GBA 2021 - Fall Flippingbook

PRESIDENT’S REPORT Working for You

By Rolfe Jones, GBA President

W here does the time go? It seems like just yesterday that I was writing my first president’s message back in the spring and now the leaves are changing colour! As the old adage goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun!” And while it might not have been quite the same summer as summers past, it was indeed a good summer as we spent four months at our island cottage in Cognashene. What’s more, we had the great pleasure of reuniting with our friends “from away.” Which makes for a natural segue to how the summer unfolded. May and June were busy on the advocacy side. Rupert and I worked alongside Mark Gwozdecky, David Sharpe, and Erica Allen from Pointe au Baril Islanders’ Association to put together a lobbying effort to help our out-of-province GBA members gain access to their cottages. This entailed working with the Federation of Ontario Cottagers Association (FOCA) to combine the heft of their 250,000 members with our 3,000 member families and write letters of appeal to our federal and provincial governments to allow non-Ontarian cottagers to access their summer homes. While we can’t take all the credit for helping our American, international, and other out-of- province members gain access to their beloved cottages, we think that our various messages were heard. Another initiative that GBA got behind this summer was the Safe Quiet Lakes (SQL) Your Lakes, Your Views survey, which asked our members what they value from their cottage experience, how they use the water, and what their boating activity concerns are. This information will help us better understand the priorities of our members as well as provide information for GBA advocacy and action. Many of our coastal communities have had longstanding concerns about excessive boat noise. Unfortunately, existing Canadian legislation is not sufficient to allow police to enforce limits on boat motor noise. GBA is a founding member of SQL’s Decibel Coalition, which aims to change this reality by adopting decibel limits that are already standard in many areas of the US and Europe. GBA hopes that all our coastal municipalities will get behind this important initiative. Many already have, and GBA is asking our member associations to sign on too. Read more about the Decibel Coalition and their efforts to curb excessive boat noise, and find out how you can get involved on the front page of this issue of UPDATE . As most of you already know, we put on a very successful water symposium last fall with Georgian Bay Forever (GBF). That event brought together more than

400 attendees and some of the leading scientific minds on both sides of the border to address how we might better manage extreme high water levels across the Great Lakes. The extensive information that came out of that symposium will serve us well for decades to come. Visit https://tinyurl.com/3sbtp34y for more. Many people at the symposium asked questions around protecting their properties during high water events. We are pleased to announce that we have partnered with GBF and others to create a three-part online water levels series called Extreme Water Levels: Impacts and Strategies planned for the fall to help people manage during future extreme high and low water level events. The first webinar is on Saturday, October 23, followed by a second event on November 13, and a third on December 4. Each webinar runs from 10 am until noon. To register visit https://georgianbay.ca/h20-2021/ One of the great things about working on the GBA Board is that you get to work with some truly great people. That’s the case with Eric Armour. Eric, who is also the president of the Sans Souci and Copperhead Association, has been on the GBA Board since May 2012 and has contributed significantly to our Board and Georgian Bay. Eric is stepping away from GBA to focus all of his attention on Sans Souci matters. Replacing Eric will be Al Stratton. I’d like to wish Eric all the best and welcome Al to our Board. On top of all the advocacy benefits your membership provides you with, GBA has a membership benefits program that you should take advantage of. We have attracted various companies who you’d normally buy goods and services from and negotiated special discounts on your behalf. One such program is through Rice Insurance, which helps our members realize savings not only on their cottage and boat insurance, but on their homes and cars as well. Other member programs include discounts on Mustang life jackets, Coleman products, Action First Aid defibrillators, and a device from FoodCycler that turns your food scraps into soil – overnight! We’re working on other programs, so please visit our website ( https://tinyurl.com/rekkhxnr ) to stay on top of new member programs as they become available. Last but not least, a huge shout-out to our Board, Rupert, and Shannon. Thank you for all that you do. Without you we would not be able to accomplish the many things we do. Wishing everyone in our Georgian Bay community a happy, healthy, and safe fall!

www.georgianbay.ca

GBA UPDATE Fall 2021

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