SACKVILLE LAKES PARK AND TRAILS ASSOCIATION

We performed regular maintenance on the trails such as repairing damage from washouts after heavy rainfalls removing dangerous fallen trees and cleaning up after vandals. We continued to arrange and supervise garbage removal washroom cleaning services and doggie bag purchase and dispensing. We maintained our website replaced old signage researched and applied for new funding opportunities. The Board of Directors held online monthly meetings. We paid our annual dues to the Nova Scotia Trails Federation purchased insurance from them and additional Directors and Officers Liability coverage from another provider. We continued to look for ways to expand the park and create another access entrance. Again this year we applied for and received the HST rebate available to groups like ours. Our Water Stewardship Committee continued to be very active testing the lake water and arranging informative talks for interested park users. One of our directors continues to analyze data from trail counters and conducted a survey to determine where users are coming from. We held our AGM on May 8th and elected directors.

Construction of our new 1.6 Km trail was essentially completed this year with only crusher dust application remaining for 2024-25. Our funding came from all levels of government again this year with the largest amount being $237 642 from Infrastructure Canada . The Halifax Regional Municipality invested $205 000 and the province of Nova Scotia granted us $94 000. Because this new trail provides links between various communities Trans Canada Trail donated $23 250 and granted us the designation. We created two access points for maintaining the trail and installed steel gates to discourage motorized vehicles. Keys to the gate locks were distributed to the Dept. of Natural Resources and Renewables the fire department and to the RCMP. We have prepared sites for installing benches for our Memorial Bench Program and arranged to have the benches constructed. We have installed signage and maps and are in the process of procuring more. We are investigating the possibility of creating a new park entrance at another trail head one that contains parking space which is badly needed.