Strathmere News & Happenings: December 2013

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

SIA Newsletter 12 31 2013 - Calendar Burning; Snowy Owl Pictures; High Tides; Township and Fire District Websites

To All Strathmere and Whale Beach Homeowners and Visitors,

Happy New Year!!

***************************************************

If you are in town tonight, you may want to see in the New Year at the annual Burning of the Calendars at midnight on the beach at Randolph Road.

All are welcome to bring their 2013 calendars.

Ed Tettemer explains, “A few minutes before the midnight gong, we wander out and start a small fire (either in a fire pit, if we're feeling formal, or in a metal Upper Township trash can) and toss in our calendars at 12. We dance around the fire a bit, laugh a little, toast our good fortunes, and shiver. Then we go back in and finish the pie.

“If folks wanna stop by the octagon an hour or so earlier, that's always fine, too. We'll have a small group with large smiles”.

Dress warmly!

*******************************************

If you follow us on Facebook, you’ve seen a number of pictures of Strathmere’s snowy owl.

First to spot her (we think it’s a female; males are all white), was Ted Kingston, who took this shot on December 1.

Then, on December 4, Ken Weaver took these pictures on the beach between Whittier and Webster.

We did not see her for awhile, and then Ken took these shots on December 21, again just off Webster,

Then Bill Tierney saw her on his roof on Vincent and took these shots, also on December 21:

Looking at Bill...

On December 27, Greg Bennett saw her on the beach at Randolph and took these shots:

We hope you get to see her, too!

**************************************************************

High tides on Bayview

The new moon occurs at 6:12 New Year’s morning. A 5.2 foot high tide is predicted at 7:21 am, another at 8:12 am Thursday morning, then a 5.1 foot tide at 9:03 on Friday.

We’ll probably have water in the street each morning, and if the wind comes from the northeast we could get quite a bit. Park accordingly!

*************************************************

Upper Township continues to improve their website to make it more useful. It includes videos of Township Committee meetings, trash collection info and much more.

It also hosts our Fire Commission Website, at a new URL address. If you’d like to see where your Fire District property tax money goes, the information is all there.

Check these sites out and save them!

*****************************************************************************

Remember to follow and "like" the SIA (click the "Thumbs Up" box ) on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Strathmere-Improvement-Association-SIA/184810134906201

You'll get an early look at lots of things going on in Strathmere (the snowy owl pictures were there first)!

***************************************************************************

Again, check out Carol Baker's wonderful Strathmere History website at http://www.strathmere.net/, and her blog at http://strathmere.blogspot.com/.

You can also see the beach and ocean from the Octagon Webcam.

**************************************************************************************

The Strathmere Improvement Association was founded in 1951 as a community organization with the simple objective of making Strathmere a better place. We are proud of the organization's many accomplishments over the years.

Please let us know if you have comments or suggestions for the newsletter or for SIA in general, or if you'd like us to change your e-mail address in our records.

You can contact us by responding to this e-mail at sia6@comcast.net or by mailing SIA at PO Box 57.

**************************************

Thanks very much for your continuing support of the Strathmere Improvement Association!

Linda Bateman

Elaine Holsomback

Donna Diefenderfer

Rosemarie Whelan

Ken Weaver

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Strathmere Christmas Party Photos

To All Strathmere and Whale Beach Homeowners and Visitors,

On Saturday, we had almost 200 people attend the Community Christmas Party at the Deauville.

As you know, the Firehouse cannot safely accommodate a crowd of this size – thus the change in location.

Co-sponsors of the party were the SIA and the Strathmere Volunteer Fire Company. In addition, The Citizens for Strathmere and Whale Beach made a very large contribution which allowed us to keep the party a “free” event for one more year.

We’ll apologize up front for some “red-eye” problems with the pictures, and corrections that perhaps were worse...

****

The evening began with folks cashing in their drink tickets at the bar...

Herb Hollinger took a moment to be a square dance “caller” for a young dancer.

Go, Grace, go!

Then the Fire Company honored two of their long-time members.

First, Herb introduced Ted Bamford

Both a plaque and a banner were presented to Ted.

Next to be honored was the late Al “Higgy” Higginbotham.

Presentations by Ella Diamond were made to Kay Higginbotham.

Kay thanked the Fire Company and the Strathmere community.

Then, it’s time for a great dinner presented by the Deauville.

And a super choice of desserts provided by attendees!

Then, it was time for Santa!

After dinner, Santa arrived to the delight of the youngsters (and many oldsters!).

Finally, Santa poses with his elves, Lyn and Donna.

This is a good time to give special thanks to Donna Diefenderfer, who put in an enormous amount of time handling all of the ticket requests and all of the requests for gifts from Santa. Thanks, Donna!