Newsletter | Beaumont’s Seven Harbors White and Duck Lake Association (7-harbors.org)

Dear members and friends, Happy New Year 2023 to all of you. We would like to reach out to you to announce that your 2023 membership dues can be paid beginning January 2023 at any time.

We have made some improvements to our electronic payment options and as a result, we have been able to reduce the fees that are provided by the bank by 0.5% for every transaction. You can either send a check to our treasurer at any time or use the electronic payment option with all major credit and debit cards at your convenience.

For regular checks, please send a signed check per mail to:

Beaumont’s Seven Harbors White and Duck Lake Association
Attn: Treasurer
P.O. Box 70  
Highland, MI   48357

You can find our annual membership dues by following this link

If you would like and prefer to use electronic payment options, please sign into our members area and select Pay Dues, Make Payments & Donations in the top menu. Here you can select your membership dues and pay easily by credit or debit card.

To all our current boat slip owners, please remember that your dues have to be fully paid and current by March 1st, 2023 at the latest to ensure you can continue to enjoy the life at the lake with your boat and a slip.

To all of you that have selected to go paperless, you should have received an email with your current Membership dues statement from our Treasurer. Please check your junk email as well if you have not received an electronic PDF statement yet. Everyone, that still would like to receive hardcopies per regular mail should get their statements in the upcoming days.

Want to go paperless too?? Go to the members area and edit your account preferences to receive future communication, newsletters, statements and updates per email only.

For questions to the current 2023 dues, fees and payments or past dues, please contact our Treasurer Sharon Carry or for any question about your access to our membership area Winni Schoeb

Thank you to everyone for your participation and vote for the 2022/2023 – Beaumont’s Seven Harbors White and Duck Lake Association Board and Trustees for a 12-month term and the New Governing Documents for our community.

Our biggest appreciation goes out to our volunteers of the Election Commitee led by Amie Mirabitur, Karrie Sullivan, Jan Anger, Christine Murray, Alex and Tori Slack. Their help has ensured that we have an independent and fair election also in this year.

In the 2022/2023 Election we have received 66 valid ballots in total that resulted in the following election and voting results:

2022/23 Election Results (Effective October 1st, 2022, 12.00am)

Executive Board:
President – Winni Schoeb
Vice President – Aleta Dyling
2nd Vice President – Scott Thurlow
Treasurer – Sharon Crary
Secretary – Nancy Drury

Trustees:
Vicki Zellinger, Jeff Bosch
Jodi Michela, Joan Cooper
Nichole Slating, Steve Kirchner
Justin Klopf, Mike Kuzmich

There was one write-in vote, but that person declined the Trustee position. If another volunteer candidate decides to step forward, the Board will vote on the appointment of the currently open position for the Trustee (Alternate) position and will appoint this person based on a majority vote of the board and trustees.

Congratulations to all newly elected board members effective October 1^st, 2022, 12.00am and Thank You to all 2021/22 Board Members for all the hard work during this past year. It was and will be my great privilege to collaborate with every one of you to serve our community.

New Governing Documents Proposal Voting Results (Effective October 1st, 2022, 12.00am)

All passed proposals will be included in the respective governing documents and will be published by October 1st, 2022.

All election and voting results are certified by the Election & Voting Commitee. The official and final results are concluded as per the majority vote principle stated in our constitution.

Thank you to all of the members that showed up at our 2022 August General Members Meeting at the VFW. We had around 50+ people in person in a suddenly very small room participating in our Board Member Nominations. We also appreciate the open dialogue about the proposed Governing Documents (Constitution, Articles and Bylaws) changes presented by the board, led by Rae Joerin in collaboration with a great volunteer and member of our HOA Karrie Pautsch.

Please find below the results of this meeting, which will help you to vote on for our community important topics.  As in previous years, the Chair of our 22/23 Independent Voting Committee will be our well respected and trusted member Amie Mirabitur supported by a great group volunteer.

2022/2023 Board Nominees

The following members were nominated during the General Members Meeting on August 22nd, 2022 for the 2022/2023 board.

President: Winfried Schoeb
Vice President: Aleta Dyling
2nd Vice President: Scott Thurlow
Treasurer: Sharon Crary
Secretary: Nancy Drury
Trustees: Joan Cooper, Jeff Bosh, Steven Kirchner, Justin Klopf, Mike Kuzmich, Jodi Michela, Nicole Slating, Vicki Zellinger

Please join us to congratulate all nominees and help us to confirm their nominations by voting on our General Members Meeting as stated in our constitution on September 26th, 2022 at the VFW either in person or through proxy vote.

(Click here to review the voting rules and download a proxy form).

Our Governing Document Proposals (Constitution, Articles and Bylaws)

As presented during our August General Members meeting on August 22nd, 2022, please find below the detailed proposal for the Governing Documents Changes. You will see the governing document reference (Constitution, Articles or Bylaws) the text that is to be removed or changed marked as “Strike-Through” and the new proposed verbiage marked in Bold and Yellow for easier comparison and readability.

Click here if you would like to open the Bylaw Proposals in a new window.

Please click here to see our current & existing Constitution and Bylaws for your reference.

At this time, we do not accept any additional comments or changes to protect the integrity of the proposed changes as presented and discussed during the meeting. The validity of each change will be decided through the majority vote of our membership.

For any new ideas and request to change, update and improve our Constitution, Articles, Bylaws or Rules, please submit these in writing to winni.schoeb@servenharbors.org or any other board member at any time. These new inputs will be collected and discussed with the entire board and will presented to the membership for voting during the next Election in 2023 or in a special membership meeting, if required.

2022 Bridge Report for Beaumont Road 7 Harbors Main Bridge and our Blue Walking Bridge at South Beach.

Thank you everyone to allow the board to review and understand our 2022 Bridge Report for our Main Bridge and the Blue Walking Bridge we received end of June this year. As we all know we must do a bridge inspections every 3 years and we would like to share this new report with all our members including the short, mid and long term plans we have discussed with the board to ensure we have a plan on how to move forward. 

As of 2022 both of our bridges are now insured and protected against any accidental or natural disaster damage which give us additional security in case something should happen to both bridges in these kind of events.

Overall, the report for both bridges came back with no major structural findings or problems that require immediate attention, which is unchanged from the previous 2019 report. The majority of findings are cosmetic in nature and the current safety of both bridges is adequate and not to be concerned off. However, for our main bridge on Beaumont Drive has been evaluated, and within 10 years, it is recommended that reconstruction or replacement will be required. 

The entire board under the leadership of Steven Kirchner and Jim Findley, who has been supporting us as a volunteer for many years, have discussed the current situation and we are planning the following actions to be taken within the next 36 months. 

Short Term (3 to 6 months

• Resurfacing Beaumont Drive 50 feet before and after the bridge
• Engaging External Company for minor repairs on beams, rust removal and concrete patching
• Remove old paint from the bridge and fill any minor cosmetic cracks and areas (volunteering)
• Repaint the entire bridge (volunteering)
• Initiate minor repairs and patching for Blue Walking bridge.
• Epoxy inject minor crack on NE pillar, replace individual boards as needed and fix the fencing.

Mid Term (6 to 12 months)

• Engage professional company with architects and engineers to evaluate what needs to be done to reconstruct or replace the entire bridge.
• Keep up minor maintenance and repairs as needed.

Long Term (12 to 36 Months)

• Start SAD process to ensure funding for the bridge reconstruction or replacement can be provided and the project can be realized. 
• Keep up minor maintenance and repairs as needed.

Any plans and progress will be presented to the membership regularly.

For the transparency for all our members, you can access and read the complete 2022 bridge report below. Please direct any questions or your interest in contributing to this for our community priority project to Steven Kirchner, Justin Klopf and Jim Findley

You can access the 2022 detailed bridge report in our members area for further reference.