In Lakes Country, it’s important to foster behavior that will help maintain the land, but also it’s a sense of community.
Where bodies of water and large plots of land can sometimes leave residents separated, beach captains can be the driving force to keep relationships intact and lakes maintained.
Lake Detroiters adopted a revised Beach Captain approach in 2012 in order to facilitate interaction and communication among lakeshore residents, their LDA officers, and board members.
This new approach enables face-to-face contact between representatives of LDA and residents of the lake. 64 Beach Captains will be leading the 2019 efforts and will be contacting each homeowner to deliver the packet of lake information in preparation for the 75th Annual Meeting to be held on this June.
Regardless of what lake you live on, big or small, this is an important facet of all lakes. But there are three things that various lakes may have to watch out for in the Summer of 2019. Here are five things that every Minnesota beach captain should know:
Introductions and Welcomings
It’s good practice to have beach captain’s introduce themselves the new neighbors and at meetings where guests or outside attendees might be unfamiliar.
In addition, getting the lake meeting minutes recorded and reported to those who aren’t able to attend is important too. Busy schedules often mean that every single resident will be unlikely to make the meetings, so creating an email list is a surefire way to deliver the meeting minutes too.
Identify new owners on their beach.
Visit and introduce them to the association.
Report ownership changes to the Membership chair and the Database Coordinator.
CPR and Safety
A beach captain, though not a lifeguard per se, is around the lake area often. We often find ourselves in situations that we aren’t prepared for. With enough of the community being elderly though, a skill like CPR is a good one to have. Local community centers and churches often host these kinds of events to teach this useful skill to are residents.
There is a long list of rules that make lake life safe for everyone. It’s important to know that Beach Captains are able to report dangerous activity and breach of rules.
Reporting and Community Outreach
Maintaining activity throughout the Summer can be hard as we described. There’s simply way too much fun to be had. But it’s always nice to stay in touch with the community. There are a few ways to report major events happening with the lake.
For instance, organizing a water pumping project on a lake that is overflowing or above ordinary watermark, can be difficult. Here are a few tips:
Distribute flyers of important information or events to each property owner in your area.
Assist in the distribution of the membership directory.
Identify possible volunteers for association projects.
As we look forward to the coming Summer months, it’s good to spend the cold days, indoors, planning. Making a difference around the lake can be easy, fun, and a particularly great way to keep the community alive. Whether you’re planning a boat parade or a lake community picnic, we hope that the tips here will help provide a basic structure to do so!