Thank you, McNeill family!

click on the letter for a larger version you can read.

First official meeting of the Take the Lake Society!

Well, what an exciting evening we had at the Lake Waccamaw Depot on Tuesday, Sept. 16!

There were about a dozen people there, and everyone had excellent ideas for the future of this event.

First, Mark (that's me) showed a slide show of photographs he took during the four events over Labor Day weekend. Then he gave a presentation all about his motivation for this event and some ideas.

Here's the video (on YouTube) shown below.


Major topics of discussion:
- Most everyone agreed that a vital element of this event is that we either circumnavigate or cross the lake, and that, in the bicycle event, pushing the bikes through the park is a feasible idea.

- Walter Palmer suggested we host a similar and smaller event on Memorial Day weekend, all in one day, with a 1-mile swim, for example, as a warm-up, or tryout, or whatever, to motivate, inspire and encourage people to try the Labor Day event.

- It was informally decided that this, like any large event these days, will need an official t-shirt.

- We will look into event insurance.

- Eric Brandt noted that the URL Takethelake.com is already taken.

- On entry fees:
- Will charging a fee increase our insurance premium?
- Charging a fee helps participants commit to the event
- Fees would help pay for t-shirts, insurance and operations expenses.

- Discussion led to medals (Colliers Jewelers has donated medals for swimmers for decades). John McNeill announced that his family has decided to donate medals for all participants for as long as possible. A brief discussion entertained various medal concepts.

- Julie Stocks suggested forming committees. A few suggestions:
- Each of the four events
- Overall marketing and promotion
- Volunteers
- Medal design
- Safety

- To announce this event we could, in the spring, hold a Saturday morning walk through the park trail, beginning at the park and shuttling people back from the dam in vans. We could stop at the beach for a catered (ostentatiously?) lunch, with tables, chairs and a small band brought in by boat. Invitees would be business, health, government and education leaders in the county.

- Mark asked about the name Take the Lake and everyone seemed to like it. No one had suggestions for anything else.

- Mark announced a $500 grant from Healthy Carolinians and about $1,300 in the Dropaton account that could be used on this project.

- Forgive me if I left anyone or anything out - I'm doing this from memory. Please feel free to leave a comment. (I don't believe you have to register.) Let's make this a public forum!

UPDATE  ---- Since the meeting...

 - I have purchased the domain name: Takethelake.org, so we can move forward with that. I will keep this blog, but the .org URL will be easier to direct people to.

 - I have looked into two insurance companies and have received one quote (from Western Heritage). There are many factors that I may not have right, but the quote was under $300 for 100 participants over three days. 

Next meeting: 

Tues., Oct. 14, 7 p.m. 

at the Depot

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MEETING to plan for next year

When: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 7 p.m.

Where: Waccamaw Depot Museum

Some topics:

 - What went right this year

 - What went wrong this year

 - How to improve each event

 - What's with this bikes in the woods thing?

 - Routes (start and end points)

 - Schedule (4 days? 3 days? 2 days? 1 day?)

 - One-day triathlon? Maybe a different time of year?

 - Safety

 - Will someone other than Mark organize the paddle or bike?

 - Entry fees?

 - Liability and insurance

Please don't think that, if you come to this meeting, you are committing yourself to be on a committee to organize this event. As a participant of this year's event, we need your input, so stop by and offer up some advice and go about your busy life!

I will probably start with a presentation of my dreams and ideas and we can go from there.

Yours, at looking toward a bright future,

Mark Gilchrist 

DONE! (OK, let's start on next year...)

(Click the page at right for the full story)

Wow, what a beautiful weekend! The weather was perfect and everyone appeared to have a great time.

I, however, had an ordeal getting through this thing, but boy, did I enjoy it.

Walter Palmer, Dawn McMillan of Ocean Isle and I left the Wildlife boat ramp on Friday afternoon about four. Dawn's little kayak couldn't get her around the lake in time, so she turned around at the park, leaving Walter and I to fend for ourselves. We made it around the lake and up to the McNeill's pier in time to score some scraps from the Friday Fish Fry and then we paddled the next hour in one of the darkest, starry-est, prettiest nights ever.

Nearly 40 walkers left the state park visitors center Saturday morning, with about half heading north and half, south. We're trying to understand which route is the best; to suffer the hot sun on Bella Coola at the end of the trip, or trip over the trail at the end. Organizer Grant Egley says he'll probably just let people go either way every year.

I discovered on the walk that there are essentially two trails one can take. From the dam, stay along the shoreline and cross both of the park piers (five miles.) If you have a bicycle, just get off the walking trail at the campground and hike to the swimming pier parking lot (three miles.)

Now I think I know why people have looked at me like I'm crazy when I've talked about walking bikes along the trail (Insert joke here). They perhaps have only walked the five-mile hiking trail and did not take the two-mile shortcut. Also, by taking the shortcut, you miss the trails that are the most hilly and difficult terrain.

I'm not crazy, honest!

About two dozen cyclists of all ages turned up on Sunday for the bike ride, which left the Wildlife boat ramp and the campground near the sailing club at about 10 a.m. They broke into two groups with the faster adults going on ahead and the families with young children and grandparents following up the rear in the casual, party group.

Monday's swim went like clockwork, with the group beginning on the north shore and swimming to the dam. Two children, Samantha Lane and Andrew Powell, both 10, finished the four-mile journey.

Russell Smith is helping develop a one-day event. Here is what he did:

 - 6:15 a.m. - Bicycled from park entrance to dam (12 miles - 1 hour)

 - 8:30 a.m. - Swam from Dale's to dam (4 miles - 2 hrs., 42 min)

 - Noon? - Walked from dam to park entrance (12 miles - 3 hrs., 21 min)

 - 5 p.m. - Kayaked from Dale's to the dam (4 miles - 1 hour)

 

Thanks Russell. We're going to look at the possibility of maybe holding several events in one day, either on Labor Day or as a one-day event in itself.

For more details, get a sneak-peek at the full-page spread in Thursday's The News Reporter. Click on the image at right.

We have a lot of work to do, with the most challenging task of figuring out a schedule for an event like this. Do we make it a four-day event, or cram it all (shorter routes) into one day? Do we do both?

What do we do with the bicycle ride? The two challenges are crossing the dam and keeping people from riding on the trails. Let's try to meet at the Lake Waccamaw Depot Museum at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 16. Please email me if you can make it.

Yours, at 14 miles paddle, 17 miles walk, 17 miles bike and 4 miles swim!

Mark Gilchrist