Wednesday Afternoon Workshops
April 5, 2017
1:30-4:30 pm
Pre-registration required to attend.
Agenda subject to change.
Looking to restore or enhance a shoreline? This workshop will focus on shoreland restoration and erosion management beyond issues addressed by the Healthy Lakes Initiative. The presenters will give an overview of the new/different techniques used to alleviate soil erosion and restore shorelands. They will present the technical details of planning, calculations, installation, the online shoreland permitting processes and answer NR Chapter 30 questions. Specific participant questions will be considered and discussed.
Presenters:
Quita Sheehan, Conservation Specialist, Vilas County Land & Water Conservation Department
Stacy Dehne, Conservation Engineer, Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection
David Hon, Water Management Specialist, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Kelsey Brown, Intake Coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Presentations:
To be most effective, lake associations need to understand their capacity to meet their mission and where gaps lie that need to be addressed to be successful. Using a powerful new capacity assessment tool developed here in Wisconsin specifically for our lake organizations, in this workshop you’ll get a snapshot of your organization’s current capacity level, and how you compare to other participants. Then we’ll break into groups at similar levels of capacity and work through exercises designed to help you develop a plan to build the capacity you need. Designed for leaders ready to take their association to the next level, you’ll not only leave with a better sense of where your organization is at and needs to go, but also gain valuable insight from both the presenters and other lake organization colleagues from around the state.
Presenters:
Mike Engleson, Executive Director, Wisconsin Lakes
Aaron Thompson, Faculty, UW-Stevens Point Center for Land Use Education
Presentations:
This workshop is designed specifically for Lake District Treasurers. Managing a lake district budget is not the same as working with a lake association or other type of organization. This workshop will provide you with the tools and knowledge needed to create and manage your lake district’s budget. We will cover specific compliance rules that lake districts need to follow.
Presenters:
Bo DeDeker, Public Finance Lecturer, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point
Andrew Baraniak, Local Government Records Archivist, Wisconsin Historical Society
Spiritual beliefs can be foundational to how people of faith perceive and practice their relationship with nature and their communities. To many spiritual traditions, water is integral – to symbolism, story and ceremony. In this workshop, leaders from various faith communities in Wisconsin will share how water is part of their spiritual tradition, which will lead us to reflect on and share our own spiritual connections with water through an exercise called “water dialoguing.” We will wrap up our experience with a practical discussion on how lake associations can connect with faith communities in their areas and work together to protect their waters.
Presenters:
Kirsten Shead, Interfaith Earth Network of Southeastern Wisconsin Program Director
Faith leaders from around Wisconsin (names TBD)
Those who love lakes recognize that they feel better in many ways just by being near the water. You can enhance the positive impacts of nature by paying careful attention to the plants, trees, and groundcovers that live on shore. In this interactive workshop, we will touch on the evidence for “natural benefits” found in recent research and attempt to capture what particular elements constitute your ideal lakeside property. Be prepared to share your personal successes and “learning opportunities” so that we gather lots of take-away ideas.
Presenter:
Barbara Kreski, Director of Horticulture Therapy, Chicago Botanical Gardens
Lake eutrophication modeling uses characteristics of the lake and watershed to better understand the current trophic condition of a lake and evaluate how that has or could change. This workshop will examine some of the principals of lake eutrophication modeling and introduce attendees to the Wisconsin Lake Modeling Suite (WiLMS) for lake water quality evaluation and planning. This workshop is geared towards individuals interested in performing simple lake eutrophication modeling or to better understand modeling results developed for their lake. Participants will need to provide their own laptop computer as this session will include hands-on applications of WiLMS.
Presenter:
Paul McGinley, Water Quality Specialist, UW-Extension/UW-Stevens Point
WordPress is a very popular website builder that does not require coding skills but still allows organizations to customize their site to meet their communication goals. This workshop will utilize a WordPress network (see lakekit.net) which runs a collection of separate and distinct lake organization sites. The network approach minimizes site hosting expenses and greatly simplifies administration tasks for the lake organization. During this workshop, participants will work to adapt a site template to their lake organization. Participants will need to provide their own laptop as they will be creating and editing webpages using WiFi throughout this hands-on workshop. Prior to the workshop, participants will receive some preparation tasks from the workshop educator to help them use their time most effectively. Registration in the workshop will provide the participating organization with 2017 network membership, including website hosting.
Presenter:
Larry Bresina, Webmaster, Polk County Association of Lakes and Rivers
In this introduction to identifying blue-green algae, learn what characteristics you can observe in the field with the naked eye or hand lens to distinguish blue-green algae from other common lake algae. We will review the environmental conditions that cause blue-green algae to grow to nuisance levels. We will also discuss the health impacts of the toxins made by some blue-green algae on animals and people who ingest, inhale, or have skin contact with blue-green algae. We will cover health guidelines for blue-green algal toxins, and how to determine the safest recreational levels of blue-green algae in Wisconsin’s lakes. If possible, please bring a hand lens or magnifying glass for some hands-on identification practice. Due to the short duration of the workshop, we are unable to cover algal identification based on light microscopy. This Wednesday workshop is intended for water professionals and field staff.
Presenter:
Gina LaLiberte, Statewide Blue Green Algae Coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Skip to main content
