7397-R4_MSA_Dec2020_MaineSnowmobiler

From the President

corner and the unofficial start to our favorite season. A little snow in the forecast for the upcoming weekend will make it feel that much closer. Our Virtual SnoCross Race is up and running. It will be interesting to see who our first winner will be. What a great opportunity for clubs to raise money and have fun at the same time. Good luck to all the racers. A lot of clubs have been posting pictures of trailwork, brushing and bridge work. Strong work all over the state. Facebook sure is a great tool for clubs to get info to their club members and show all their hard work. Thank you to everyone who has volunteered for a club to make sure the Maine snowmobile trails will be awesome this season. Groomers will be hitting the trails soon and another dedicated group of volunteers will be spending their nights making sure the trails are smooth and hard for riders from all over Maine and beyond. It’s a great team of volunteers that make snowmobiling in Maine the best in the northeast. Maine has a great Let’s have a safe year please use caution, ride right ride smart. The trails this year will be hit hard with riders from all over the Northeast, many folks have shown interest in coming to Maine. Most for the first time. We have a great trail system, signage is getting better the club’s small and large have been out widening trails and building new bridges. Lets welcome the new riders with our Maine hospitality and remind them to be safe on the snow. I’d like to start a project with a rental company to install Ride Lites on a fleet of their sleds. I’ve contacted Ride Lite for information on discount pricing. After, I’ll hopefully find a company that would like to try the experiment. Many past accidents have been with inexperienced riders on rental sleds. I’m not picking on anybody but would like to have those rental riders be safe. I’ve worked in the past few years with IF&W’s Mike Sawyer and Craig Gerry and Mike Foster on state snowmobile safety. Thanks to these gentleman, on the State side we work close with them to get more organizations involved. Mike Sawyer is the head of the Department, for the last few years I’ve worked with him on the safety poster program. We just ordered 700 to be printed. Craig Gerry and Mike Foster are qualified Maine safety instructors, I’ve been to a few safety classes with them and am very thankful for their leadership and wisdom. Please as the new season begins take it easy go slow and enjoy! Thanks for riding our trails!, AL

reputation in the industry and it’s because of all of you. The MSA family grew one bigger at the beginning of December. Melissa has joined us as office manager and is settling in nicely. Al Swett, has been working with her as well as other steering committee members to get her up to speed on the day to day operations of the MSA office. As for the office, memberships have been coming in steady. Calls from out of state riders asking about areas to visit and stay while they are here on vacation. Al Swett has been working his tail off at the office and I’m sure he’s grateful for Melissa’s help. Now he can get a day off which I know he’s ready for. The trails will be here soon AL! 2020 has not been a great year, although, I’m sure we won’t soon forget it. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and 2021 brings us a great snowmobile season and start of our year. Put those snow dance shoes on and do your best snow dance. It’s snow time. Until next month, Think Snow, Mike

Treasurer’s Report

Lori Hemmerdinger (207) 890-5455 544 Plains Road Poland, ME 04274 Treasurer@mesnow.com

Respectfully Submitted, Lori Hemmerdinger, Treasurer

H ello again Maine snowmobilers. Thanksgiving has come and gone and I hope you all enjoyed it as best you could. Christmas is up next and I have the privilege of awarding a sled to a lucky Super Raffle winner. Always a good feeling moment to see their excitement. New Years is right around the Mike Grass, Jr., 207-368-2316 249 Condon Rd, Plymouth ME 04969 mgrassjr@gmail.com

Monthly Income Monthly Expense

$ 58,861.27 $ 22,217.43 $ 36,643.84 $ 89,655.98 $ 19,844.15

Net Revenue

Checking (11/31/20)

Dedicated Account (11/31/20) Credit Line (11/31/20) Building Fund (11/31/20) Brian Wass Safety Fund (11/31/20)

$ -

$ 53,659.84 $ 1,284.80

Safety Committee

Trails Committee Chair Report

MSA CLUBS: To Order Needed ITS & JCT SIGNS Contact Mike Grass Sr., MSA Trails Committee 252 Condon Rd. • Plymouth, ME 04969 207-368-4914 home • 207-745-2745 cell Grasslands252@gmail.com To Order Club Trail Signage Candice Pinkham, DACF/Snowmobile Program 207-287-4957 Office • 207-878-8111 Fax Candice.M.Pinkham@maine.gov

W elcome to December! Hopefully you’re all doing well and the virus will soon be the poison of the past. We still need to be cautious and prepared. So some folks have been lucky enough to have ridden already with a little of the white stuff in their back yards. Remember when you head out for the first time. Go slow, ease into the throttle. Most folks have not been on a sled since last season and you need to remember the fundamentals and controls of your snowmobile. And you rider’s that have had 2 strokes for ever and your new sled is a 4 stroke be ready for a change! These new sleds have a power range not like the 2 strokes. They like to get down and the have lots of low-end power. Get ready for low noise and a smokeless ride. The new 2 strokes are quiet and get up and go too. The new suspensions on all the brands are so smooth and most are easy to steer and ride so good. Alan Swett, 207-872-7282 234 County Rd, Waterville ME 04901 snowtraveler@roadrunner.com

Clubs and riders to “get ready” in order to have a successful snowmobil- ing experience. With this being said we as local clubs have an important deadline coming right up and that is getting your grooming grant applica- tion in before December 31st, in order to apply for monetary reimbursement for grooming and trail maintenance, this is made though the Dept. of A.C.F The Snowmobile Division. By now, all clubs should have submitted their other time sensitive forms like, the officer update forms (both the MSA and Dept. of A.C.F. require these forms) as well as your trail sign orders and non-profit status docs. Right now, it’s kind of like the Heinz ketchup commercial, we’re all just waiting in anticipation for enough snow to ride and groom. Usually when this happens, it happens quickly and we instantly shift our efforts from fall maintenance and everything that it brings to full on snow grooming, and

with it immediately finding details that we just plain missed. Whether it be landowner or maybe signage issues or maybe a change made that looked good on paper but when the tracks hit the snow, it just isn’t going to work. So back to my first question, yes I think it’s going to stay and we will have a little more to go with it by the time you read this… now if THIS sce- nario does not play out you are free to say “Well Chinnock was wrong again” Lol. In any case, I am getting very excited knocking on old man Winter’s door again and you should be too, after all it is time for us to reap the fruits of our labor. Thank you all once again for read- ing and we will see you next month, and as always please share anything of snowmobile value with me or if you have a question or concern please email, message or call me, I would love to hear from you! Respectively, Mark.

Mark Chinnock,Trails Committee Chair 207-754-9874 435 Poland Corner Rd, Poland ME 04274 napadude66@hotmail.com H ello Folks, So the big question of the day for me as I am writing this piece and relaxing after a long day of clean up from our first Nor’easter of the season is, by the time this paper gets to you folks will this snow still be here? Will it be gone? Or will we have gotten more on top of this first dump- ing? I think that this is what part of the attraction to the sport is. No mat- ter what has happened or not happens weather wise, we are always hopeful and convinced that it is going to snow moving forward! In the months leading up to the “Winter Snow” anyone involved in snowmobiling knows that we must work towards and plan on a snow filled and busy season. There are many moving pieces for the MSA,

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