LAKE DETROITERS’ BEACHES
As they founded and organized LDA’s antecedent organization in the late 1940’s, the Detroit Lake Property Owners Association identified five shoreline segments for purposes of populating its Board of Directors: two representatives each were identified from Big Detroit North Shore, Big Detroit East Shore, Big Detroit South Shore, Little Detroit North Shore, and Little Detroit South Shore. No map or member location list is available.
In the early 1950’s LDA Bulletins, 18, 20, and eventually 25 beaches (zones) were identified to assist in the recruitment of members in the Association. Many of these beaches, but not all, were associated with platted developments around the lake. Among those 23 depicted in the map below one-quarter were geographic descriptors of locations, as in the cases of Deadshot Bay, Allen Beach, Cox’s Point, Kays Beach and Long Bridge.
By 1953 the identified beaches yielded a total of 141 regular LDA members, with Burritt Beach, North Shore Drive, Breezy Point, West Shore Drive, Pokegama and East Shore Drive providing two-thirds of the active membership (an additional 35 members were sustaining or associate members, mostly businesses).
For unknown reasons the use of beaches to organize membership campaigns disappeared later in the 1950’s
The idea of a LDA Beach Captain system similar to that used on other lakes (most notably Mel/Sal), was proposed on several occasions including in 2005, but no serious effort was given to activating a beach strategy or identifying/delineating LDA beaches until 2010. After two years of planning, in 2012 a Beach Captain system and a delineation of beaches (21) was implemented with some served by as many as three residents for a total of 34 beach captains.
The Beach Captain approach was adopted to facilitate and improve interaction and communication among lakeshore residents and their LDA officers and board members. It also was expected that the face-to-fact contact between LDA representatives and residents would increase membership.
The identification of beaches drew somewhat from the old 1950’s designations, so Pokegama, East Shore, Burritt, White Clover, Wildwood, Nason Bay, Nodaway, Sunset and a few others based upon long-ago platted subdivisions persisted. Others lacking plat identifications, such as Cox’s Point, Deadshot, also were retained.
The reformatting of geographic coverage of individual Beach Captain responsibilities has had much to do with reducing the workload carried by individual Beach Captains, though in some cases the geographic descriptors replaced more obscure plat names.
President Barb Halbakken-Fischburg, was joined by key players Carol Bergren and later Linda Wiedman in developing and nurturing this program. Captain numbers expanded from 34 in 2012, to 50 in 2018, and under John Flynn’s leadership then settled at a current level of 64.
In May of each year, Beach Captains are assigned 10-15 neighbors to whom are distributed 800 material-laden packets containing information about the lake and a notice of an upcoming LDA annual meeting. Beach Captains also solicit memberships, collect dues, update contact data, and answer questions about LDA activities.
It is hard to underestimate the impact of the new LDA Beach Captain program, intended not only as a device for member recruitment but also as a mechanism for expanding influence of LDA among lakeshore residents. LDA membership has grown from less than 200 in 2010 to approximately 400 in recent years. Annual meeting attendance also has grown.
