The Wynndemere Word May 21, 2025
--Wynndemere Word Newsletter Launches--
During our Annual Board Meeting held on September 20, 2024, a few suggestions were offered by our residents. One was a suggestion to publish a newsletter to keep residents informed on a variety of topics. This is our first attempt. It will be posted on our Wynndemere website and hard copies will be made available as well. Our goal is for this newsletter to be informative. We hope you enjoy it!
So Long Winter and Hello to Springtime!
We hope this finds you all in good health! We are excited that Springtime has arrived! We certainly had our share of snowy, cold, and windy weather this past winter and we are enjoying the improved "gardening & walking weather" along with the beautiful flowers in bloom! It is always great to see more neighbors out and about with this warmer weather! At latest count, we have approximately 50 of our 62 homes that have permanent residence with a few that enjoy quality time here, whenever possible. As we get out and about for exercise this spring, we are reminded to observe the (low) speed limit in Wynndemere, which is just 15 mph. Sometimes, it is the delivery trucks and vendors that arrive to perform work in our neighborhood; please remind them, as well as our visitors, to take it slow for the sake of our community as they come and go. We are blessed with a cross section of ages and abilities in our neighborhood, including some who are walking with assistance, or walking dogs (or grandchildren) across the street. We appreciate your effort to help keep Wynndemere safe! Thank you!
Wynndemere Website:
This is a reminder that our website makes a nice effort to address many of our community's questions, and it provides emergency phone numbers, as well as information on local ordinances, common scams to watch out for, etc. This is especially helpful with spring & summer projects; on our website www.wynndemere.org as it addresses:
Where to call when you (or your contractor) are getting ready to dig on your property! Aside from having GAS & ELECTRIC marked out, it is critical that we do not compromise our sprinkler system that is linked throughout the neighborhood. We thank you for your attention to this important item!
Snow Removal
Budget Update
It certainly was quite the winter, and while we did exceed our expected snowfall for the CMCH, we were able to cover the increased cost with our emergency fund. As a reminder, our snow removal priority is to clear homes with disabilities first, along with the entrance to the development, followed by the removal of snow from the homes on the "shady" side of the street (due to icing), followed lastly by the sunny side of Wynndemere! Thank you for your understanding!
CPR/Defibrillator Educational Opportunity
Supporting our community
A suggestion was made to add a defibrillator to Wynndemere Court so that we would have access to this life saving tool when required (location to be determined). The consideration is to also have about 1/2 dozen people trained, to help assist a neighbor or family member in need; please let us know if you are trained, or if you have an interest in being trained -- please notify Dave Wetwel at: mailto:dgwetzel@comcast.net
Training class will be offered by a local agency that is certified to teach CPR & proper use of defibrillators. The cost should be under $40 (certification cost is additional but not required). We will post the names of CPR trained individuals online to notify everyone as this moves forward. Please see the related article on Good Samaritan Laws...
Offering Assistance in the Case of Medical Emergency
Related Article on CPR
In case you are wondering....
Good Samaritan Laws offer legal protection to "people who give reasonable assistance to those who are, or whom they believe to be injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated."
This law provides us all with protection to make an effort to offer assistance and lend comfort to those awaiting an ambulance.
Thankfully, the EMT's are generally very quick to arrive.
Reminder to move downspout drains toward the driveway from Spring thru Fall, to help prevent the water from accumulating i the crawl space areas.
As we celebrate Memorial Day Weekend... We greatly appreciate all who served our country and those that stand up for democracy around the world! Thank you for your courage and dedication!
INTERESTED IN VOLUNTEERING IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY?
Some neighbors are quite involved, volunteering at the local hospital, and other local agencies... if you have an interest, there is generally help needed at the Senior Center, the Cape May Museum, at Cooper University Hospital Cape Regional, and Cape May MAC, which is a non-profit organization promoting the cultural enrichment of the greater Cape May area. In addition, there are local food banks, pantries, and places of worship that often need assistance. GIVING BACK makes a difference and it also helps to keep us motivated!
---- FRIENDS & NEIGHBORS ----
We would be remiss to not recognize the wonderful neighbors that we lost over the winter and across the last year or so. For security reasons, we will not mention them by name or address, but we would like their families and friends to know that they will be greatly missed. Wynndemere has always been a tight community that supports one another and especially at times like this. Let's continue to be supportive and recognize that a few minutes of our time can go a long way to making someone's day.
Looking Back on Local History Introducing Seashore Stories from WWII
We have all heard about the German Subs off the eastern coast during WWII, but did you know that:
A 1000-ton destroyer was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in 1942 off of the coast of Cape May. The attack occurred when the destroyer was searching for the U-boat that had sunk the R.P. Resor (an oil tanker carrying 78,000 barrels of crude oil) the previous day! Sadly, only 11 of the ship's crew survived the sinking of this destroyer. German U-boats were a major threat to Allied ships during World War II; the U-boats were equipped with torpedo tubes and deck guns and were able to patrol for up to six weeks at a time.
At Hitler's request, dozens of Nazi subs wreaked havoc on a surprised and woefully unprepared United States Navy for over a year during those first frightening days after our entry into the Second World War. Eventually, U.S. patrol ships and aircraft became skilled at tracking and destroying enemy U-boats, but not before wolf packs had sunk 2,775 Allied vessels amounting to over 14 million tons of steel and hundreds of lives lost.
All too frequently, Americans' residing along the east coast from New York City down to Miami Beach were jolted from their beds by loud explosions just offshore, followed by a blaze of fire on the horizon. And word had it that local fisherman heading out for their daily catch, would encounter the Germans up on their deck, with the ship surfaced, but there was common law of sorts, that the fisherman did not report them, and the Germans left the fisherman alone. Some days the German Navy were seen on the shoreline around a fire at night; however, phone lines were often cut, and there were too few servicemen to immediately arrest them, and they would get back to their ship before more service personnel could arrive.
Following much success by the German Subs, the first surrender of a Nazi U-boat, U-858, was well documented by the press as captured off of Cape May, NJ. The headlines, coast-to-coast broadcasts, newsreels and wire photos carried the story to millions of people throughout the world, and in all of them, Cape May was prominently mentioned. Credit to: The NY Times
And finally, a special "Thank You" to Lew Gibson for replacing our mailboxes in Wynndemere; one more step in keeping up a most desirable neighborhood appearance! Also, a huge thank you to Chris Gibson for her many, many years of service to our Wynndemere Community! A tremendous THANK YOU to Naomi, as well, for helping us manage our Wynndemere Community! We are blessed to have you all supporting our beautify neighborhood! We look forward to seeing everyone out and about this Spring! We wish you and your families a wonderful, healthy and safe summer!
Any suggestions or ideas for articles, may be sent to the attention of Dave Wetzel at mailto:dgwetzel@comcast.net