Hello to the good folks in the Lake St. Catherine community.

Greetings from a suddenly FRIGID Lake St. Catherine - it’s currently 15 below!

It's that time of year again... As the Lake St. Catherine Association heads into its 70th year, we are asking for your support for the 2023 season.

What does the LSCA do for Lake St. Catherine? Please check out our recently published 2022 Year In Review.

Your membership dues and contributions help to fund many of the services provided by the LSCA:

• Maintaining & purchasing navigation and shoreline protection buoys throughout the lake.

• Testing the water for E coli, phosphorus (nutrient) concentration, chlorophyll-a (algae and cyanobacteria) concentration, and Secchi depth (water clarity).

• Conducting 2 free boat-safety courses that are state mandated for all persons born after January 1, 1974 (look for an announcement in the Spring for dates).

• Greeter Program: Inspecting boats wishing to enter the lake for aquatic invasive species (AIS) to keep them out of the lake.

• Controlling milfoil.

• Organizing lake community volunteer events like Green Up Vermont Day, and Milfoil Cleanup Community Day.

• Working with the state, towns, and Poultney Mettowee Natural Resource Conservation District & Castleton University to solve the problems of sedimentation and impacts of phosphorus and other sources of pollution through our Lake Wise Program, and the LSC Stormwater Master Plan. (We are now accepting requests from property owners to participate in Lake Wise in 2023 - email us to sign up.)

• Long-term planning for the future of the lake by beginning a 3 year process to create a Watershed Action Plan for Lake St. Catherine.

• Maintaining "welcome" signs and gardens.

• Liaising with other lakes and organizations in order to exchange information.

• Sponsoring the annual fun-filled July 4th Boat Parade.

• Disseminating information to our membership and the lake community through newsletters, emails, website & social media postings, and other local publications.

• Organizing funding through membership fees, donations, and grants and allocations from the State of Vermont, Poultney and Wells, and environmental groups.

• Representing you to state and local governments to protect your rights and the lake in general.

• Protecting the value of your property by maintaining the beauty, access, and safety of the lake.

There are two easy ways to renew or become a member of the LSCA.

Soon, you will be receiving a mailing from us that contains the 2022 Membership Form. You can also download a copy by clicking here: 2023 LSCA Membership Form PDF. Just print and fill out the form, then mail it in with your check to:

Lake St. Catherine Association
PO Box 631
Wells, VT 05774

Or, you can renew or become a member on our website. If you were a member in 2022, click here to renew, or click here to become a new member - and you can pay your dues online with your credit card. If you were a member last year (whether you paid by check or online by credit card), the website has an account ready for you. If you don't remember your password, or have never logged in, please click here to set or reset your password.

We'd also like to encourage you to check with your employer to see if they have an Employer Matching Gift Program for charitable donations. Many generous businesses will match donations made by their employees through these programs. So, take a look - you may be able to double your contribution!

If you are a business in the Lake St. Catherine community, we have a Business Sponsor Membership we'd like to tell you about. The Business Sponsor Membership includes:

1. A listing on our ‘Sponsors’ page on lakestcatherine.org with your logo, a link to your web or Facebook page, including a brief description of your business and services.

2. The posting of your events and special occasions to our Events & LSC Community Website Calendar.

3. A posting on our Blog and Facebook page about your business as a ‘Sponsor Spotlight’ feature.

4. A posting for your business in our Spring and Fall newsletters. Newsletters will be made available to the community in both printed and digital versions.

Thank you to our Business Sponsors! Please click on the Sponsors page of our website to check them out.

Your membership and the dues and contributions we receive allows us to accomplish our work. Maintaining the lake costs approximately $125,000 annually. While we do receive annual grants from Poultney, Wells, and the State, membership dues and contributions make up the majority of our funding.

Upon receiving your membership contribution, we’ll send you the 2023 membership package, which will include: your receipt, a '2023 Member' sticker for your LSCA window card (or a card & sticker for new members), a hand-written thank you note, and a beautiful 3" x 3" iron-on patch depicting a loon scene from beautiful Lake St. Catherine. 

With this new patch, we are looking to start a bit of a new tradition in which members can collect these patches each year to display, or iron-on or sew onto a hat, shirt, bag, etc. We’ll come up with a new design each year. Thank you to LSC camp owner Andrew Gioulis for this fantastic design, which you can see below.

   

We are happy to report that in 2022, we had 389 paid members, which includes 16 Business Sponsors. The average contribution of our members was $208 - THANK YOU! Your membership dues and additional contributions over and above our base $100 membership level are crucial to funding our important lake programs. As always, we ask you to help us to spread the word by discussing the LSCA with your neighbors. We are hoping to get our membership to over 400 this year.

We will continue to work hard for Lake St. Catherine to earn your support.

Thank you for your support of the LSCA!

- The Trustees of the Lake St. Catherine Association

If you ever have any questions about your membership or Lake St. Catherine, please email us at info@lakestcatherine.org.