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 1st.
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: 3rd 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
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