7448-R1_MSA_Feb2021_MaineSnowmobiler

MSA Club News settles down, the club will plan an April Meeting outside, so we can vote for Club Officers and make plans for the summer and the future. Until then, no club activities or meetings will be planned for the next couple of months. In the meantime, stay vertical and stay healthy! I hope we can meet on the trails! Now go out and do your best Snow Dance. We need all the help we can get! Bill Preis, Club Correspondent Do you think Mother Nature is still affected by 2020?? Start practicing your snow dance and perhaps she will get in a better mood!! We held our regular club meeting Jan.12th at the clubhouse, 7 mem- bers present. Most of the discussion centered around trail work. After all that good trail work in November & December, those rowdy wind storms set back progress. Thanks to all the guys who have been working hard on clean-up! One quick side story I’d like to share: 2 “kids” who were out riding our trails stopped and helped Gordon & Bert remove cut-up trees as they were clearing downed trees on one section of trail. I can imagine that was very much appreciated! Folks, if you’re out riding & come upon trail work in progress, stop & ask if you can lend a hand, I have an idea your offer will be accepted! The guys had to re-fix the Botma Bridge, and build another bridge that washed out. So, you can tell, still lots of trail work, even though trails were closed as of this writing. Bert has been tuning up the groomers as well to get them ready for when the snow flies! Unfortunately, we had to make the difficult decision and cancel our annual World’s Greatest Sleigh Ride for this year. So disappointing, but safety has to be top priority. We are currently think- ing how we could hold a virtual fund- raiser to benefit Camp Capella, so any suggestions or ideas would be welcome! Our next meeting is Tuesday, 7pm, Feb.9th, at the clubhouse, and yes, the heat is on! Until then, if you have an opportu- nity to help on local trail work, I bet that help would not be refused! Respectfully submitted, Libby Nilsen, club reporter COASTAL REGION Pejepscot Sno-Chiefs Lisbon Falls, ME Find us on Facebook

Cummings, Larry Butters, Paul Gal- lant, Martin MacKenzie, Wayne Hood, Jacob Osgood, Don Whitelaw, Evan Thurlow, Larry Sylvia and Ed Price along with the other four listed above. I apologize if I missed anyone but know that we thank you as well. Without all of you we’d have no trails to ride on. To our many landowners, we thank you. If there are any changes needed on your property in the future, we’ll be sending you a survey of sorts along with your appreciation letter and gift certificates in the summer before we get started preparing the trails for the start of the new season. We’re hoping to hold our Poker Rally outside at the North Fryeburg Community Chapel on Saturday, February 20th, 2021 this year. Check our Facebook page for updates on this event. We will ask that everyone maintain social distancing and wear a mask whenever you remove your hel- met. Last year was a huge success and we’d like to repeat that if we can. Here’s hoping February brings us lots of snow after the disappointing start to the season. As always, ride safe, stay to the right and respect our landowners, Bridget Gorton Club Secretary BRIDGTON EASY RIDERS sc Bridgton, Maine www.bridgtoneasyriders.com Hello MSAMembers Apparently not enough of you have been doing your Snow Dance! It seems that the whole state lacks enough snow or safe ice covering on the lakes for us to enjoy our chosen winter sport.s The BER work crews have shown up in big numbers every Sunday morning and this month they rebuilt the bridge behind the Bridgton Cham- ber of Commerce. They also did more brushing on the South Bridgton trail. They have also fabricated and painted the new drag to replace an old one that was built about 15 or 18 years ago. It was been done at about 1/4 the cost of a decent used drag. Work will now begin on refurbishing the older drags. The BER Club has surpassed 120 members for perhaps the first time in history! We will have to check the records when the time is right. We were also notified that our Club sold more Super Raffle Tickets that any Club in Maine! Can you say WOW! Duane Hendrix has agreed to work on nominations, as he did last year. Thanks, Duane, for your continued service to the Club. Once the COVID

Hello from Saco, Well as I write this, I’m looking at green grass. That’s all well and good for July, but not for mid-January. I’ll bet most of the clubs are reporting the same for the February newsletter….. little or no snow. Around southern Maine, it’s an inconvenience NOT having snow, but normally we l just load up the trailers and head north. The folks up north are really feeling the effects. While it’s nice to ride in southern Maine, most areas are not a destination and serve the locals. No snow in the northern part of the state has a direct impact on their local econ- omy. We can only hope by the time this goes to press, we’ll have gotten a few good snowstorms to allow us to get the second half of winter riding in. If there is any good about this, it’s the fact we can still get out and work on the trails. Our club has been work- ing closely with the Saco Parks and Rec Department to have them dump their wood chips at trail heads. We can then take those wood chips out and fill low areas. We’ve been doing this for a couple years now and the local riders can see the improvement. Add too that the huge number of stumps we removed and the never-ending bridge work, our trails are in the best shape ever. So please Mother Nature, be kind to us for the remainder of the winter and give us some snow to work with!! As always, respect landowners, stay on marked trails, ride right, and ride safe. Doug Doherty, President WESTBROOK TRAIL BLAZES Westbrook, ME www.westbrooktrailblazes.com Here we go again. Mother Nature is playing games with us. Westbrook got nearly 2 feet of snow in mid-December only to have it wiped completely out 1 week later. We’re not laughing. It’s been pretty quiet on the snowmo- biling front in Southern Maine this past month. The trail system is ready. We were able to get out for one week in December when we got dumped on. The trail system was primo for a few days, then Christmas came. Fifty degrees, wind and pouring rain. Bye bye snow. Seems to be a reoccur- ring theme down here. Not much more to report. Holidays are in the rearview, we have a new President and a vaccine that will hopefully put an end to the pandemic. All that and some and 2021 will be starting off pretty sweet! >>>>>><<<<<< Special note: We are all itching to ride, but don’t jump the gun when we do get a little snow. Please check our website for trail openings and conditions. Please

adhere to trail signs and respect our prop- erty owners. Without them we will not have a trail system!!! >>>>>><<<<<< We hope you are all being safe, wearing your mask in public and practicing social distancing. Together we’ll make it through this! For up to date trail conditions visit us at www.westbrooktrailblazes.com Please join your local club!! Your dues go directly back into maintaining the trails you ride!!! * Ride Safe, Ride Sober, Ride Right!!! * Check our calendar at www.westbrook- trailblazes.com for up to date Club info. Visit us on Facebook www.facebook. com/Westbrook Trail Blazes Bill Bouffard – Information Officer 207-712-4395 billybouf@yahoo.com Hello Everyone! With the lack of snow in the central Maine area, trail and bridge maintenance has been ongoing into the month of January. Several bridges located on the trail system in all three towns have been repaired or rebuilt in the past several weeks. A few trails have been rerouted due to logging or access improvement and brushing has occurred on many trials. The club purchased a newer Scandic for grooming and should be in good shape for when the snow finally arrives. Trail signage has mostly been completed with a few areas left. Gener- ally, our trails are open as long as there is adequate snow. Club officers has remained the same as last year and we thank them for their continued service to the club. Club membership remains steady with several new young members and we are always looking to welcome new members of all ages to the club. Club meetings are held at the Acacia Lodge on Rt. 136 in Durham, not far from the Get N Go, typically on the last Tuesday of the month at 7 PM. Please join us! The club trail map was upgraded last year with trail locations tracked by GPS and traced on a current color digi- tal map with local trail names, bridges, intersections, roads and fuel/food loca- tions noted. The map is available at our club meetings, at a few local stores and currently loaded online on the club Facebook Group page. The Facebook Group page is also new with current events such as club meetings and trail maintenance events noted along with pictures posted by members. The group page can be found at Tri-Town Pen- guins Snowmobile Club, we welcome all to join! Richard Nadeau, Member Tri-Town Penguins Durham, Pownal, Freeport, ME

(Continued from Page 25) Piston Bulley’s. A big Thank you goes out to John, Billy, George & Ed. There was a lot of work just to get them ready and now hopefully we get to use them. As usual our Trail Master Billy is out on the Scandic checking for anymore blowdowns and some pick up signing. Well, that’s is for now. Ride Right Ride safe and Think Snow!! David Greely, Vice President NORWAY TRACKERS Norway, ME Find us on Facebook Hello sledders, We have some seriously dedicated people in our club who have worked tirelessly to provide good riding for all to enjoy. It’s time for Mother Nature to kick it up a notch. Thank you to everyone who bought super raffle tickets from us. We sold at least one winning ticket. All pro- ceeds support snowmobiling through local clubs and the MSA. We’ll play again next year. Our zoom meetings are going well. Thank you to those who signed in. Check us out on Facebook for updates. We are pleased to see that new memberships are continuing to roll in. Special thanks to our members who sent in additional donations with their memberships. This is a big help to maintaining our equipment. Let’s ride. Dan Trouant, Club Reporter Hello again, I would like to start this letter by saying thank you to Nestle Water/ Poland Spring for their very generous donation to the club. Some other large donations were received from Don Whitelaw at DW Electrical and Colin McLaskey at CMC Constructors as well as all the club members who sent in extra when they paid their annual memberships this season. Thank you so very much for the support! Also, big thanks to all the peo- ple behind the scenes that volunteer countess hours, their own money out of pocket and space to do the main- tenance and storage of our equip- ment. Gabe Watson, Nate Hutchins, Jim Pitreau and Brockie Gerry just to name a few of our dedicated club members. We also appreciate all the members who are willing to help with trail maintenance, rebuilding of bridges and whatever else needs to be done. Dave Richardson, Larry Thompson, Dale McClure, Herb INTERSTATE SNO-GOERS Fryeburg, ME

Saco Pathfinders Saco, ME Find us on Facebook

26

r y 2 0

r u a

2 1 l M a i n e S n o w m

e b

F

r

o b

i l e