March 15, 2022, 7 p.m.

In-person:  Frog Hollow Bikes, Middlebury

Board Members:

George Lawrence- President	Ashar Nelson, Moosalamoo
Andrew Hirsch, Middlebury Trail Manager	Alan Hebert
Carl Robinson, Treasurer	Seth Beck, Bristol
Scott Hardy, Vergennes (via Zoom)	Merideth McFarland
Eric Berg	Sue Hoxie, Administrator

Bold indicated people in attendance

Others in Attendance: Erik Remsen, Jon Bowdish

REGULAR BUSINESS

President’s Report: No report–traveling

Treasurer’s Report

Checking account balance $14,061.14

February Statement

Income = $810 – $420 from the Fat Bike Roundup, $390 from membership

Expenses = $150 – paying food vendor for the Fat Bike Roundup event

The club has been having issues with logging onto the People’s United website and linking the account with different platforms such as PayPal.  The club is also charged a monthly fee of $5 (Analysis activity fee) each month.  Eric and Carl proposed that ACBC move its funds to the National Bank of Middlebury, which will hopefully be easier to work with.

No funds were reported on the bank statement from the PayPal account.  Carl is working on getting access to this.

Carl is also in the process of setting up the process to pay Sue through VMBA’s payroll program.  

Motion: Ashar moved that the club move its banking to the National Bank of Middlebury. Alan Hebert seconded. Unanimously approved. 

Membership Report (Since 2/7/22)

• Returning
  • (2) Individual
  • (1) Family of 2
  • (2) Family of 4
• New
  • (1) Individual
  • (1) Family of 4 

Per Sue: the reports from VMBA don’t identify non renewals. Sue will create a membership renewal email for ACBC members as memberships renew on April 1^st. 

Sue will reach out to MTBers in Brandon– Karl Fjeld, Bill Moore, Marty Feldman.

Social Media Report – Alan: Alan posted 5x; Sue 1x during the month. Engagement is positive and the club needs to be consistently posting, tying into the club’s programming e.g. events, work days, “don’t be the guy riding in the mud”—essentially an annual communications plan.  Is ACBC’s FB account tied to Instagram? Alan will verify. Request from TAM and MALT for spring cleaning event. Potentially a volunteer work day. 

Trails Report Middlebury – Andrew: A few trees down. Done for a while. Jeff Taylor will work with us on TrailForks. Post something on FB that trails are closed, but will be rideable soon e.g. south face of Chipman. Club members go out first and not post it. Respectful safe, don’t ride in the mud. 

Trails Report Moosalamoo- Ashar: Moving the connector trail through USFS’s small projects day scheduled for early April. More design work needs to be done and tighten up the budget. Builder (Tom Lepesqueur) doesn’t have time until 2023, though there’s a possibility that he could start it in the fall. The work that Tom has done has been great so far and the trails reflect his “personality”. A half-mile of the connector trail runs concurrently with a VAST trail.  The desire is to have VAST enter into an agreement with the FS to upgrade that portion of the trail because it’ll be too expensive for ACBC to come up with the match. 

Trails Report Bristol – Seth: Nothing new to report

Trails Report Vergennes – Scott: Still waiting for the mayor to sign an MOU. Figuring out how to work with the city’s recreation committee. Working on getting the parking lot finished. The next goal is a pump track.

Events: 

May 6: Walk/Bike Summit at Town Hall Theater

May 7: Annual bike swap. Flyer in the works

Special Projects: No report

NEW/OTHER BUSINESS

Develop a program of work for 2022

Work days: 3^rd Saturday of the month, April through October

Frost Mountain Nordic may be a source for volunteers

April 16: Middlebury, TAM trails

Point person: Andrew

Notes: Hold a season kick-off gathering afterwards

May 21: Moosalamoo

Point person: Ashar

June 18:  New Leaf trails

Point person: Seth

July 16: Leicester Hollow (need chainsaw)

Point person: Ashar

August 20: Vergennes

Point person: Scott

September 17: Middlebury, TAM Trails

Point person: Andrew

October 15: Rikert 

Point person: George

Notes: Hold a close-up party in the barn

Rides:

• Bike shop: weekly ride, might be some longer adventure bike rides
• Monthly ride out of Otter Creek Brewing (Eric Berg point person)
• Moosalamoo Grand Tour: October 

Board structure

Andrew Hirsch will serve as Secretary

Ashar Nelson will serve as Vice President

Motion: Alan made a motion to elect Ashar as the board’s vice president. Carl seconded. Unanimously approve. 

Pump Track at Middlebury Recreation Park

Erik Remsen attended the board meeting. The State of Vermont is offering Better Places Grants: $1.5M to give to municipalities. Give it out until all the money is gone. Might be future rounds. Projects should be quick to build. Communities have 12 months to implement. Minimum is $5K with a 50% match. 

The cost of the pump track at Moosalamoo Campground was $39K. Bristol’s was $5K for their track + volunteer labor. Top location is at rec park. Not to interfere with fields. Requested help from ACBC: design and volunteer labor to help minimize cost. Needs to be a cash match. One application from each municipality. Do something jointly with Sheldon Museum. Dustin Hunt would have to scope out where in the rec park. There’s a little bit of land among fields behind Rec Center. Other potential locations: base of Chipman Hill near TAM. List of other grants??

VMBA advisory council meeting update 

Ashar reported that it’s worth maintaining relationship with VMBA—great resources. VMBA sees commonalities, set up funds. 

NEXT MEETING

April 19, 2022, 7 pm