Chapter Meeting Minutes 12-10-07

Meeting Date - 12/10/07
Meeting Location - Williamson Bros BBQ - Canton
Attendees - 17

Bike Patrol - Bike Patrol training for 2008 will be Feb 16th at Cherokee County Parks - South Annex. If you are already in the Bike Patrol or would like to be, please contact Tim Feltner - Bike Patrol Director. Bike Patrol members are responsible for educating, assisting and informing trail users. The class will consist of CPR training, First Aid training and a IMBA Bike Patrol training class.

Trail School - Those wanting to sign up for Trail School please contact Jay Wilkes - Secretary. We have two members that would like to go so far. SORBA Woodstock will pay for members to attend. To be a certified Trail Crew Leader for SORBA Woodstock you must attend trail school. Dates are January 12/13 and January 26/27.

New advanced trail construction update - We have machine cut ~3 miles of trail. 2.25 miles of those have been completed hand finished. Work Parties will continue on the First and Third Saturday of every month until construction in complete. With enough help, we are estimating a March/April completion date. We have had over 90 different volunteers show up for work parties, with many doing multiple. Over ~800 hours have been logged on the new trail construction since September.

New trail fund raising - Ellis announced two donations that were given at the meeting. Brian Berg donated $1000 and John Hicks donated $500. We have applied for a grant from Bikes Belong. Awards from Bikes Belong will be presented at the end of January 2008 (keep fingers crossed). We still need to raise $20,000 to complete the new trail construction.

Thomson Day - Bruce Dickman joined us tonight to discuss Thomson Day 2008. Bruce is spreading the word to all chapters to make this a HUGE event. It will be a weekend long festival at the Thomson factory in Macon, GA the weekend of January 19th. Races, games, camping, rides, bands and a long list of activities will be held. More info to follow.

Blankets Creek Dirty Duathlon - Lisa Randall unveiled her race that will be held on March 22, 2008 entitled Blankets Creek Dirty Duathlon. This is the first ever race to be held at Blankets Creek with all proceeds to be donated for the new loop trail construction. The race will consist of a 5 mile trail run and 10-12 miles of Mountain Biking. Visit www.blanketsduathlon.blogspot.com for more information.

Elections - 2008 Elections were closed with no new entries. Voting was conducted for next years officers. Next years officers are as follows:

John Hicks - President
Jay Wilkes - Vice President
Ellis Alexander - Secretary
Chris Griffin - Treasurer
Tim Feltner - Bike Patrol Director
Charlie Shultz - Trail Director

Chapter Meeting Minutes 8-20-07

Meeting Date - 08/20/2007
Meeting Location - Blankets Creek Trailhead
Attendees - 19
Food Provider - Free Flite Bikes

Trek's Commitment to IMBA - Dan Thornton, owner of Free Flite, talked to the chapter about Trek's commitment to support IMBA in the future. Trek will give a proceed of every Trek bike and helmet sold to support IMBA in their ongoing needs of trail advocacy. Trek's new commitment has set a new bar for the bike industry to support the grassroots efforts that SORBA and IMBA provide for the future of the sport.

IMBA/SORBA partnership - IMBA and SORBA have committed to a 3 year partnership. IMBA needs SORBA for its strong grassroots effort of advocacy at the ground level. IMBA will in turn handle all the administration duties of SORBA so they can concentrate on more advocacy and chapter development. SORBA members will automatically become an IMBA member at their next renewal. SORBA will end up with 1500 new members as a result to the combined membership. Expect 6-8 months for this partnership to eventually be integrated.

Bike Patrol - Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day is on Oct 6th. Bike Patrollers are needed for assistance. All are welcome to help out. Contact Tim Feltner for more info. Bike Patrollers were reminded to log their hours.

Area 51 Fundraising - We recently received four $500 contributions from personal riders at Blankets Creek. Thank you for your contributions! Expect the fundraising tent to be set up at Blankets Creek Trailhead once we get a break in the hot weather.

Area 51 Trail Construction - A groundbreaking construction ceremony will be held at the next Chapter Meeting on Sept 10th. Stay tuned for more details. SORBA Pro-Trails will be doing the machine work for the new advanced loop. Volunteers will be needed for the finishing work. A Work party schedule will be available at the upcoming groundbreaking ceremony. We plan to have a work party every other weekend for the next several months until completion. The plan is to cut/finish half a mile of trail a month. Look for the Trail Work Party banner at the Blankets Trailhead or contact Jay Wilkes to be put on the volunteer distribution list. Construction will start mid September.

Chapter Meeting Minutes 6-11-07

Wednesday, 13 June 2007 14:00

Meeting Date: 06/11/2007 @ 7pm Meeting Location : Blankets Creek Trailhead Number of Attendees: 14 Food Provider: Free Flite Bicycles Area 51 Update: The COE has informed us that we need to submit an Implementation Plan for approval. This will require a 60-90 review cycle once it is submitted. This Implementation Plan will require engineered drawings for all bridges on the new trail as well as a Professional Engineering stamp for those bridge drawings. Scott Gordon has volunteered to lead up/complete the bridge designs. Big thanks to Scott. Hopefully the Implementation Plan will be submitted within the next couple of weeks. Trail Construction for Area 51 is slated to start this fall (pending COE Implementation Plan approval). Trail Work Party this Saturday At 8am (June 16). We will be working on a problem area on the Dwelling Loop. Bike Patrol - We have tubes and powerlinks courtesy of Free-Flite Bicycles. Patrol members please log your hours. Fundraising - Ellis explained our fundraising strategy plan and is now targeting corporations for gift donations. If you know of any local businesses or work for corporations that have charity donation programs, please contact Ellis Alexander with information. Women's Clinic - Lisa Randall will be hosting a women's ride clinic this August. More details to follow.

Chapter Meeting Minutes 5-14-07

 

Monday, 14 May 2007 14:00

 

Meeting Date - 05/14/2007
Meeting Location - Blankets Creek Trailhead
Attendees - 27
Food Provider - Outspokin Bikes

SORBA Wide Work Party @ Tsali - SORBA Main is having a weekend work party on June 2nd and 3rd for Tsali. SORBA Woodstock would like to send a team up to help. If you have ridden Tsali, you know how much fun it is. Some trail spots are in bad shape and need of repair. Camping is free if you sign up through IMBA. Dinner will be provided as well. Goto www.Sorba.org for more details.

Bike Patrol - No new news. Tim will resume his bike patrol meetings now that Pedalpalooza is over.

Area 51 update - Members of the BOD meet with the USACOE and CRPA on 5/14 to have a walk through of the new Area 51 trail system. The COE informed us that the approval process to start construction is not completed as we thought. While the Master Plan has been approved and stamped from the main office in Mobile, AL, we now need to submit an Implementation Plan for review. This Implementation Plan will include more details on the actual trail itself along with the Who, What, how and Why of the building plan. All Creek Crossings that will require bridges will have to included PE stamped engineering drawings of the bridge. Once this Implementation Plan is created, the COE will review the plan after we submit a $5000 check to pay for their review expenses. The Implementation Plan review will have to go through Cartersville COE and then through 5 different departments at the COE Main office in Mobile, AL. We are told the review process will take from 60-90 days for review.

Bottom line... we have been held up on new trail construction until at least Fall 2007. SORBA Woodstock BOD and members are extremely saddened by this news, but at least the trail approval process is moving forward. If you or someone you know has any ability to create engineering drawings of bridges for the chapter please let John Hicks know. The sooner we can create the drawings, the sooner we can submit the Implementation Plan to get Area 51 going.

Potential Adventure Race at Blankets Creek - Lisa Randall brought up a fund-raising opportunity of having a 12 hours or 24 hours of Blankets. Participants would raise money via pledges per lap or mile. The event would be very limited (15-20 people) to see how it will work out. Dates are tentatively this Aug. Members at the meeting where very positive about the idea. More details to follow.

Chapter Meeting Minutes 4-16-07

 

Sunday, 15 April 2007 14:00

 

Meeting Date - 04/16/07 @ 7pm
Meeting Location - Blankets Creek Trailhead
Meeting Attendees - ~20
Food Provider - Free Flite Bikes

Meeting - Tim Feltner conducted the meeting in absence of John and Derek.

Bike Patrol - First Aid/CPR cards are here. Collect them from Tim Feltner.

Pedalpalooza 2007 - Chris talked about having volunteers show up at 8am to help out. Booths will be set up with various local bike shops and local business. We will be having games, food, group rides and clinics. Festival starts at 10 am. Please park at the church next door to make room for attendees.

Beginner Clinic with Lisa Randall - Was a success! 5 students showed up despite the freezing temps.

SORBA Woodstock Forum - Jeff talked about our options of using PHP as our SORBA Woodstock Forum. The new PHP 3.0 will allow us to better accommodate our needs. The problem is it's still a beta code with bugs and the official release date is unknown. Jeff is still working on the pro's and con's and will recommend a solution.

Area 51 Trail Update - Tim discussed the three areas where we need everyone's help. The BOD can't do this alone and we need significant help to pull this off.

1. Major Donor Fundraising committee - Ellis will head up this committee. He is looking for people who have community contacts or experience in fundraising to help out and join the committee.
2. Trail Ambassador Committee - We need a committee that will help coordinate folks to help man the tent on the weekends. Those at the tent will educate the public about the upcoming trail construction. We will have a display map, project timeline, work party schedule, membership applications and donation envelopes. Contact John Hicks if you are interested in volunteering to man the tent on weekends or serve on the committee.
3. Trail Crew Leaders - SORBA Woodstock has 4 members that have graduated from Trail School that will be assisting Charlie as Trail Crew Coordinators to manage the physical building of the trails in Area 51. We are looking for volunteers to not only help with the trail construction itself, but also support for the work party. Tasks include: Communication with volunteers about work party time and dates, Making sure food/drink/tools are at each work party, assistance with volunteer registration for each work party, coordinating SWAG giveaways at each work party, solicitation for lunch sponsors, and run errands as needed for the crews on the trail. Work Parties will be held on Saturdays and Wednesday nights. Stay tuned to the website for upcoming work parties. The work party banner will now be hung the Monday prior to trail work parties.

Chapter Meeting Minutes 3-12-07

 

Sunday, 11 March 2007 14:00

 

Chapter Meeting - 03/12/07
Location - Williamson Bros BBQ in Canton
Number of Attendees - 20

SORBA Main Meeting - John discussed the topics from the SORBA Main meeting this past weekend. Details are: IMBA is sponsoring a Work Party on April, 12th with SORBA Chattanooga at Raccoon Mtn. SORBA Woodstock is going to help. IMBA should be finalizing their partnership with SORBA regarding taking over the admin duties from SORBA by the end of the year. All SORBA members will become IMBA members automatically. Two chapters were added: Paulding County and Southern Crescent (South Atl). SORBA Main Work party scheduled for Tsali on June 2nd. Lunches/Dinner and free camping provided. NWGA Chapter is having an event on April 19th to support the Tour de GA athletes that will be in Dalton that day.

Bike Patrol - We had 12 members renew and 3 more added to the existing Bike Patrol. The class was on Feb 24th. Tim will be having Bike Patrol meetings/rides every other weekend. Contact Tim for more details.

Gold Rush 24 Hour Adventure race - Thanks to all 13 SORBA Woodstock members that volunteered to work the adventure race. Big Congrats to Lisa Randall, one of our members, for winning the race! Good Job!

Beginner Clinic - Lisa Randall is teaching a beginner clinic at Blankets Creek for men and women on April 7th. Class is free and starts at 9:30am. She is offering expert bike fitting help at 9am prior to the class. A kid's ride is also scheduled for that morning at 10am.

Rope Mill Park - Word is that Woodstock City Council is finally starting to get serious about the Rope Mill Park project. SORBA Woodstock is going to build singletrack once the initial infrastructure is in place.

Blankets Creek Master Plan Approval - Raise your glasses for a toast! The Master Plan has finally been approved via the COE Main office in Mobile, AL. This will initiate a signing of the MOU between SORBA Woodstock and Cherokee County Parks and Recreation to start building the new trail network over in Area 51. First stop is to build out an additional 1.5 miles of Mosquito Flats. Once the Mosquito Flats extension is complete, work will start on the new 4.5 mile advanced loop.

Trail Ambassador Program - We will start having members on site at the trail head on Saturday and Sunday to educate the public about the upcoming trail construction. We will have a display map, project timeline, work party schedule, membership applications and donation envelopes. We need to raise at least $30,000 and recruit a substantial amount of volunteers to help us construct Area 51. Contact John Hicks if you are interested in volunteering to man the tent on weekends.

Major Donor Fundraising team - We are looking for 8 individuals who have a variety of relationships in the biking and business community. This group will build a list of potential donors and make personal calls to ask for contributions. Contact John Hicks if you are interested.

Trail Construction support - We are looking for volunteers to not only help with the trail construction itself, but also support for the work party itself. Tasks include: Communication with volunteers about work party time and dates. Making sure food, drink, tools, etc are at each work party. Volunteer registration for each work party, Coordinating SWAG give aways at each work party, Solicitation donations for lunch sponsors. Run errands as needed for the crews on the trail