Updated February 3rd. 2007
Meeting Notes from 1/09/08
Meeting Location: North Coast Coffee, Washburn
Time: 6:30pm-7:30pm
Members present: Nate Swiston, Butch Warren, Kim Ross, Pat Schnepf
and Bob Blaskowski.
From this point forward, due to the request of many members, an
effort will be made to produce monthly meeting notes and place them
on the Club website.
Our meeting kicked off with Kim and Butch paying their annual
membership dues. This led into a discussion by Nate to update
everyone on paid memberships; as of last nights meeting, we have 17
paid individual/family memberships, all of which have been also sent
to the AWSC. In addition, we have 4 paid business memberships. All
memberships were sent out to past members and businesses during the
fall. Nate has prepared 2nd invoices for remaining businesses in
Washburn who have not yet paid. There has been a great effort to
groom the entire City trail this year all the way into the Steak Pit
and the Super 8 Motel. Kim agreed to help Nate re-distribute the
invoices.
Pat brought trail work sheets to complete so they could be submitted
to the Alliance. Any hours spent by members on trail work should be
submitted to the County Alliance who can receive reimbursement from
the state. We recorded the trail #13 reroute done on December 1st as
well as other time spent by members to date. This led into a
discussion about reroutes needed for next season. We will have to
work on a small reroute around the new Washburn golf course to avoid
the new green and fairway we are now traveling on. With the early
snow, it has not been possible to change the current trail but this
will need to be done before next season. Nate has recently placed
posts and arrows in an effort to keep riders off the fairway. Post
and arrows have also been added to the field near the “Red Barn” to
keep riders form shooting across the field.
There will also more than likely be a need for a major reroute of
Trail #13 near the Washburn soccer fields. We continue to have
landowner issues near this area and a suggestion has been made for a
major trail change. This will require a lot of work during the
upcoming summer. Bob Blaskowski agreed to help out where Nate has
left off to check for terrain and landowner issues. This will be a
huge project and will require help from many people to make this
happen. If this is not corrected, this could seriously impact the
one and only trail into the City of Washburn from the Valhalla area.
A second reroute was discussed by Pat for Trail #19 on North
Boundary road. Due to plowing for access to the shooting range, a
decision has been made to change this trail for next season.
Major culvert and ditching work is also needed near Thompson’s Creek
coming into the City of Washburn. The DNR has been contacted and it
was determined that Xcel Energy will be responsible to repair this
area since is was impacted by brush clearing done near the power
line this fall. This will hopefully be attended to in early summer
before any ATV’s do more damage.
The meeting concluded with the following topics: The Club would like
to dedicate the City of Washburn trail to the memory of Phil Ross, a
long time supporter and organizer of our Club and the County
Snowmobile Alliance. A portion of this trail is currently dedicated
to Ed Nelson; a decision was made to make a new sign naming the City
trail in memory of both Phil and Ed. This will also need to be
worked on during the summer of 2008. A press release will be done to
draw attention to this event.
A Club snowmobile ride was discussed for Saturday, February 2nd.
Anyone wishing to join the ride (members or not) are invited to meet
at C-Side Inn at 10am. As in past years, a route will be determined
based on snow/trail conditions. This has always been a fun ride.
Lastly, beginning with our February 2008 meeting, an effort will be
made to have more discussion on the financial situation of the club.
We have not yet prepared any summary of our annual dance proceeds
nor provided monthly updates on membership or club funds.
Nate will work on gathering current information and hopefully can
get some help to keep this updated more regularly. There was also
agreement that the Club website continues to be a good thing for the
Club but more effort needs to be made by all to keep it updated.
Nate agreed to submit meeting minutes to the site as much as
possible in addition to keeping it fresh with Club news and events.
A special thanks to Mike and Mary Engen (members), owners of North
Coast Coffee, for keeping it open specifically for our meeting.
Great coffee was enjoyed by all !!
2008 Snowmobile Safety Course a Success !!
There
are now 18 more riders ready to safely join us on the snowmobile
trails!!
During the COLD weekend of January 19th and 20th,
Kim Ross and I put on our annual Snowmobile Safety Course on behalf
of the Washburn ValHellers. Kim and I were talking and determined
that he has been doing these for at least 9 years and I think this
is my 6th or 7th year as well. This year we
had 18 students ranging from ages 11-16. As you probably know,
anyone born after 1985 must take a Snowmobile Safety Course to
operate a snowmobile on Public land in Wisconsin.
The
course is always a lot of fun for both us and the kids. Saturday
included a explanation of safety rules and regulations, videos, and
snowmobile parts identification along with guest speakers from the
DNR (Amie Egstad), Washburn Ambulance Service (Dan and Karyl Clark)
and the City of Washburn Police Department (Jim Parks). We treated
the students with Little Ceasars Pizza at noon and sent them home at
4pm to study Saturday night. We met again Sunday at 9am for the
written assessment. Since is was (–16) degrees, we decided to
simulate the driving test but generally this is a hands-on
demonstration of their safe riding skills on a real snowmobile on a
course outside the classroom. Out of 18 students, everyone passed
with flying colors and we even had 5 students score 100%!!
We would
like to thank the Town of
Bayview
for the use of the Town Hall as well as a thank you to the guest
speakers on Saturday. We look forward to another course in 2009.
Club Meeting Schedule
Club meetings are on the 2nd Wednesday of each month
at the Bay View Town Hall beginning at 6:30pm.
Club success is based upon member attendance!
Anyone interested in supporting the club or becoming
a member is welcome to attend the meetings.
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