8160-R3_MSA_October2022_MaineSnowmobiler

From The Executive Board

Secretary’s Report - Brad Barker 576 th Directors Meeting - 576 Route 11 Streakers, Limerick, Maine - September 20, 2022

A t 6:40 President Al Swett called the meeting to order. Pledge of Allegiance. Secretary’s report for the 575 Meeting will be in the paper, to be brought up and voted on next month. Treasurer’s report. Read and placed on file at the office. President’s Comments - Al Swett: First time in Limerick Maine, this is awesome - thank you for having us. August and September I’ve been to a lot of events- Kingsbury, North New Portland, Rockwood, Ashland - grass drags, Madawaska BBQ, Greenville pig roast, Landowners cookouts and BBQ. Having a great time. This is a great group and I’m proud of all of you. The Katahdin Works Monument map on the table - public land trust wants to buy 43,000 acres to make a new road into the monuments. Joe’s crew wants to buy 20 acres to preserve the trails there. Keeping our fingers crossed that that will go through. If not they will be in serious trouble in Millinocket. Executive Vice-President Mark Chinnock -Great to be down here, a whole group of new faces. Thanks to Lori and Bob for making this Zoom connection happen. The sound is better than last month. Getting ready for Epping and then the show. Membership packets - pay attention to the officer update forms. Look at deadlines and timelines please. Important to us for the database. Joe has added in some time sensitive stuff as well. We do have a whole bunch of new ideas and we’ll see what comes out of it. Summer was busy, had met once or twice a month. We just have a good crew and everything is going in a positive connection. Northern Region VP-Matt Stedman (From a parking lot in Caribou), Thank you to Lori and

Bob for that. Cold nights are starting, feels like trail work weather. Meeting with landowners now and doing a lot of appreciation dinners and such. A lot of new iron, groomers and drags coming up to the county. Fundraising for the price of fuel. Had some really good events. Eastern Region VP-Eileen: First time in this part of the woods. All packets have been delivered to the clubs. More landowners suppers. Trail work has started in a lot of places. Central Region - Jack Lord: Starting on trail work. Stuck with re-routes. If you’re riding in the Central Region READ THE SIGNS - everything north of route 2 stuck with changes. Thank you for supper! Everything is going along pretty well. Thank you to Liz for being so cheerful. Western Region VP-Jim Boyce Unavailable…MC- If you ride Carrabassett Valley region pay attention to signs for re-routes and trails shutdown. Call ahead or PAYATTENTION TO THE SIGNS. Coastal Region VP-David Watson - Thank everyone for coming out and for Rt11 Streakers for the great job and for doing and the food tonight! The swap-meet coming back this year!!! The longest running in the state. Great turnout for the Coastal region. Thank you all for being here!! Robert Libby - Thank you Matt (Route 11 Pres.) and all you guys for coming from a long way off. This trail my son rode on when he was 8-9 years old on a 73 Moto-Ski.. Now we have a nice trail to ride on. The snowmobile industry was almost dead and then Matt came along and sparked this thing up like crazy. Thanks for “My son’s trail.” Joe Higgins - Has ridden these trails and request to Senator Russell Black for the MSA supported bill of Snowmobile Trail Enforce ment. We will continue however, working the wording for the best option. He in-turn shared some communication with me of a meeting that he plans on attending with some large landowners to hopefully secure some trail a bit sooner in the season then has recently been demonstrated. With the strange markets we have seen, it sure is tough to predict on where crews may be, and the outcome is to find some more common ground or advantages for the landowners to avoid trail changing surprises. We sure are looking for options of win win here and thank you senator for getting involved to work on this. Another communication gap has recently surfaced, and it again involves the KWW monument. Senator King proposed and Col lins co-sponsored bill S-4784, “Katahdin Woods and Waters Monument Access Act” on August 4 th . Did you hear about it? Well, MSA didn’t either until President John Raymond of the Northern Timer Cruisers and Trailmaster, Ossie Stanley of the East Branch Sno-Rovers brought it to the table. I will share, there was some very heated moments on this as snow mobiling was completely left in the dark. How H ello again Maine Snowmobilers. By now, many of you have enjoyed your first frost or killing freeze. That means trail work has started in earnest. It amazes me every year how clubs make sure their respective trails are always ready with brush cleared, bridges re-decked, new signs and backers installed and a phenomenal amount of landowner relations that prepare for that endless ribbon of beautiful snowmobile trail from one end of the state to the other. I’m going to say, Thank You now, because I know it will be done and done well from Kittery to Ft. Kent and Bethel to Calais, clubs and trail workers are the hardest work ing, “It’s gonna snow 8ft.” optimists I know and I love you all because I believe that too. This season will see many clubs debuting new groomers and/or drags. Almost every club that applied for a Capital Equipment Grant this year was awarded one. What a great accomplishment as additional funds from the snowmobile registration increase went

they are very nice trails. Good job and thank you very much. I work for the state of Maine Snowmobile Program. Working to make their programs better, to better help the clubs. Handouts - at least one per club. Deadlines for municipal grant and club grants are all due by December 1 st . Reimbursements April 30th. Also, the deadline for buying equipment is June 15. One change - the deadline of September 15 - If you can’t keep that deadline, the office can work with you. Disaster relief grant - one club put in for help that did qualify - weather events qualify for relief. The Paper handouts show revenue/registrations over the last few years. Even during COVID there was an increase. Colorful paper gives you an idea of where your funds go when you register your sleds. Insurance - nothing has changed in the way the state is protecting the landowners. It is a SECONDARY insurance. An umbrella insurance. Thank you to the landowners allowing trails and working with us. MSA Trails Committee- Mike Grass: ITS trail maps are going to print. Steering Committee Chairman- John Monk: Wish I could be there,( was virtually), but hoping to be down to the swap-meet. Formulating a couple letters to Senators Collins and King about the Katahdin Works Monument near Millinocket. A little disappointed that we have been a bit overshadowed. We are a larger industry than the lobster industry and run by almost all volunteer work. Really need a full time person for MSA at the state. Scholarship Committee-Barry Ryan: Read financial report. Hall of Fame - Beth Bowie: Starting our year for the hall of fame. Eager to get new can this happen? Shouldn’t we know about these issues for a 606-million-dollar indus try? Communication? I know Maine brass jumped and ran for the lobster industry when they were attacked. Why not an industry that puts up comparable numbers with only four state employees and one MSA employee, and a WHOLE BUNCH of the best volunteers out there! (Here’s YOU members chance to com municate). A big shout out goes to President Al Swett as he called them on the carpet and got it in writing that existing ITS 85, 86, 83 and Connector Trail 112 will remain. I will also add that a nod is due to Les Hill of Shin Pond as while all of this was churning, he simulta neously was rounding up all the clubs in that region to brainstorm and see what the entire region could set for goals to try and provide a better product in the region for all. While the dust is literally still settling, and I will admit that the panic button was under minutes from being pushed to all you loyal MSA members on the alert list, it does appear the NPS peo ple, as they are being called, understand the value that snowmobiling brings to the region. I may be going out on a limb here, but there are people among us that could have helped in avoiding this, and I would kindly ask that directly into that fund. Thank you to everyone who registered a sled last winter, you changed the game when it comes to clubs being able to purchase new equipment. I know some of you clubs will be doing new projects fixing water holes and bridges. Please make sure you contact any landowners you will be crossing to get to these projects. Landowners expect to see sleds and/or work ers heading into the woods to work on trails BUT they are not expecting tractors with back hoes, mini excavators or other large equipment. Having a conversation ahead of time will save a lot of aggravation and possibly a trail closure due to a misunderstanding. Make sure to make that conversation part of the project and do it before any work takes place. The annual MSASnowmobile Show is com ing up on Oct. 21,22 and 23. Make plans now to attend the Trails Workshop to get the latest grant, trail and industry updates from IF&W, DOC and Groomer Retailers at the workshop.

nominations from everyone. Nomination form has been updated so it can be filled in digitally if you would like to or on paper. Looking forward to Epping. Membership Committee-Eileen Lafland: Liz, thank you so much. Over 500 memberships already in. The Northern Region has the most already submitted. Look at the papers in WELL. If you do send the cards, we can use the barcode on it and scan in seconds, so much easier, so please send the cards in. Safety Committee-Al Swett: Please use PPE!!!, please protect yourself. Use gloves, good shoes, protect your eyes. Hoping to get into schools this year, maybe get some game wardens out as well. Hospitality - Gail Ryan: Cards have been sent out. I don’t send out JUST sympathy cards. Can send out any cards you want!! Al - Everyone of you makes snowmobiling in Maine possible. You are making Maine a world destination. Very proud to be part of this team. Old Business - Snowmobile show, update - only have like six booths left in that show which is incredible. Super raffle - tickets are going like wildfire, Liz ordered more yesterday. New Business - North Anson section of railroad was just purchased by the state - crew in they’ve ripped up all the ties. Won’t have to cross both Kennebec and Carabasett Rivers. Thank you for having us. Pot of Gold: Skowhegan Sno-Hawks, forfeited- no director present. 50/50 Raffle- Jack Lord won $84.00 donated back to Brian Wass safety fund. Adjourned 7:35 On another front, the first meeting of the Abandoned and Discontinued Roads Commis sion was also just held. The goals, or objec tives, and hopefully outcomes were primarily thrown out, but clearly there is a lot of work to do. Many of the inconsistencies are with defi nitions that are not consistent throughout the state and need to be updated. Towns are also at different levels on the concerns and need to be all brought up to the same page. This will clearly be a work in progress to move forward. The crew on the committee do have a concern of improving things. The overwhelming sights of trail work going on right now is incredible. As I mentioned last month, reach out to your trailmaster, and see what you can do to help. Your time is SO, SO, SO more valuable than a few extra dollars and the appreciation level and your feel-good meter will be off the charts. I inked in some time already and I know of at least 1.5 miles of the 14000 is ready. I’d like to thank the so many active, loyal snowmobilers that I have “communicated” with this month. You all are making it happen! See you at the Show! Johnny Always a great day to get those nagging ques tions asked or clarified so that planned proj ects go smoothly. Once again, hoping the long-range forecast ers are correct in their cold and snowy winter forecasts. My 50 plus years on this rock tells me that when we have an active hurricane sea son, we usually have a good winter. We’ll see how good my prediction is as right now Ian is pounding Florida. Hope to see you all at the show! Think Snow, Mike Respectfully submitted Brad Barker, Secretary if you know, communicate these issues going forward. Upward and onward!

Steering Committee

John Monk Chairman of Steering Committee monksdoomopars@hermon.net Communication O ne would think that for someone that has worked in the communication industry all his life, things would be easily to understand and transfer from one person to another. Some how, that just doesn’t always seem to be the case. It’s been a busy couple of weeks for sure. First up, MSA has now submitted our

Trails Committee

Mike Grass, Jr., 207-368-2316 249 Condon Rd, Plymouth ME 04969 mgrassjr@gmail.com

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