Lake Planning 101 Seminars – From 20 minute presentations at your Annual General Meeting to special 2 hour sessions, these interactive seminars are designed to increase awareness about the importance of lake planning and encourage the participation of all interest groups in your watershed.

Design and Coordinate Your Lake Planning Process – Each lake association has its own hidden talents and resources. Our experience with other lake associations will help you to design a process that maximizes your local resources, meet the financial resources of your association and engage stakeholders (permanent and seasonal residents, commercial operators and government agencies). Questions that you may have, such as when should I conduct the surveys and workshops, how is the lake plan approved, and when do I contact the municipality, will be answered through specialized coaching. A proper and timely planning process is essential to the integrity of your plan and must be well thought out.

Collect Background Information – Collecting and verifying background information is an integral component to assessing the current state of your lake. We can provide a work list of essential items to be collected that will assist you with deciding who and how this information will be collected. Unless there are urgent issues to be dealt with, our recommended approach is to gather all existing information on your lake from various sources and then decide if there are any gaps in information that need to be collected in the future. Where necessary, we are prepared to assist with the collection of information.

Prepare, Conduct Surveys and Compile Survey Results – We can provide you with a template that is full of survey questions for you to select from to help you prepare your questionnaires for residents and commercial operators. If necessary, we can prepare the survey, send it out and even compile the results. However, this is one area where your volunteers can maximize their talents and help to save costs.

Facilitate Workshops and Prepare Proceedings – Our facilitators have experience in working with a wide range of stakeholders to achieve consensus on contentious issues. Our workshops are designed to promote discussion between residents, commercial operators (resorts, marinas, campgrounds, private camps) and government agencies. Some of the topics to be covered at these workshops include: identifying and confirming issues, describing values, exploring memories, identifying special places, discussing volunteer efforts, obtaining best advice, reviewing recommendations, and setting strategic actions. We recommend that proceedings are prepared to record the major discussion points at each of these workshops, and we can provide you with examples or prepare professional documents for distribution to everyone on your lake or in your watershed. The preparation of proceedings is another area to involve your volunteers and save you costs.

Facilitate Meetings – Whether it is a special meeting of your municipal Council, provincial agencies or simply your Steering Committee meetings, we provide organizational and facilitation services to make sure positive discussion is promoted, as well as satisfy your objectives. Our experience with many other associations will benefit your association.

Land and Water Use Inventories – An inventory of private and Crown properties and land uses are integral components to help you understand the current and future pressures on your lake or watershed. You need to know the locations of seasonal and permanent residential uses, commercial operations, industrial, resource extraction, community facilities, cell towers, garbage dumps and more, and we can help identify and map this information.  

Design Stewardship Actions – Stewardship actions are an essential component of your lake plan. Besides understanding the land and water use regulations, you need to design stewardship actions that compliment these rules. An excellent example is with respect to the issue of preserving the quality of water for future generations. While there are a number of legislative and municipal regulations that people must abide by, there are stewardship actions that people must volunteer to do, such as: maintaining buffers, shoreline rehabilitation projects, septic system maintenance, water use and natural landscaping guidelines. Stewardship actions are those “environment friendly” matters that must be communicated to encourage lake property owners to do the right thing for their property and your lake.