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Crystal Beach Improvement Corporation
CBIC News – You need to know!
CBIC Email Address: cbicncorg@gmail.com
CBIC Web Page Address: cbic-nc.org
CBIC voice mail: (252) 495-0159
August 2024
We hope your summer has been safe and happy!
The Board of Directors of the Crystal Beach Improvement Corporation (CBIC) hope that everyone has had a prosperous year. In this mailing, you will find information of interest to all lot owners. Your suggestions for improvements are encouraged and may be made in person or in writing and you are welcome to attend our meetings the 2nd Saturday of each month at the Friends of Crystal Beach Building, 181 Driftwood Dr. We also have a phone number where you can leave us a voicemail, (252)-495-0159, or email at cbicncorg@gmail.com.
FROM THE CBIC PRESIDENT: As we are halfway through 2024, we can look back on the first half of this year and think of our accomplishments and be thankful we’ve had no Hurricanes or Tropical Storms (knock on wood.) We had our annual clean-up day the first Saturday in May and had a good turnout and accomplished many things. In June, as discussed in the annual meeting, a separate account will be setup as the “Driftwood Drive Fund.” As of the June meeting this account stands at $11,377.00. During our July 4th gathering, David West proudly displayed our new Tractor for Road Maintenance. It even has an Air-Conditioned cab. We paid $37,000 for the tractor, $360 for delivery, and purchased $476 worth of service parts. The tractor has a backhoe attachment which is currently posted on Facebook marketplace in 10 counties. We plan to sell it to buy other needed attachments. While we dined on bbq and all the fixin’s, we took in $2378 dollars in donations and $1,755 in the 50/50 raffle. An additional donation was made to bring the total to $4,200. This will go into the Equipment Fund which as of this writing stands at $15,349. It is noteworthy that volunteers maintain our Beach and Roads, and we have a limited budget to work with. We are trying to find ways to tweak the funds we do have. We did increase our Road Budget to $10,000 for gravel and the Beach budget to $4000. As we have had a personnel change in our Financial Secretary, there has been a delay in processing 2024 annual payments which may include gifts. As of this writing, we are unable to provide a dollar amount of any gifts. We hope to have this by the annual meeting. If not then, by the December newsletter. We have also been without a month-to-month budget. The spreadsheet used for this purpose has been obtained but will take time to catch up. Again, yes, I sound like a broken record, but $12.50 per lot/per year, (1960 dollars) is not sufficient to maintain our roads. They look good all things considered but could be better and our equipment could be better maintained.
SAFETY AT CRYSTAL BEACH: Safety for your family and your home are everyone’s main concern. All types of vehicles operated on roads in Crystal Beach should do so in a manner where safety is the priority, fun is secondary. We should also remind everyone that the entire neighborhood has a 15-mph speed limit. Whether a road is paved or unpaved our roads were designed for maximum speeds of 15-mph. And for the gravel roads, there is dust. The faster you drive the more dust you kick up. To all property owners, if you hire a service provider to do work on your home or property, please inform the service provider of our speed limits. This speed limit applies to all types of vehicles. Drive like your Children or Grandchildren live here. Be sure and lock up your possessions and keep an eye on your neighbors’ property as well. Also, Blount’s Creek Volunteer Fire Department provides our emergency services. Please consider donating to them.
BEACH COMMITTEE: James Ferrell is our Beach Committee Chairman. He would like to thank everyone who volunteered to keep the grass mowed and the beach area and bathrooms clean this past year. Please remember to only flush toilet paper! If you wish to volunteer to help, please call James at 252-999-2174. Thanks again for your continued support. We would like to thank Brenda Massengill for cleaning the restrooms. During late fall and winter, the Restrooms at the beach are winterized and closed. We also had to pump the septic tank recently. We are also going to bring in a professional bulkhead builder to assess our bulkheads.
ID TAGS FOR BEACH: Just a reminder that Crystal Beach is a private community to be enjoyed by lot owners in good standing, their families and invited guests. The ID tags must be displayed on your vehicle when using community beach facilities. Failure to display the tags may result in your vehicle being towed. We are aware of non-residents using our boat ramps. With the help of cameras, we hope to address this issue. If you see someone putting in/taking out a boat, try to get a license plate number and let a board member know.
MAY WORKDAY: The first Saturday in May is our annual workday. We invite all residents to volunteer and help care for the beach area, our roads and many other projects that come up during each year. This past May we cleaned ditches, repaired potholes, picked up trash, and cleaned road signs. There were many volunteers including new residents that came out. We were then all treated to a delicious Hot Dog Lunch by FOCB.
FRIENDS OF CRYSTAL BEACH: The Friends of Crystal Beach (FOCB) is a community support group of Crystal Beach with a goal of keeping our community informed and bringing neighbors together for functions. FOCB maintains the community building that has an office space for CBIC. CBIC also holds their monthly meetings in the Friends Community Building. FOCB depends on annual memberships to the Friends to pay for items such as taxes, insurance, electricity, gas, water and general upkeep and maintenance of the community building (approximately $4000/year). FOCB needs new members including those willing to serve on the FOCB board. We sponsor community events, lunch plate fund raisers and sponsor a “Big Sweep” cleanup day every October and The Christmas parade (with sufficient interest) in December. FOCB is asking community members to help design a new logo for T-shirts. Membership is open to all property owners and FOCB would love to have you join our community events. Membership is $30 for a single membership and $50 per couple. Please Contact Sandy Dobrowolski at 919-495-0601 or Stephanie Register at 252-521-2502 for more information or email friendsofcbnc@gmail.com.
WEBSITE: Did you know that we host our own website to keep folks informed about Crystal Beach Estates? Visit us at www.cbic-nc.org to view the latest information including governing documents, the community calendar, reserve the pavilion or simply contact us with a question or comment. We also have a presence on Facebook so stop on by at https://www.facebook.com/CBIC.nc/ and do not forget to “Like Us.” Since postage is one of CBIC’s significant expenses we are asking all residents to consider receiving this newsletter and your annual invoices via email. This would save us much effort folding and stuffing envelopes.
Lot fee and Beach fee payments: As a reminder, the bills that are sent out may not include the physical address of the property being billed. When we receive a payment, and the payment does not identify the Crystal Beach Property Address, the Financial Secretary must research to locate the property associated with the bill. If the bill you receive does not clearly identify the address e.g. 123 Wood Lane, please write in the physical address of the property you are paying fees for. Thank You!