Recent News
A Message from the President
As the new guy in town, I would like to thank Spread Eagle Lake Asso-ciation (SECOLA) for their patience and guid-ance over the last two years in helping to pre-pare me for this job. Ed Patrick, past president, has been a great resource and coach during this transition time. Thank you to both Ed and Jane for providing your time and excellent records.
The first thing that comes to mind when I think about this past summer was the exceptional sunny weather! We were so fortunate to be able to spend the majority of our summer outside enjoying our beautiful lakes.
Once again, we would like to thank the SECOLA social committee for all their hard work. We were provided with a variety of events, includ-ing dinners, a Bass Island happy hour, the wonder-ful July 4th boat parade and ice cream social, monthly Ladies of the Lake gatherings, garden club activities, book club, and breakfast gatherings. Furthermore, the fire-works were over the top this year, thanks to the “Friends of the Fire-works” who contributed additional funds to pro-vide us with a fantastic display. All of these ac-tivities gave everyone an opportunity to meet and socialize with old and new Spread Eagle resi-dents.
Thanks go out to Norie Neff for updating and distributing the 2018 Spread Eagle Chain of Lakes Directory. We are most appreciative.
To control the spread of invasive species, SECO-LA continues to support the Clean Boats/Clean Water program. SECOLA members provide hands on assistance to White Water Associates, our aquatic consultants, in the monitoring and re-moval of invasive aquatic plants. We continue to maintain our affiliations with other associations including Wild Rivers Invasive Species Coali-tion (WRISC), Wisconsin Lakes Association, Flor-ence County Lakes and Rivers Association (FCLARA) as well as working closely with Flor-ence County Land Con-servation Department and Wisconsin D.N.R.
These efforts have been successful. At this time I would like to thank Darlin Verley, who has chaired the grant committee for the past twenty-four years. The grant committee continues to work on acquiring new grants.
Our Invasive Species Fundraising Committee is pro-gressing well. I’d like to thank Scott Reynolds for volunteering to chair this effort. The ultimate goal is to raise 13k by May 2019. As of October 2018 we are more than half way there. Thank you for your con-tinued support in protecting our wonderful lake!
Improvements continue to be made on Bass Island. Many volunteers have partnered in this endeavor to selectively remove overgrown vegetation and inva-sives, replace historic interpretive signage, and plant a native butterfly garden. The management of this project will be ongoing. If you would like to volunteer for clean up please contact me.
It’s been tough to see such a wonderful summer sea-son come to an end, but there is always a lot to look forward to on the chain. We are fortunate to have such hard working volunteers and committee mem-bers. Thank you all for supporting SECOLA! Your continued support protects our valuable resources and makes all these activities possible.
Wishing all a wonderful winter season!
Gary Weber
