Welcome to the Big Basswood Lake Association’s Spring 2022 newsletter. 

We sincerely hope that all of our members and their families are safe and well. 

It sure is wonderful to see everyone back enjoying Basswood Lake again after two years of noticeably reduced activity due to the pandemic. I’m sure everyone shares my enthusiasm that the worst is behind us and we are all able to enjoy the lake again. 

However, in spite of the restrictions of the pandemic emergency, the board has continued to work extremely hard on your behalf. I’m very pleased that we have welcomed 4 new members onto the board after last year’s AGM:

• Bobby Swain
• Dave Bascomb
• George Craigie
• Matthew Aho 

All four of these gentlemen have jumped in and are participating actively, along with the existing board members on the important work of the lake association in the stewardship of Basswood Lake. We are still looking for new board members so if you are interested in joining the board, please let us know 

I should note that according to the existing bylaws, even numbered years are board election years. A call for board nominations has been issued so if you are interested in joining us on the BBLA board, please let Jim Falconer (Board Nominations Chair) prior to the AGM. He can be reached at kjimf@rogers.com. 

We held our spring board meeting on June 20th, conducted virtually via Zoom. We weren’t forced to the Zoom platform this year by the pandemic lockdown restrictions but find it an effective way to let all board members participate, even if they are not physically present on the lake. Interestingly, we ended up continuing the meeting a week later just because of the sheer volume of material to be discussed – we are working hard on your behalf. 

We are discussing a number of major topics that will each be covered in greater detail in this newsletter. 

All of these topics and more will be covered at the AGM on July 17th from 10 to 12 AM. Thanks to the generosity of the new owners, the Provenzano family, the AGM will once again be held at Melwel Lodge – outdoors weather permitting. We held the meeting there last year and, I for one, loved being able to talk about important issues that impact our beautiful lake while sitting beside Melwel Bay on a beautiful Sunday morning.

This year, we also plan to partner again with the Sowerby Heritage Society and the North Shore Sentinel to sponsor one or two social evenings at the round sided barn. You may recall that we started these interesting presentations before the pandemic called a halt to all public gatherings. We are very pleased that these events are resuming due to hard work of Will Samis, Dave Ratz and others. 

In closing, I’m sure you will see that there is a lot going on at the BBLA that impacts the ongoing stewardship and enjoyment of our beautiful lake. However, as our membership chairman, Joanne Falk notes in her submission, we still only enjoy participation from about half the property owners on the lake. We strongly believe that given the importance of the issues that we are addressing and the continued low cost to membership of $25 that we should have a much higher percentage of membership. We encourage you to sign up if you haven’t already done so and to ask your friends and neighbors oh the lake to sign up as well. 

I hope you have a great summer and I look forward to seeing you all around the lake. 

Stay safe .... Larry

Chairman - Big Basswood Lake Association