemplating Some Site Changes

I’ve grown quite fond of the look and feel of the twenty-ten “theme” in use on this website. It’s clean, simple and fast, but it’s NOT what they call in the website industry “responsive” i.e., it presents the same pages rendered for a desktop computer to all visitors whether they’re viewing the site with a desktop computer, a tablet, or a phone. This can make accessing and using this site hard for people using devices with small screens because they’ve got to continually zoom-in and zoom-out to get pages and menus sized appropriately. Those of you who have been accessing this site on your smart phones know exactly what I’m talking about. Modern themes can dynamically adjust the site’s pages to fit whichever device a visitor is using. It’s long past time when we should have moved on to a responsive website theme.

To that end I’ve begun looking for a suitable replacement. My primary goal is to implement a responsive theme while keeping our current functionality and basic layout, and without breaking the site too badly. Stay tuned and if you show up and the site looks a mess, know that I’m working on it!

2021/2022 Election of Officers and Directors Concluded

Y’all will be happy to know that we’ve finalized the election of Officers and Directors for the 2021/2022 year at a brief Special Membership Meeting held yesterday afternoon at the home of Gareth & Beverly Bowen. Five Board members showed up for the meeting (by golly, a Board quorum!) and two (count `em!) CLA members were in attendance as well (we did not encourage people to attend this meeting). The final tally of in-person and proxy ballot votes was 91 in favor of electing the slate of officers, 0 opposed. The outcome was not in question and the meeting was over almost before it started. Continue reading

10 August 2021: CLA Annual Meeting Poorly Attended!

The Annual Meeting of the Clary Lake Association that was held last Saturday, August 7th was a fine meeting, but not all that well attended. Much to our chagrin, it turns out we did not have a quorum present, something that didn’t become apparent until a couple of days later when I was reviewing the attendance records. Oops! This means that the election of Officers and Board members and the Membership approval of our 2021/2022 budget were invalid, and will have to be redone. Our Bylaws define a quorum as 1/3 of the membership, and at any meeting of the Association, assuming a quorum is present, a simple majority can conduct Association business. We had at the time 143 members, 1/3 of which is 48. So we needed a quorum of 48 but we fell short of that mark with only 30 Members attending. While this isn’t the end of the world, it is an inconvenience that we will rectify by scheduling a Special Membership Meeting sometime next month and mailing out proxy ballots to all current Members of the Association. In the meantime, our bylaws provide for those people IN office to remain IN office until such time as their replacements are elected, so we’re not leaderless. Phew 🙂 Continue reading

2016 Annual Meeting

Clary Lake Association Annual Meeting Ahead!

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2019 Clary Lake Association Annual Meeting

The 2021 Annual Meeting of the Clary Lake Association is this coming Saturday, August 7th, at 2 PM. The meeting will be held at the Clary Lake dam. The weather forecast is looking good with partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-80s. It sounds like a perfect Summer day! We’ll have some canopies to provide shade and plenty of tables and chairs, enough for the expected crowd but as usual you should feel free to bring your own if you want. 

This year’s meeting agenda includes the election of officers, an update on our vision exercise which we introduced in 2019, and a short program on Damariscotta Lake’s invasive plant patrol program presented by Midcoast Conservancy’s Patricia Nease. We are starting up our own Invasive Plant Patrol program in the near future and hope this program will generate some interest and provide us with some inspiration. We’re also thinking of recording a Reny’s Jingle which should be a lot of fun. Continue reading

Reminder: Saturday July 17th Ice Cream Social!

20190714_144816A gentle reminder: the Second (almost) Annual Clary Lake Association Ice Cream Social is this coming Saturday, July 17th, at 1:00 PM at the Clary Lake dam on Route 218 in Whitefield. I wrote about this back on June 19th, for more details see: “Get Ready for an Ice Cream Social and Meet & Greet Event!. It looks like there’s a chance of showers on Saturday but it doesn’t look like a washout and we’ll have some canopies set up in any case. If the weather really goes south we’ll postpone to the next day, Sunday the 18th, same ice cream time, same ice cream place. Hope to see you there!

 

Maine Lakes 2021 Spring Newsletter

A little late but better late than never, Maine Lake’s Spring 2021 newsletter is now freely available on line and is well worth perusing. The Clary Lake Association has been a long time member of Maine Lakes (formerly the Maine Lakes Society). Among other things, Maine Lakes administers the award winning LakeSmart program: “LakeSmart is an education and reward program that helps lakefront homeowners manage landscapes in ways that protect water quality. The program is free, non-regulatory, and voluntary.” The Clary Lake Association is considering participating in the LakeSmart program in the near future.

Get Ready for an Ice Cream Social and Meet & Greet Event!

7-14-19-ice-cream-socialMark Your Calendars! The Clary Lake Association is hosting an Ice Cream Social and “Meet & Greet” event on Saturday, July 17th from 1:00 PM to whenever, at the Clary Lake dam on the Mills Road (Route 218) in Whitefield (in the unlikely event that this event has to be called on account of inclement weather, the rain date is the next day, Sunday July 18th, same time, same ice cream). We did this two years ago and it was well attended and a lot of fun. It will also be a great opportunity to meet some of the many new CLA members and people on and around Clary Lake, hence the “Meet & Greet” part. This event is open to all, Clary Lake Association members as well as our Community friends and neighbors. If you’re not currently a Member, consider becoming one! The ice cream is free but donations will be gratefully accepted. Continue reading

The 2021 Spring/Summer Newsletter Is Posted!

Wild Rice (Zizania palustris) is making a comeback in the marshes around Clary Lake. Photograph by George Fergusson

I’ve added the 2021 Spring/Summer Newsletter to our Newsletter Archive. It went in the mail less than one week ago and how gratifying it is that membership checks are already coming in! A little more information about the newsletter: we call each issue the “Spring/Summer” issue but really, it’s the only issue we publish during the year so that term may change in future issues. It is a throwback to when we actually did try to put out two newsletters a year, an initiative that turned out to be a lot like work. With email and our website, we found we really didn’t need two newsletters a year to stay in touch with out members. The last year we published two newsletter was in 2012, we haven’t done since, and we probably won’t do it again unless (or until) circumstances change. As for the name the “Clary Lake Clarion” that came from a small  local newspaper that my father Stuart Fergusson and Paul MacDonald published back in the summer of 1931. I found a couple of copies of in an old closet a few years ago (see post “The Original Clary Lake Clarion“). Appropriating the name for our newsletter just seemed… appropriate! Here’s the newsletter: Continue reading

The Newsletter is In The Mail!

No really! It’s in the mail which means the Clary Lake Association’s 2021/2022 Membership drive has begun! Traditionally, it begins with the mailing of the Summer newsletter which went in the mail a few days ago. Most of you should have it in your mailbox by now, or will have shortly (I’ll post a digital copy here in a few days). Unofficially our Membership drive begins on April 1st which is the date we start accepting dues for the upcoming year. In reality, it’s never too soon or too late to join or renew your membership in the Association. We’re always ready for new members! Dues are $25 per person per year and Membership is open to all. I’ve added a page to the site to keep track of who has signed up for the Upcoming Year. At the time of this writing there are already six people who have renewed their memberships. You’ll find the list under the Current Membership List, under the Membership Menu. Continue reading

29 March 2021: Ice Out!

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Ice Out 28 March 2021

I’m calling the OFFICIAL Clary Lake Ice Out date today, March 29th. I’m also calling yesterday the “What Do You Mean It’s Not Ice Out Yet?” day, yesterday, March 28th. This morning there are only a few vestiges of ice remaining and I’m sure the sun and wind will make short work of them today. We therefore have 3 winners of our 2021 Clary Lake Ice Out contest: Bambi Jones for guessing the “official” Ice Out date, and Kelley Doore and Alan Nicholas Decker for coming the closest to the “What Do You Mean It’s Not Ice Out Yet?” date of March 28th without going over. Fortunately we have enough “We Give A Dam” tee shirts to go around and I’ll be in touch with our winners to make arrangements to get them their shirts 🙂 Continue reading