We held the 2024 Annual Membership Meeting last Saturday, August 17th, at the home of Gareth & Beverly Bowen. With 36 members attending the meeting, attendance was perhaps a little lighter than expected but nonetheless way more than enough to meet the quorum requirement. I’ll post formal minutes when they’re ready. In the meantime, the main takeaways from the meeting were:
- We have a new Treasurer! Mary Gingrow-Shaw, first elected treasurer back in 2015, announced at last year’s Annual meeting that her 5th term as Treasurer to which she had just been elected would be her final term. We were able to find a replacement in Donald Hogg. Don brings extensive financial savvy to the table. He and his wife Maggie Muth (a Board member, by the way) live in Portland and have owned a camp over on Maplewood Road since 2019. Don was elected Treasurer by a unanimous vote. Mary was given a certificate of appreciation and a lovely Weigela bush as a parting gift. We’re grateful for her many years of service to the Association. Mary will continue to handle the Annual Loon Count.
- Malcolm Burson stepped down from his second and final term on the Board to make room for a new Director, Hillary Relyea. Hillary’s family owns property on the south side of Clary Lake in Jefferson. Hillary is a school teacher and the daughter of Association Vice President Steven Relyea and lives with her husband Ben Gerdts, also a school teacher, and two young children. We’re all excited about this young and energetic addition to our Board. Malcolm first served as Vice President from 2011 to 2014, then as President from 2015 through 2018, and as a Director from 2019 through 2024. We’re not done with Malcolm yet. He will continue in his role as Chair of the Watershed Survey Steering Committee and of the LakeSmart program.
- On a recommendation from the Fundraising Committee, a motion was made to the Membership to raise our Membership dues from $25 to $30 per member to take effect next year. There was little discussion of the motion except to express surprise that we hadn’t raised our dues a long time ago. The motion passed unanimously. We last raised our dues fifteen years ago, in 2009. Those 2009 Dues thanks to inflation are now worth somewhere around $16, or to look at it another way, we’d have had to raise our dues to $39 or more to stay even with 2009 dollars. Sigh.
- The Main Program on the recently completed 2024 Watershed Survey (presented by Malcolm Burson, see picture above) and the committee reports presented by Charlene Andersen (Fundraising), Steve Cowles (Dam Operations), Margaret Fergusson (Events) and George Fergusson (Courtesy Boat Inspections and Water Quality Monitoring) were all very interesting and informative.
- This year for the first time we offered Zoom access to the meeting so people who couldn’t attend in person would be able to attend virtually. We had 6 people online for the meeting including myself and my wife Margaret (both with COVID), Ben Gerdts and his wife Hillary Relyea, Steve Relyea, and Leslie Gillette. Technically it went better than I had expected! We’ll be doing this again.
It’s never too early to beat the doldrums, or plan to beat the doldrums!! We’re looking to do just that this coming February when we expect the Winter Doldrums to be at their peak! We’d like to gather as many Members as we can to join in celebrating being together, and to break up the monotony and cold of the long winter with some warm cheer and friendly conversation. To that end we’re planning a party on February 24, 2024 at 7 PM at the home of our President, Gareth Bowen and his lovely First Lady Beverley! Their house is down at the end of the long driveway at 739 Gardiner Road in Jefferson in the field overlooking the lake (
Time is running out to enter the 2023 Ice Out Contest! We’ll be stopping accepting guesses at the end of the day on Wednesday, March 15th. There are currently 29 guesses. It’s not cheating to look at our 
