Moonlight Bay Campground June 2002 Newsletter

 

June is almost over and the weather still isn’t co-operating. Just when Mother Nature finally looks like she may begin to co-operate with us by giving us some warmer weather, the rain and cold are once again upon us. Oh well … better days ahead, especially for those still in school.

For those of you who missed it, there was a camper’s meeting nearly three weeks ago. We had an excellent turnout, lots of introductions and lots of positive energy. As was mentioned at the meeting, over the course of the summer we will be looking into developing a guideline in relation to the construction of add-on structures. So if you are intending to do some construction please discuss this with either Gail or Gary prior to commencing building. We need to see some drawings etc before proceeding. Remember you must also obtain a building permit for both decks and add-on rooms. Thanks to Lou Tysick & Cindy Martin we now have some applications and business cards from the building inspector, so if you’re in the building mode just see us first.

We want to express our sincerest appreciation of the support and offers of help that we have received from many of you. (And, unfortunately for many of you we will take you up on those offers throughout the course of the summer.)

In addition, we appreciate everyone’s efforts to have their guests come up and sign in at the recreation hall. This is important if we are to comply with the Rideau Lakes by-laws.

A few reminders to campers. First, all the seasonal contracts are now past due and should be completed and returned to us along with your full payment. We appreciate your efforts to complete this task in a timely manner. Second, we would also encourage people to use the public walkways rather than cutting across someone else’s lawn. I suspect that you would not like it very much if people were always cutting across your lawn so please extend the same courtesy to your neighbours. Finally we expect and encourage all campers to have insurance on their boats and trailers as well as a working smoke detector in their trailers..

There will be a young campers’ meeting this Saturday June 22 at 1:00 p.m. We would appreciate it if you would make sure that your children attend. The meeting will be short and deals with safety issues.

On Saturday June 15th, there was a heavy garbage pick up. Some hearty volunteers drove around the campground in the rain with Gary and his trailer and picked up heavy garbage for the dump. We appreciate that not everyone has a pickup or trailer to handle the heavy stuff that ends up behind and underneath trailers. We will do this again later in the season so if you have trash to go start to collect it. We ended up with two trailer loads going to the dump. Thanks to Dick Waddington, Ed Johnson, Tom Griffin, Tim Duncan and Dan Perry for volunteering to help with the loading and unloading of these items.

On the subject of garbage, we have been asked to consider options for garbage disposal for campers. It seems that many of you are tired of hauling garbage home with you or to the dump in Portland. We can appreciate that and we need to hear from you on this issue. We have consulted with a Waste Disposal Company and we are prepared to work with the campers to resolve this issue. If we start the service the last week of June the costs to all campers will be $15 for the rest of the season or roughly $1 a week. Costs will also be passed on to transient campers. We are willing to give the service a try at this time on a trial basis with the understanding that dumping fees may have to be adjusted yearly. If the program works out and the price remains stable we would be looking for example at a cost of $25 for all of next season.

While keeping the campsite and the environment clean is all of our responsibility, we sure appreciate the efforts of Brian & Wendy Eadie and the terrific job they did on the beach leveling and clean up. We will continue to try and improve the beach and swimming area. Any volunteers to tow out the swimming raft this weekend? See Gary.


Please … no grease, sanitary items, diapers etc in the toilets. We are heading toward the first real long weekend of the season and I am hoping that with your co-operation we can get through it without any sewer plugs etc. Please keep your holding tank closed until at least ¾ full before flushing. This is better for the septic system and your own holding tank.

Dan Perry & Dawn Richards have volunteered to organize the tunes and light show for a Canada Day Young Campers Dance. Everybody is welcome.

Thanks to Linda O’Connor and Amanda O’Connor for donating Amanda’s collection of Disney and other childrens’ movies to the Campground Rec Hall Fund. Linda has also volunteered to offer arts & crafts sessions for the young campers starting early in July. They will be done in the Rec Hall and with only a small fee to recover Linda’s costs for materials used in the projects.

Speaking of volunteers, we have posted lists of activities that require volunteers in the Rec Hall. So please go in and sign up for a few because without your support we will be unable to run many of these events. Special thanks to Lorraine Murphy for providing us with history and organizational background on so many of the events and to Gill Bisson and Steve Bellringer for their assistance in moving trailers, decks etc.

Looking forward to the warmer weather, reminds us that the pool has been open since June 7th though usage has been slight due to the inclement weather. Better days ahead and happy camping.


Gail, Gary & Sara Wylie