Message from our President Joe Wasileski:
Dear Owls,
Please come to our May 6th meeting at the Springside Inn at 7 PM.
We will be meeting with all our new VOLUNTEERS to integrate them into our committee structure. If you are a Committee Head, please come and be absolutely prepared to offer two or three specific projects and goals for your committee to work on for this Summer and the rest of the year. If you have any questions regarding the meeting please contact me asap! We have sent out invitations to over 40 new Volunteers to join us that nite.
ALSO!!!! There will be a SPECIAL Board of DIRECTORS meeting of OWLA starting at 6PM SHARP!! Please be there, if you are on our BOARD. (Call Joe for board mtg. agenda)
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Upcoming Boater Safety Courses
With spring in full bloom and the summer boating season almost upon us, its time to be thinking about taking a boater safety course. There are some new requirements since 2006, so be sure to visit the NYS Office of Parks and Recreation web-site at http://nysparks.state.ny.us/boating/edu_boat.asp .
(excerpts from the NYS Parks web-site)
Legal Requirements in NYS - Persons Required to Complete a Safety Course
You must hold a safety certificate if:
-You operate a personal watercraft and are at least 14 years of age. Until 2009 operators age 10-13 can still operate with restrictions.
-You wish to operate a motorboat (other than a personal watercraft) and you are at least 10 years old and less than 18 years old.
-If you are less than 10 years old you may operate a motorboat (non-PWC) only if someone over 18 or someone between the ages of 10 and 18 who holds a safety certificate, is on board with you.
-Anyone may operate a personal watercraft if someone at least 18 years old is riding on the craft and they hold a safety certificate.
Upcoming courses in our area:
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Sennett Fire House II, Cayuga, Nedza, John (315)364-7251
This class is for adults and children
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Cayuga Comm. College, Auburn, Cayuga, Stiver, Leonard (315)255-1743
This class is for adults and children
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Monday, May 18, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Meridian Fire Dept., Rt. 326, Meridan, Cayuga, Nedza, John (315)364-7251
This class is for adults and children
Link to the full NYS Parks training course schedule:
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/boating/cls_boat.asp?sortBy=0&filterBy=Cayuga
(excerpts from the NYS Parks web-site)
Legal Requirements in NYS - Persons Required to Complete a Safety Course
You must hold a safety certificate if:
-You operate a personal watercraft and are at least 14 years of age. Until 2009 operators age 10-13 can still operate with restrictions.
-You wish to operate a motorboat (other than a personal watercraft) and you are at least 10 years old and less than 18 years old.
-If you are less than 10 years old you may operate a motorboat (non-PWC) only if someone over 18 or someone between the ages of 10 and 18 who holds a safety certificate, is on board with you.
-Anyone may operate a personal watercraft if someone at least 18 years old is riding on the craft and they hold a safety certificate.
Upcoming courses in our area:
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Sennett Fire House II, Cayuga, Nedza, John (315)364-7251
This class is for adults and children
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Cayuga Comm. College, Auburn, Cayuga, Stiver, Leonard (315)255-1743
This class is for adults and children
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Monday, May 18, 2009
Bass Pro Shop, Auburn, Cayuga, Gray, Ralph (315)258-2700
This class is for adults and children
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Meridian Fire Dept., Rt. 326, Meridan, Cayuga, Nedza, John (315)364-7251
This class is for adults and children
Link to the full NYS Parks training course schedule:
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/boating/cls_boat.asp?sortBy=0&filterBy=Cayuga
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Summary of the 4/1/09 OWLA Meeting at the Springside
Summary of OWLA meeting 4/1/09
President Joe Wasileski brought the meeting to order and the subjects we talked about were:
1. Contacting and recruiting members who are interested in our committees.
2. Membership – Joe Wasileski and Kathy Clay: Elaine Dec is working on using new memebership software. We sent out renewal forms and are waiting for Decals to send out Thank You letters.
3. Communications - got out the newsletter. Web site – Al Kozlowski talked about web development and will contact Tony Hart and Charlie Green who are working on it.
Kathryn Cappella Hankins – The Citizen is willing to publish Lake Awareness Stories and needs guest writers sponsored by Owla members with topics ranging from the Buoy Weather Station, water evaluations, alternatives to fertilizers, etc, to be 500 words every week for several weeks. *At our next meeting we need to know which members and volunteers would be willing to write articles .
4. David Carr - OWN (Owasco Watershed Network) Grant Status
Bob Brower – All state expenditures are under review with not much action.
2009 Owasco Lake Buoy deployement is still in discussion.
5. Agriculture – Terry Lattimore: Tap into some info from other water sheds.
Do some extensive testing on the Inlet. Make people aware that just because you don’t live on the lake, you are still responsible because you drink the water. Article on "Where do the farmers put their manure?" handed out. Farms can be a Biological Chemical Co. The solutions need to be big scale because we have so many cows in the watershed area.
Bob Brower: We need to keep our focus on the connection between the watershed and the phosphorus. Much of the phosphorus is coming from agriculture. Cazenovia banned all phosphorus including dishwashing detergent and is fining people who do not comply.
Joe Wasileski: Talked about an organization called Citizens Campaign for the Environment. They have an office in Syracuse with a focus that includes Owasco Lake. Dereth Glance or someone from her organization might be a good speaker for Lake Day. You can go to the website: dglance@citizenscampaign.org or www.citizenscampaign.org to find out more about them.
We need to find a chair person for Lake Day and a dynamic speaker to draw as much public support as possible.
6. LandUse/Zoning – Kathryn Capella Hankins is the new chairman:
The Inter-Municipal Agreement spearheaded by John Klink, the Owasco Supervisor is a great start to address land/use around the
Lake. He has met with the Inter-municipal Committee three timesalready. John and Ed Wagner have been contacted by Joe to propose a phosphate ban in the Town of Owasco. The Cazenovia Lake phosphate ban will be used as an ongoing example. Kathryn needs volunteers for her committee to help John Klink with his mission.
7. Owasco Flats – Sandie Doran: Working on Education, Storm Water Pamphlet, presented sample drawing of map to go on Kiosk. Attained funds along with commitment of funds from OWLA to move forward with the Kiosk. Needs 5 volunteers to help with fundraiser at Cascade for Flats and the Owla. Education: Blog that will link to OWLA site. Needs volunteers to help with Kayak Trip. Talked about doing Herp Studies at Owasco Flats and needs someone to run the study. Schools want to help. Others subjects talked about: Milfoil project - Bob Johnson and Japanese Knot Weed.
8. Corporate – Stas Kott: Letters to Corporations to get donations. Putting logo
on the website to sponsor OWLA and the Flats. We need Sustainability. Get Norma to help with putting together a letter. Maybe have 3 tiers of sponsorship and recognition. Had patch designed and made up for OWLA.
9. Treasury Report – Jeff Trescot: Handed out copies of treasury report to members in attendance.
10. Environmental - Joe Wasileski reporting for Jim Beckwith: Jim will head up water testing on the lake. Dick Coalson – will compile statistics and compile a report for 2009.
Questions remain on the buoy deployment this year. The weather station on the buoy gives weather reports every 40 minutes and is beneficial to the community. It is also on the web. We need to revisit options to possibly get help from Cornell. (Al will spearhead getting this done) We could advertise on the Weather website those corporations willing to donate funds that will keep the buoy on Owasco Lake.
11. Education – Sue Muldoon: The Stardust Foundation with student involvement wish to create buffers within the watershed. Al and Stas volunteered to have buffers installed on their property.
12. Anonymous Donor - willing to fund Lawyers to continue to deal with several Owasco Lake issues. Have a lawyer from the law firm come speak to us to determine if legal action would be effective. Al Kozlowski volunteered to arrange this future meeting.
13. Joe urged all members present and especially committee chairman to come to the meeting on May 6th prepared with 2 specific tasks for new volunteers to work on.
President Joe Wasileski brought the meeting to order and the subjects we talked about were:
1. Contacting and recruiting members who are interested in our committees.
2. Membership – Joe Wasileski and Kathy Clay: Elaine Dec is working on using new memebership software. We sent out renewal forms and are waiting for Decals to send out Thank You letters.
3. Communications - got out the newsletter. Web site – Al Kozlowski talked about web development and will contact Tony Hart and Charlie Green who are working on it.
Kathryn Cappella Hankins – The Citizen is willing to publish Lake Awareness Stories and needs guest writers sponsored by Owla members with topics ranging from the Buoy Weather Station, water evaluations, alternatives to fertilizers, etc, to be 500 words every week for several weeks. *At our next meeting we need to know which members and volunteers would be willing to write articles .
4. David Carr - OWN (Owasco Watershed Network) Grant Status
Bob Brower – All state expenditures are under review with not much action.
2009 Owasco Lake Buoy deployement is still in discussion.
5. Agriculture – Terry Lattimore: Tap into some info from other water sheds.
Do some extensive testing on the Inlet. Make people aware that just because you don’t live on the lake, you are still responsible because you drink the water. Article on "Where do the farmers put their manure?" handed out. Farms can be a Biological Chemical Co. The solutions need to be big scale because we have so many cows in the watershed area.
Bob Brower: We need to keep our focus on the connection between the watershed and the phosphorus. Much of the phosphorus is coming from agriculture. Cazenovia banned all phosphorus including dishwashing detergent and is fining people who do not comply.
Joe Wasileski: Talked about an organization called Citizens Campaign for the Environment. They have an office in Syracuse with a focus that includes Owasco Lake. Dereth Glance or someone from her organization might be a good speaker for Lake Day. You can go to the website: dglance@citizenscampaign.org or www.citizenscampaign.org to find out more about them.
We need to find a chair person for Lake Day and a dynamic speaker to draw as much public support as possible.
6. LandUse/Zoning – Kathryn Capella Hankins is the new chairman:
The Inter-Municipal Agreement spearheaded by John Klink, the Owasco Supervisor is a great start to address land/use around the
Lake. He has met with the Inter-municipal Committee three timesalready. John and Ed Wagner have been contacted by Joe to propose a phosphate ban in the Town of Owasco. The Cazenovia Lake phosphate ban will be used as an ongoing example. Kathryn needs volunteers for her committee to help John Klink with his mission.
7. Owasco Flats – Sandie Doran: Working on Education, Storm Water Pamphlet, presented sample drawing of map to go on Kiosk. Attained funds along with commitment of funds from OWLA to move forward with the Kiosk. Needs 5 volunteers to help with fundraiser at Cascade for Flats and the Owla. Education: Blog that will link to OWLA site. Needs volunteers to help with Kayak Trip. Talked about doing Herp Studies at Owasco Flats and needs someone to run the study. Schools want to help. Others subjects talked about: Milfoil project - Bob Johnson and Japanese Knot Weed.
8. Corporate – Stas Kott: Letters to Corporations to get donations. Putting logo
on the website to sponsor OWLA and the Flats. We need Sustainability. Get Norma to help with putting together a letter. Maybe have 3 tiers of sponsorship and recognition. Had patch designed and made up for OWLA.
9. Treasury Report – Jeff Trescot: Handed out copies of treasury report to members in attendance.
10. Environmental - Joe Wasileski reporting for Jim Beckwith: Jim will head up water testing on the lake. Dick Coalson – will compile statistics and compile a report for 2009.
Questions remain on the buoy deployment this year. The weather station on the buoy gives weather reports every 40 minutes and is beneficial to the community. It is also on the web. We need to revisit options to possibly get help from Cornell. (Al will spearhead getting this done) We could advertise on the Weather website those corporations willing to donate funds that will keep the buoy on Owasco Lake.
11. Education – Sue Muldoon: The Stardust Foundation with student involvement wish to create buffers within the watershed. Al and Stas volunteered to have buffers installed on their property.
12. Anonymous Donor - willing to fund Lawyers to continue to deal with several Owasco Lake issues. Have a lawyer from the law firm come speak to us to determine if legal action would be effective. Al Kozlowski volunteered to arrange this future meeting.
13. Joe urged all members present and especially committee chairman to come to the meeting on May 6th prepared with 2 specific tasks for new volunteers to work on.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The "Owasco Lake News" is one year old!
Yes, this month the Owasco Lake News blog is one year old!
We set up this blog as a communications tool to help inform our membership, and for that matter the world, on the latest happenings and news about OWLA and Owasco Lake.
A few statistics about the blog (during the last 12 months).....…….
- we have had over 1,846 visits to the blog
- we have had over 3,223 page views
- we average betwwen 6-10 visits to our blog daily, depending on the season
- we have written and posted 70 blog articles
- we have over 24 links to other "lake related" web sites
- about 25% of our visits come from our link on our web-site OWLA.org, ~25% from direct entries, and ~50% from search engine search results re-directions (like Google)
……….not too bad for the blog not being publicized very well!
We have had a lot of great comments from folks who have been enjoying the content.
What do you think?
What could we be doing better or add to the blog to keep our members and the public more informed?
What topics would you like see discussed?
Do you have news, meeting information or interesting topics we can discuss on the blog?
Please send us your comments and ideas to our contact e-mail address at owlanews@gmail.com.
We really need your help to give us suggestions, provide content and to publicize the blog site.
If you print or send out any mailings, newsletters, and other information to our membership, please add the Owasco Lake News blog URL (http://www.owlanews.blogspot.com/), as well as the OWLA web-site URL to your documents and help spread the word. Also tell your friends, family and colleagues who love the lake to please check us out.
Thanks for everyones support!
Also, Thanks to CELESTE for being our first registered "Follower"
- Tony (aka - Lakeman)
We set up this blog as a communications tool to help inform our membership, and for that matter the world, on the latest happenings and news about OWLA and Owasco Lake.
A few statistics about the blog (during the last 12 months).....…….
- we have had over 1,846 visits to the blog
- we have had over 3,223 page views
- we average betwwen 6-10 visits to our blog daily, depending on the season
- we have written and posted 70 blog articles
- we have over 24 links to other "lake related" web sites
- about 25% of our visits come from our link on our web-site OWLA.org, ~25% from direct entries, and ~50% from search engine search results re-directions (like Google)
……….not too bad for the blog not being publicized very well!
We have had a lot of great comments from folks who have been enjoying the content.
What do you think?
What could we be doing better or add to the blog to keep our members and the public more informed?
What topics would you like see discussed?
Do you have news, meeting information or interesting topics we can discuss on the blog?
Please send us your comments and ideas to our contact e-mail address at owlanews@gmail.com.
We really need your help to give us suggestions, provide content and to publicize the blog site.
If you print or send out any mailings, newsletters, and other information to our membership, please add the Owasco Lake News blog URL (http://www.owlanews.blogspot.com/), as well as the OWLA web-site URL to your documents and help spread the word. Also tell your friends, family and colleagues who love the lake to please check us out.
Thanks for everyones support!
Also, Thanks to CELESTE for being our first registered "Follower"
- Tony (aka - Lakeman)
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