GCWG Board Meeting Minutes 9/24/17
Location: The meeting was held at the home of Al Rothenbach and Toni Wujek. Appetizers and dinner were at 5:00 p.m. followed by the Board Meeting at 6:30.
Board members present:
All Board Members were present.
GCWG members:
Toni Wujek, Sue Perkins, Jim Magill, John Statz and Ann Steers.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes of the Board meeting held June 11, 2017 were approved unanimously by the Board upon the motion of Bob Saint, seconded by Bambi Statz.
TREASURERS REPORT – Bob Saint. Starting Balance (1/31/17): $5349.21. Current Balance: $5397.33. We contributed $ 827.30 to the Forest Service for the Grant to them. A record 804 parking passes were sold at Monarch with a 50-cent profit from each pass. 32 passes which were not sold will be carried over to next year. Junco might owe Doug Smith some money for the passes that he bought.
MEMBERSHIP REPORT – Bob Saint. The current GCWG membership is 94 households and 54 individuals Beth Collins will call the 10 new single/household members to welcome them, answer questions and invite them to the Fall Annual meeting. Bob will bring his list of members to the Fall Meeting and two of the Board members will check people in and have them verify the member's information.
VOLUNTEER HOURS – Toni Wujek. The Forest Service relies on volunteer hours in obtaining grants and resources. The non-reporting of volunteer hours is still a problem. It is felt that there are many hours that members have hiked but not reported their hours as a trail ambassador. To encourage members to report hours those members with the most cabin hours and those members with the most volunteer hours will be recognized at the Fall Meeting.
GCWG VISION FOR FUTURE next 2/5/10 years – Jack Reichert. There has been a shift from GCWG members actively doing trail work to only a few, or no members showing up for trail work. The Forest Service can't rely on GCWG to support their trail maintenance projects. The Board discussed doing all our trail maintenance through Headwaters Trail Alliance. HTA's emphasis, however, is not as much on the wilderness projects. The Board discussed changing its emphasis from Wilderness to non-Wilderness. The Board favored staying with our commitment to the Wilderness. Erica from HTA does Wilderness work. A member of the Board will contact her and try to get a list of projects in April before the Spring meeting. Jack will discuss problem about the lack of commitment to trail projects and poll the members to see how many are willing to commit to those activities. Also, it has become difficult to get enough people to host Monarch and Junco cabins. Last year only half of the members did cabin hosting. The Board discussed how to get more members to do the required hosting. At the end of the discussion, Jack distributed a hand out with considerations for the Board to ponder and get back to him with their visions for GCWG.
CLOTHING INVENTORY – Janet Harrington, Sue Perkins. We still have old inventory of shirts etc. Beth Collins will bring the inventory to the Fall meeting. We will try to sell some there. In the announcement for the Fall meeting, there will be a suggestion for all member to wear their logo clothing. Sue and Bambi will look into purchasing new clothing articles.
SMART SIZING PROJECT- Bob Saint. John Morrisey signed the decision on this project. The entire Strawberry Creek Trail will allow bicycle uses. The Proposed Rogers Pass Loop Trail is deferred to allow Colorado State Wildlife to analyze the impact of the proposed trail on the elk migration corridor. Meanwhile, the trail will be excluded from winter maintenance, grooming and snow mobiles and the trail will be completely closed from May1 to June 20th. Bicycle use is limited to designated roads and trails on Forest Service land. Some trails are designated for non- bikes such as the Hi Lo trail north of Junco. and no bikes will be allowed on the continental divide trail on the divide.
The board discussed one of the latest assaults on the Wilderness which was a bill sponsored by both Utah senators to allow mountain bikes, e-bikes etc. in the Wilderness if approved by local land managers. Again, the Board agreed on the need to protect the Wilderness.
CABIN HOSTING- Dick Sprague. It has been difficult to fill in all the days that our Group agreed to cover. Also, on many days, it would be a good idea to have 3 or 4 volunteers at Monarch Lake. A list of volunteers who could be available to substitute would also be helpful. Finally there is a problem with possibility of not giving accurate information on the Wilderness regulations. Andy Vorek said he would train our volunteers on Wilderness regulations. It was moved by Bob Saint and seconded by Dick Sprague, and passed unanimously by the Board to have Andy Vorek conduct trainings on Wilderness regulations. All volunteers who host the cabins will be required to have Wilderness training. The Board is considering having one such a training at the Spring meeting because many members would be there.
TRAIL HEAD HOSTING. This past summer only 2 of the 6 days for trail hosting were filled. It was decided to discontinue hosting at certain trail heads in favor of Cabin hosting, light trail maintenance, and trail ambassador work.
SUMMER HIKES. It was decided to change all the orientation hikes to trail maintenance hikes and do light trail maintenance on the trails, document the trail condition, including problem areas and the information to the Forest Service.
STATUS OF GRANTS. John Hughes is working with Andy Vorek to write grants and then will send out a letter to the Board. Bob Saint said that GCWG may apply for local grants from Grand County Open Lands, Rivers and Trails.
KIOSK STAINING. Paisley reported that she stained 7 kiosks for the Forest Service
YMCA ROWLEY ROOM. The YMCA may start charging for use of its facilities. GCWG President will try to get a room there for the White deer party. It seems that If we can be flexible with dates, there may be no charge.
DATE OF SEPTEMBER BOARD MEETING. It was decided to have the September Board meeting for 2018 later in September so that more Board members can attend.
NATIONAL PUBLIC LANDS DAY. Diana Lyn Rau has requested people to help set up on Friday. GCWG will sent out a request for help.
The next Board Meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 4th. Host to be determined.
At 8:30 Bambi made a motion to adjourn, seconded by Dick Sprague and passed unanimously by the Board
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