Valley Mountain Bikers Meeting Minutes, Tuesday, 12/11/12
The December general meeting was held at Saucon Valley Bikes. In attendance were:
Don Kelly
Bob Workman
Kris Kies
Stavros Gougoustamos
Greg Horwath
Jon Roth
Robin Rufe
Donna Spadt
Mike Kincaid
Eric Rigler
Scott Stortz
Jason Shivok
Lou Mazzante
Joe Gallagher
Renee England
Rich Butz
Mike Prentice
Kenny Magee
Steve LaBrake
Rory McShane
Joel Nankman
Jessica Nankman
Hope McAdam
JennStortz
Pat Spadt
Lisa Ronca
Karen Krasley
John Eberhard
Doug Pinkerton
[someone with bad handwriting]
Chris Stine, visiting representative from Wyoming Valley Mountain Bike Association
After a delicious meal provided by our hosts, the meeting was called to order at 7:23 PM.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
TREASRER’S REPORT
We have approximately $3300 in checking, and approximately $5400 in the Paypal account. We haven’t had many expenditures: some from Noxtoberfest, while some Nox tee-shirt sales brought in money. Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day also was an expenditure, as was club insurance ($1600.80).
We now have a chainsaw.
TRAILS
Nox: Trails are open, though some are slick. Much work was needed after the hurricane: 30 people volunteered over two Sundays, much of the work being done with handsaws. The next pahes of work will be to explore crossing 563 under the bridge – new trails in this area will be ADA accessible for handbikes.
Nox meeting: The park is looking for more ADA accessible stuff, new Nox trails will be the spearhead effort (total project will also include kayaks).
Trex: Trex planning continues to be a moving target (go big vs go small). At recent meeting the land managers were on board with professional trail design, and with tapping some funds to get this done. Federal permits? This could be a problem going forward. No hunter/biker complaints in North range, got permission for other parts already agreed. More land? (no)
Getting quotes on Northern range, and part of the central range. Hire people to design, then hire to build, Andrew will donate equipment. We’re talking maybe 5-7 miles of trail for now.
Sals: Well done job at all our trails, everything was reopened in about two weeks, Sals included. (One trail is still blocked but no one rides it, and there are other minor problem spots but nothing much to report. Some proposed a reroute or two in some of these damaged areas, but the trail crew report that damage has already taken care of.
Western trails – John E has been laying this out, and if anyone wants to help there’s a lot that can be done in this area. (No permission to build new trails there, we need a plan. John wants to continue making plans for the eventuality that we’ll get permission again.) There is a “lower area” where we may already have permission to build.
SM Emmaus: Trails are OK, nothing to report.
Lehigh Univ Trails: South Bethlehem Greenway Vision Open space 2014 committee. Scott went to a few meetings that he could make. They have discussed asking LU to open the trails to the public. We had a Board meeting beforehand about this: we would go to the meeting, make presentation, gauge the situation before we make any of our own decisions.
Scott’s summarized his presentation to the Greenway committee.
Questions: what is our liability? Same as Nox/Trex, this is why we have insurance. (We should avoid freeride trail maintenance, since that liability may be separate from what we have insurance for.)
Lehigh has less exposure to liability with this proposal, and property tax might drop. This Committee was very avid to get us on board.
No decision need to be made yet?
Motion: We continue to remain involved in the process wit these government organizations & Lehigh University to support the proposal. Seconded. Carried unanimously.
Other business:
Club holiday Party: TBA
Movie: We should wait until we hear from the Velodrome about their experience.
Open Forum:
More Trails!
Election:
Valedictory remarks from outgoing President, introduction of new candidates.
(Treasurer Jason and Secretary Don were uncontested.)
Lou (VP): Loves mountain biking, wants to make sure the Lehigh Valley has the best, and that the VMB is involved in supporting that. Grew up in Bethlehem, moved away and came back, loved the changes made here, moved back partially because of Sals. Wants to have VMB thrive. We have work to do but the situation is really becoming good.
Robin (VP): Came from the Poconos to ride down here, now lives in the area, works in the fitness environment, works with boards/committees, and especially interested in getting people who are already members involved.
Renee (Pres): Mountain biking and VMB have become a huge part of her life, she wants to get riders to help & get involved, get more club/maintenance activities done by riders, and wants more social rides. She wants to get to know more of our 200 members.
Jon (Pres): Two years since he started building trails, two bikes, two children – he’s building trails not just for himself. He would be honored to go to those meetings, getting the trails we have (or can get) locked in, is familiar with meetings and can do whatever it takes.
VOTE RESULTS
New President: Jon Roth
New Vice President: Lou Mazzante
New Treasurer: Jason Shivok
New Secretary: Don Kelly
Congratulations and welcome to our new officers, and many thanks to our outgoing President, Scott!
Meeting was adjourned at 8:58 PM. Thanks to Steve and the crew at Saucon Valley Bikes for being awesome hosts.