A Message from Board President Ken Van Winkle

It is hard to believe that another year has passed since our last annual meeting of the members of the Christmas Lake Village Property Association. As you may or may not know, few attend the meeting. That said, and since the president of the outgoing board traditionally takes the opportunity to say some parting words, I thought here in this column might be an appropriate place to say a few words.

It has truly been both a pleasure and a tremendous personal growth experience to serve the past three years as a board member and also the past year as your president. It is time consuming, often times controversial and also hard work.

Like all of you this author has many other things going on including busily chasing after the active lives of three young children, in my case three sons, Cody (11), Preston (9) and Cameron (5). They give me good reason to say, “No I cannot serve on the board, I am just too busy”. Sound familiar? We all share that reason. If not for the one used above, choose any of a hundred others.

But there may be only one reason to say Yes. “Yes, I’ll do it because I want to make a difference in this community.”

That said there is so much yet to do in our community. For that reason, I bring this message. Step Up! Make a Difference! Get involved in the community that you call home! Yes, it is time consuming; it is certainly controversial; and it is hard work.

As active as our community has become we now find the board, not meeting just one time per month for an hour or two, but rather one time per month at the regular board meeting for three or four hours and then an additional meeting or two of another hour or two each. There is so much to be done to make our community the ideal place to live.

Let’s review though what makes it all worthwhile. In the last year we have:
Introduced the enhanced Newsletter.
Introduced the CLV Web Site.
Passed the new Covenants and Restrictions.
Initiated a Collections Process to ensure that assessment money is collected.
Started a Long Term Planning Process.
Created a Personnel Committee.
Implemented a Culvert Inspection Program.
And others . . . all of which takes a lot of time.

We still need to do more though. And we need the people and brainpower that only you can bring to the table.

This great work is possible because of you, your board and your employees of CLV. In parting then, I would like to say thank you to the association members; the board members Don Vogel, Chris Sigler, Elva Scholebo, Rose Gifford, Norm Gerlach, Keith Blair, Jo Nance and Milton Pledger; Property Manager Mark Kroeger and his staff; and those of you that have stepped up to help on the many committees and activities of the association.

On a personal note, I want to also thank my wife Sara for extra efforts in caring for the boys over the past three years.

Best Regards,

Ken