7333-R3_MSA_Oct2020_MaineSnowmobiler

The Trailmasters Corner By Mark Chinnock, MSA Trails Chairman.

Upcoming MSA Meetings November

A nd so I refuse to start this column with “and another season begins” because I am Very certain that for many of you who will read this fully know that the season really never ends, and I say this in the most positive way. For most that are active in their local clubs as well as those of us that are involved at the MSA level it is a passion, a passion like not many out there and I can whole heartedly respect and relate to that. With that being said along with the usual “pre-season” trail work of brushing, reroutes, sign- ing, building bridges, repairing bridges, landowner relations, there is groomer and maintenance tracking as well as grant appli- cation paperwork. So needless to say there is a ton of stuff to be taken care of before the sea- son starts and all along the way, whether or not one person or ten is taking care of it all it can be very time consuming. Just a couple of time sensitive documents for Clubs that need your attention,

and the earlier the better really (for administrative purposes): First the officer update form which needs to be filled out by the club early as this information is used to create contact lists for the E-board as well as the Trails Committee. Second there is also another offi- cer update form that comes from Joe’s office at the Dept. of A.C.F. along with other time sensitive club related documents that come from Joe in a club packet that are very important to make sure they are filled out and returned to him. You’ll also want to dig out your Club sign order and send it in to Candice at the Dept. of A.C.F. with any signs that you might need. Now if they are ITS Trail signs, those come from Mike Grass Sr. and the contact informa- tion for both is in this issue with my Trails Committee column. One project that I had started last year and it proved to be kind of fun and pretty informative as well was the Signage Workshops. If any one club has an achilles heel

I think we have all agreed that it would be signage. Last season we put together a signage presenta- tion and traveled around the state to different regions to promote it, I like to call it “Signage 101” it’s all stuff that we already know but sometimes just need a refresher. I honestly learn something new each time I present one and with my sidekicks Mike Grass Jr. and Al Swett helping and putting their spin in to it, it proves to be pretty entertaining! So if any club any- where would like to hold a Work- shop I would be happy to come to your club. In closing I would add that by the time you receive this paper we should have the ITS Trail Maps pretty close to in hand and ready for distribution. One last thing, we here at the MSA E-board and Trails Committee sincerely appre- ciate and admire the passion and dedication by ALL of our mem- bership and are proud to be a part of your team. Thank-You and keep on fighting the good fight!

Executive Committee meeting will be held on Thursday, November 12 th at 6:30 pm via GoToMeeting. Please watch your email for login information. November MSA Directors Meeting Tuesday, November 17, 2020 at 6:30 pm Mount Kineo Lodge #109, Guilford, ME 04333. Due to the current Covid-19 restrictions, a meal will not be served. Please RSVP to the office at 207-622-6983 or msa@ mesnow.com as space is limited.

MSA Directors Pot O Gold At the September Directors’ meeting, the Bowlin- Matagamon SC was drawn for the MSA Pot O Gold. No MSA director being present, the prize was forfeited.

Phone Calls at the Office

We get a lot of calls to the MSA Office, so I thought we’d tackle them here. Membership Cards were printed in a new format this year. The List of Club Members from 2019-2020 season were exported from our Membership program and given to the printer. There are several places glitches may occur and may be why you did not get the correct number of cards in your packet. We can send blank cards for new members. Business Cards – The list of Business was exported from our Membership Program and given to the printer. Many clubs did not receive the correct Business membership cards. The primary reason is that many Business members support multiple clubs and the software that was used to import the list removed the duplicates. The office can provide blank cards upon request. Transmittal Forms – The transmittal forms were updated for the new season and did not format properly for the web page. This has hopefully been corrected. On the website mesnow. com you will find them under the For Members link. It is an interactive pdf meaning you can fill in the form (hint: use the tab key between fields). You can then download, print out the prefilled form, mail it and the correct amount of money, to the office. You can also download the blank form and fill it out by hand. Please note that a separate check for Super Raffle tickets is required per the State of Maine. Super Raffle tickets. We can get tickets to you by US Mail but remember that we need the ticket stubs and money back in the office prior to the drawing on Thursday December 17. This is an excellent way for your club to generate money. Decals – Family and Business as well as Business Certificates are requested via the Transmittal Form or by calling the office. All new memberships should be given a decal (and business certificates). Club Membership List - We can print a list of last years’ membership and mail it or email it as an attachment. Complete Membership Kits – Some clubs did not receive their packets. This is a source of problems for us every year. Our distribution methods include handing them out to Region VP’s and Directors to save postage. Then they have issues making connections with the club to pick them up. Many Clubs use a PO Box and the wrong person picks them up. We can mail out a second set if the first set is not located. Officer Update Forms – This is an important document for both the MSA and DACF. It impacts grants and voting rights and is the only way we have to contact the correct people in a club. Newspaper Article Date deadline. We are trying to get the articles by the 20th of the month prior to the publication Date. We’ll get back on schedule soon and will post the current due dates on the web page Where’s my paper? The MSA Office can give you updates on when the paper was delivered to the Post Office but after that, we have no idea. We can tell you if we have an address but don’t know if it is a valid post office address. There are several places where addresses are lost. The Post office requires that our papers be bundled by zip code to go to each local Post Office. If a paper is not deliverable, we are supposed to get the mailing label back so we can try to correct the problem before the next run. I got two papers – We export the list and then the list is checked for duplicates. Unless every field is identical it will still send multiple papers to an address where anything is different.

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