November 2012 Meeting Minutes

This month’s meeting began with the club attending the Woodstock City Council’s meeting in support of a proposal by Brian Stockton, Woodstock City Planner, to grant SORBA Woodstock $40,000 for the building of the final trail at Rope Mill Park. The proposal passed unanimously.

Jay Wilkes kicked off our meeting with the announcement of the SORBA Woodstock’s Board of Directors' nominations for the 2013 Directors. All current positions will continue for next year with the exception of the Secretary position. The BOD have nominated Andrew Yun to take up this role for 2013. There were no nominations from the members attending. The vote for next year’s officers will be held at the December Christmas Party on Dec. 1. Gary Moore will be starting a new, non-board position of Assistant Trail Director for both trail systems.

Jay continued the discussion of funding for the Fierce Trail at Rope Mill by informing that John Hicks is heading a fundraising committee to organize our efforts to raise the additional capital needed to reach our $120,000 goal.

Bill Blount has taken over the chapter website as of this month and has already launched a complete redesign of the site. This includes a new logo treatment which is being used on the Facebook page as well. Bill is also working on launching an email communications tool that will allow for monthly newsletters to be sent to our members.

Bill provided an update on the club jerseys being prepared by Primal. Despite several setbacks and mistakes by Primal, the jerseys are finally being created and we are hopeful that all will be well on this run. Primal has issued a 20% discount to assuage our frustrations. Thanks to Bill for riding this project through. Jerseys are expected to be available at the Christmas Party.

We finally have a donation box completed and ready to install at Rope Mill. Plans are being discussed for moving the the main trail head kiosk to a more central location in the park and the donation box will be installed at that location.

Denise Ulrich has taken the helm of the Events Committee and is currently planning the Christmas Party with Lisa Randall. The Randalls have offered to host this year’s party at their home.

Jay proposed the Kerr Scott Trails in North Carolina for our Fall 2013 group ride. The idea was met with general agreement and is the tentative destination.

Jay also provided the details of his attendance at the SORBA Main meeting in Gainseville last weekend. In general, the meeting was productive and produced good information sharing amongst the attendeees. The creation of a standardized trail map to be created for all SORBA trails was among the announcements. SORBA Woodstock’s trail maps were held up as an example of the goal for the project. Nice job Bill!

Lisa Randall thanked all involved for making this past weekend’s Blankets Creek Half Marathon a huge success. The event went off without a hitch and more than 200 participants gave rave reviews of the race. Once again, MGA and SORBA Woodstock have combined to set the standard for trail races.

The November Work Party will be Nov. 17th at Blankets, 10am-2pm. The two main projects will be maintenance on South Loop and armoring of the creek crossing on Mosquito Bite.

Plans for the SORBA Southern Summit to be held here in Woodstock are beginning to take shape. The schedule is being prepared and we are working with SORBA, the City of Woodstock and the Greenprints Alliance to make sure the event is a hit. Greenprints is renaming their annual spring festival Trail Fest and will be taking a more trail/outdoor angle on the event. Live music will be a cornerstone both Friday and Saturday nights.

Jay closed the meeting.