2022 Season Lake Reality Highlights

The 2022 season has ended and once again an amazing one.  Thank you to all of the volunteers who made our events successful and put in the time to keep our beach and facilities clean and in operation.  We'd like to take this opportunity to give a few shout outs to those that volunteered their time to make Summer 2022 at Lake Reality yet again another successful season.

Thank you Danielle Elia, for organizing our Friday Pizza Nights. Thank you Jolanta Szalrj, Michelle Bott and Louie Waibel for organizing our first and hopefully annual Teen Volley Ball Tournament. Thank you Patty Conklin for yet another successful Tricky Tray fund raising event.  Thank you to Trish Marraty and April Spano for the organizing our 50th Anniversary celebration event. Thank you to our new members Joe and Natalie Latti for hosting the Kids Chalk Art contest. It goes without saying, but thank you Rich Nick, for putting in the thankless hours it takes to keep our lake open, operating and safe each season.

And finally a thank you to all of you who helped with opening day and closing day clean up at our lake.  We count on volunteers for the success of our lake and our members enjoyment.
 

The 2022 season highlights and an update from our dam reconstruction committee:

Events:

• Members Opening day BBQ
• Lifeguard Training at the Lake
• Friday pizza nights
• Annual Kids Fishing Contest
• Kinnelon Teen Volley Ball tournament
• Kids Chalk Art contest
• Tricky Tray
• Daddy Daughter Sand Castle Contest
• Kids Craft Afternoon
• Live Band & Pizza Night
• Kids movie night – parents night out
• 50th Anniversary Oktoberfest Celebration

Membership:

As you are all aware costs have been increasing across the board in our current economic environment.  Those costs continue to increase, but with a slight increase in dues and increasing our Lake Reality family we ended the 2022 season in a much better place economically.  We Started the season with 109 members, although we lost a few, we added 30 new members and now have 127 members of Lake Reality.

• Resident membership increased by 1
• Associate membership increased by 30

Lifeguards:

• Head lifeguard Jeff has given his resignation to focus on a new career.  We wish him the best of luck, thank you for all of your hard work and making our beach safe.
• 2022 was a tough year to procure full-time lifeguards. (Fayson Lakes was also struggling to staff their lifeguards towards the end of the summer).  Over the summer, there were days we had to borrow lifeguards from neighboring lakes, other days, we were lucky to have 1 lifeguard on duty.  We will continue to work to keep our beach staffed, if you know or have older children who may be interested in becoming a lifeguard, please don’t hesitate to contact us.  Our Lifeguard trustee is certified and can provide lifeguard training in the spring.

General maintenance:

• Thank you to one of our senior lifeguards, Louie Waibel, who chose Lake Reality for his Eagle Scout project to improve his community. Louie managed a group of younger scouts to upgrade our swing set with a climbing wall, replace the ramp with new boards and sand down and re-stain our entire swing set to add years of longevity and make it safer for our members children.
• New plumbing was installed for the outside shower giving us the ability to shut-off the out-door shower after beach hours. (Last year, vandals draped the hose over the railing and left the water running all night)
• We purchased, and volunteers installed, a new float on the boat dock that was leaking and causing a section of the dock to sink last season. (2023 we will need to do the same with one of the floating ‘docks’)
• The 8 picnic tables were sanded down (Thank  you Larry Prescott) and re-stained (Thank you Bob Phillips) extending their longevity.
• 2 new umbrellas were bought and installed on the outside deck mid-season after a storm broke the ones that were in place.

Dam Reconstruction Update:

• The dam reconstruction committee has worked very closely with the engineers to finalize the dam reconstruction plans and minimize cost and impact to the beach area.
• Final plans are expected to be completed by the end of this year to allow us to go out to contractors for bid and finalize a price for construction.
• The town council has yet to sign as co-borrower of the loan with the DEP.   The next meeting with the town must be with resident signatures of their commitment to pay up to the total yearly payment of a 20 year term loan of $750,000 at 2% annually.  The actual payments should be lower but are dependent on the actual cost of the dam reconstruction.  As you are all aware, we have been collecting dam payments from members over the past 10 years into a dam reconstruction fund.  We have had several costs associated with the dam reconstruction over this time that were debited from this fund for dam inspections, maintenance and securing and engineering firm to complete the reconstruction plans this past year. Details will be provided to residents in the next few weeks in the mail.
  • We procured an extension this spring to March of 2023 based on our commitment through hiring and paying an engineering firm to produce detailed plans for the reconstruction.
• The committee is working on a separate communication to inform Lake Reality residents of your commitment needed to satisfy the town council's requirement to sign the documents to secure our loan with the DEP for the lakes dam reconstruction.