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Chair’s Report
January, 2011
Chair John Barron
Trail maintenance seemed to be the predominant theme this season. Red Sandstone Trail coordinator John Omohundro held a maintenance day on October 17, and a good-sized crew made a number of improvements including bridge-building, blowdown removal, reinstalling an interpretive signpost, and general cleanup. A sweep during the day revealed the full extent of a bridge collapse on the Sugar Island cross trail; it represented a clear hazard, and a second workday was organized about three weeks later. The result is a new, vastly improved bridge that equals the quality of its counterpart on the opposite side of the central abandoned rail bed on Sugar Island.
Meanwhile at Stone Valley, a conjunction of events led to a massive maintenance effort in early November. Recent logging had devastated part of the forest, and flooding had damaged some bridges. With timing allowing no possibility to use the North Wind to publicize the work day, trail coordinator Mark Simon used ingenuity instead, and raised a huge crew from many groups including the outdoor clubs of all four of the area’s universities; members of the St. Lawrence County Mountain Bike Association; and a good many chapter members (the web site and personal contact helped reach some of these). Wear on Earth provided support including publicity and a delicious al fresco barbeque supper; a number of individuals provided crew leader expertise; and in two days an amazing amount of reconstruction and improvement was accomplished.
The fall outing schedule featured trips at all levels. Some early snow lent a special seasonal ambience to some of the trips. It is always a pleasure to meet new people on the outings, and to see a new leader or two emerging.
A couple of committees deserve congratulations for completing challenging missions successfully. The nominating committee, consisting of Geri Ames, Art Johnson, and Susan Omohundro, recommended a new executive committee that sees Hollis Easter succeed Geri Ames as Vice Chair of Membership, and Bill Mueller join the executive committee as Vice Chair of Outings; while Ellie Menz and Peter O’Shea return for second terms as Treasurer and Vice Chair of Conservation respectively. The nominating committee’s proposed slate was endorsed unanimously at the annual meeting. The bylaws review committee, consisting of Blair Madore, Hollis Easter, and Armond Spencer went through the chapter bylaws with a fine-toothed comb, developed some proposed modifications to improve and update the bylaws, and built a consensus among the executive committee when more than one approach was available. The resulting revised bylaws were unanimously endorsed by the executive committee and by the broader membership as well. Both these committees deserve our thanks.