REGULAR MEETING MINUTES for 11/06/08
CALL TO ORDER - By: Eileen K. Maier At: Strings in Mt. Shasta Time: 7:35 pm Number Attending: 18
APPROVAL OF MINUTES FROM MEETING: Meeting from 10/02/08, as posted on the web site, so approved.
TREASURER'S REPORT (Larry): Checking balance $1565.00. Petty cash $52.15.
REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES:
Nordic Bypass: Ed with the FS has a meeting with the Nordic Center next Wends to go over signing. Ed thinks they might be over doing it, wanting some real large signs. Depending on snow conditions, we will have to plan a Club Ride through the Nordic Center. We can use one of our Club Ride dates for the ride.
Warming Huts/Sheds/Sno-Mobile Parks: Chuck’s Park: (1) Jim Stout wants to get some bigger gravel on the parking lot expansion before they put the road grindings down. (2) As of yesterday, Jim Stout at Goosenest RD is not aware of any logging going on out of the Park that will plow past the parking area. But Eileen found out that they are logging out Military Pass Rd, up by Brewer Creek going past Chuck’s Park. They have permission to log up there until Dec 15, but if they can make it until Thanksgiving, they will be happy. We’ll see. Also they are logging up the IP Road, but should be finished today. Oh yeah and there is snow at the Park! 4-Corners/Medicine Lake: Nothing new. Door Knob: Nothing new. Pilgrim Creek: (1) The FS reports that there will be logging happening on the Stevens Pass Rd this winter. They will be plowing the road from Pilgrim Ck Rd, to Trout Ck Rd, to Stevens Pass Rd. At this time we don’t know how long they will be logging or what kind of snow plowing the road they will be doing. Dion said there are a couple of logging groups that are logging out that area and it will be at least two months for the one group to harvest the logs they have to before their harvest time runs out. So it looks like Pilgrim Ck area could be really cut off from riding areas. (2) The plastic windows in the warming hut have been ripped up, within the past two weeks. (3) The roof on the groomer shed is being replaced by the manufacture because it was not holding up to the snow load. They are putting in more girders and replacing the roof. This was to start yesterday, but with the weather, who knows. Val from the FS was attending the meeting and said they are starting on the groomer shed tomorrow, Friday, she is going out there.
USFS: Shasta-Trinity: Nothing new. Klamath: Nothing new.
Grooming Reports: Klamath/Modoc report: Groomer ready to go. Shasta/Trinity report: (1) OHV has approved grooming funds of $34,600 for the next 3 seasons. This is $2000 more than the last two seasons. No telling when the funding will be arriving, but it’s been approved. (2) We had a volunteer groomer meeting yesterday with the FS. Volunteers will be scheduled for Thursdays by Ed. If a volunteer has time to groom on other days, it is his responsibility to contact Ed to make arrangements at least a day before. (3) Because of the logging, we really don’t know how this will affect the grooming or trails past Pilgrim Ck Park out the Pilgrim Ck Rd. This could really screw up the dog sled race also. Eileen will try to get a hold of the logging groups to find out what their plans are.
OHMVR: Nothing new.
CNSA: (1) We agreed to have the CNSA Safety Course on December 20th at Chuck’s Park. We are hoping there will be plenty of snow and that we will be able to have the course right out of the Sno-Park so that you don’t have to have a snowmobile to attend the course. FS personal are interested in the course too. The Club has to provide lunch and drinks, so we’ll need to have those attend RSVP so we can have a lunch count. Richard with CNSA will need to have that count too. Eileen will email Richard tomorrow and let him know the date we picked, with the backup date of Feb. 28th. (2) The CNSA Convention is 03/07/09 at Topaz Lk, NV again this season. (3) Sylvia Milligan our CNSA No. State Rep emailed Eileen asking if the Club would be willing to donate some money to ROC for the website. They are nearly done and it should be up and running by the end of November. They can then link our site with theirs. They have never asked for money before, but Sylvia simply cannot pay for this out of her pocket like she has all the travel expenses. There is going to be so much info on the site that it cost more than most, however, everyone can go to the site and see what we they are doing and what they have accomplished. ROC (CNSA) has been working with ten counties here in No. CA asking them to designate their unpaved roads for mixed use so we do not lose those opportunities when the forests are officially shut down (all except the level 2 roads and they are not fun to ride as you have to trailer to each one as there will be no connectors without use of the level 3 and 4 roads). So far all but one has been supportive and that one just is not moving very fast but she feels it will be supportive. Shasta County has agreed to host a counties round table meeting here in Redding and she is preparing it. Siskiyou County will be attending. Sylvia has been working closely with them to make sure the roads on the No. side of Shasta are open. If we lose them (the FS level 3 & 4 roads) they can also be shut down for snowmobiling. The object of this meeting is to get the counties to become cohesive and tell Region 5 they want the level 3 & 4 road left open in THEIR counties. Modoc has already done that. ROC has a management team to die for and we are being asked to help everywhere. They have a retired FS engineer who helped write the handbook and guidebook for the FS, a retired NEPA expert who was team leader on the route designation process going on now, a retired BLM/FS rec specialist who planned and developed trails and managed recreation areas and myself (Sylvia knows everyone.) We wrote alternatives for the Lassen and the Shasta-T and are pushing hard to get as many roads and routes open for mixed use as they can. Sylvia is either gone every day to meetings or on the computer working on this. At this time, members attending the meeting said we just didn’t have enough funds to help with ROC website now. With Corben fund raisers and CNSA safety course this season, we can’t do it.
Safety: Nothing new.
Public relations: Nothing new.
PHI Air Ambulance (Eileen Maier): Anyone interested in joining PHI or if you have any questions, please talk to Eileen.
Adopt-A-Highway (Dick Holcomb & Bill Willison): Had our road cleanup on Oct. 25th. It took us longer than it should; Phil was not there to organize us. But we got it done, and it needed it! After the road cleaning, the 13 of us went up to Chuck’s Park and did some trail cleaning and trail marking. Even though it was way dusty, we had a great time and did some hard work.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS:
Wilderness Intrusions: As the snow starts falling, please stay out of the wilderness.
Xmas Tree Farm: Eileen received a call from SP and was informed they sold this property to Campbell Timberland Management out of McCloud. Eileen called and spoke to Paul Chapman about our grooming needs and the agreement we had with SP. He did not think there would be a problem getting an agreement with them. Eileen sent out a letter to them on Oct. 17th. We have not heard back from them yet, and if we don’t by the end of next week, Eileen will call Paul.
Club’s Trailer: With the Christmas Breakfast coming up, we really need to put the shelving together, attach them to the walls and move the stuff from the old trailer to the new trailer so we can see what supplies we need for the breakfast. Eileen has to remove the Sno-Phone number still. No one at the meeting volunteered to help out with this.
Club Web Site: As of Nov 5, the hit count for the Home page was 5061 (4944 last meeting) and the Conditions page was 3307 (3274 last meeting). The “LowRes” hit count for the Home page was 483 (445 last meeting) and the Conditions page was 252 (251 last meeting).
Christmas Breakfast: It’s scheduled for Sun, Dec. 07 at Chuck’s Park at 9am. All proceeds going to Corben Brooks with the Club matching those funds. It was agreed that we would have the breakfast on the 7th whether we have snow or not. Michele is going to help Eileen with the advertising; we can do it using our non-profit number and shouldn’t have to pay for anything. We can get something in the local newspapers, radio stations, and TV stations. Eileen will inform local Clubs, dealers, and CNSA. We are going to wait for the week before to decide how much food we will need. There were lots of people attending the meeting that said they would help out with the breakfast. Anyone who would like to help, we can always use a hand. We are going to have a campout that weekend so we can set things up the night before and start cooking early that morning. We will have the 50/50 Raffle, Ham, and door prizes.
Running Club Ad in 5 Newspapers: This offer ended last month. If we want to run the ad we ran last year, it’s $66.15 for one week in just the Super Saver. Members attending decided that we would not spend the funds right now for an ad.
Sled Dog Races: The races will be January 22-25, 2009. As per our last meeting, Eileen sent out a support letter from the Club on Oct. 27th. In the letter she asked them if they could help out with some fund rising for Corben. Because they are a non-profit like us, and the purse funding has already been taken care of, they cannot use these funds for Corben. But Pat (Dogsled Express) is going to donate a 1 hour ride for 2 (a $180 value) for Corben. The Club needs to have someone up there selling the tickets and collecting the funds. We decided we are just going to use the roll tickets and charge $5.00 per ticket or 3 for $10.00. As soon as we get the tickets, we can start selling them. We will work out when the drawing is with Pat, maybe at their dinner after the race. Michele could sell tickets when she is renting sleds too. Eileen will come up with some flyers.
Avalanche training: Per our last meeting, we do have members very interested in avalanche training. Eric White with the FS in Mt. Shasta holds class room training on Friday evenings in Mt. Shasta with outside training the following Saturday. After talking with Eric, we feel that anyone interested in the training can attend one of these courses. They are listed on the Avalanche website, and Eileen will get them listed on our site. There is a link on our site to the avalanche site. Also, Doc had talked about marking avalanche hazard zones in our riding area. We did have members offer to help mark trails and Eric thought this would be a great idea. Problems: Lots of them, if you start marking areas, you have to keep it up. After every storm you have to go out and update all the hazard areas for our entire trail system. This means dedicated people that are willing and have the time to do this. Then there is the liability problem with it. If we don’t get out and mark an avalanche hazard for one reason or another, and someone dies because of a non posted area, the Club or FS could get sued. It’s just too big of a job to do. Sno-Park signing is most likely the best bet, but all four of the Parks will have to be updated after every storm. So something simple, like a sign asking if you are wearing your avalanche beacon might be our best bet. We could also have these areas marked on the next printing of our trail maps. Members agreed.
CORRESPONDENCE: IN: Membership applications, Rouge newsletter. OUT: Letter to Campbell Timberland Management about X-mas farm. Letter to Dog Sled Race.
NEW BUSINESS:
Membership numbers: As of today, 3 new members, 5 last season.
Total Memberships: As of today, 39 memberships plus some picked up in the mail today, 55 last season.
Membership Number: As of today, 88 total members, 120 last season.
FS Travel Management: The Klamath has extended the comment period to 12/12 on their route designations. Eileen went down to the Klamath FS office in Yreka today to look at their maps and compare them with our trail map. She is waiting for a call back from them, but it looks like our trails are not affected. Eileen spoke to Val about Shasta-T’s route designations and she said it’s bad; they are closing a lot of roads. Val thinks there is a meeting at the MS office in two weeks and she’ll let Eileen know.
GOOD OF THE ORDER:
Your Riding Areas – We got some snow and had members ride up at Bunny Flats already.
Duck Award – We need to get the duck back.
Classifieds – Remember to get your snowmobile related items, with pictures, to Eileen so she can get them on the web site. Don’t forget to let Eileen know when you’ve sold your item so she can remove it.
RIDES/ACTIVITIES OF THE MONTH – Dec 07, Sun – Christmas Breakfast: Chuck’s Park at 9am. Club Ride after if there is snow. Will need cooks and helpers please. Going to have a campout that weekend too.
TIME AND PLACE OF NEXT BOARD MEETING – Thurs, Jan. 8 at Purple Plum in Yreka at 6:30 pm. Elect Officers and Board Members.
TIME AND PLACE OF NEXT REGULAR MEETING – Sun, Jan 7 after the meeting. Then Thurs, Jan. 8 at Purple Plum in Yreka after the Board Meeting.
ADJOURNMENT: Time: 8:23pm.
