December 2018 Metro Meeting
12/11/2018
Beer Snob’s
Hartland, WI
26 members in attendance
Introduction of Board Members
Mission Statement
Metro Mountain Bikers is a non-profit, volunteer organization dedicated to safeguarding the future of mountain biking through the preservation and promotion of responsible off-road bicycling opportunities. Which includes the education, sponsoring events, trail construction, and trail maintenance.
New Board Members
New board members will start their positions in January 2019
Co-Chair: Collin Stevens
Responsibilities will be working directly with Chair, running Agenda for Metro business meetings. Co-chair normally picks up responsibilities and/or delegates where other board positions aren’t filled.
2 Member at Large Positions:
Ron Stawicki
Chris McArdle
Responsibilities have not been assigned yet. This will be discussed at our next board meeting in January.
Treasurer: Dan Kutz
Responsible for financial accounts and reporting; expenses, income, cash flow, etc. They are also responsible for maintaining/renewing our 501c3 status and insurance.
Social Media chair: Darrin Jaeger
This individual will be responsible for updating and marketing through all social media channels.
Social Events Chair: James Mattox
This individual will do event planning -schedule and organize. There will be other members to help carry out the event but we need this person to spearhead monthly social meetings, rides, trips, etc.…..
Volunteer Coordinator: Chris Cooper
This individual will track all volunteer hours for Metro and send to both Waukesha and Milwaukee county as needed. They will also work with the Social Events Chair with gathering volunteers to help with events including trail work days.
Gears, OCMB, and Fat Kats now part of METRO!
Rich and Eric from Gears were present at the meeting. As you may remember from the last meeting, they pulled away from IMBA as were looking to join Metro as a sub-chapter. Their Board voted in favor of the move and are excited to be part of Metro and the ability to grow their membership and trails. For Metro, this would mean expanding our membership as well as our footprint. Together we would be working together for a stronger voice for mountain biking.
GEARS United maintains:
They have a new project at Heritage Park that they are working with the county parks on. The County Park wants flow trails and a bike park. Right now they are waiting on mining – what area is going to be mined. The County will be able to use some of the funds from the mining project to contribute to the trails. Then Metro will need to fundraise for the rest. The Park is under pressure to create more recreation here and believe that trails are the way to go.
The transition of GEARS united will be discussed during the next board meeting. Details to follow….
Fundraising!!!!!!
Minooka connector and new entrance
Glacial Blue Development
Heritage Trails County Park
Pump Track at Ball Park Commons
Club needs to be more visible in the community. As a club we should be approaching local business for their support. We want to machine build new trails and will need a master plan before we can move forward. If you are interested in being on the Fundraising committee or able to develop a master plan, please email Metro at metromountainbikers@gmail.com
We would love to hear from you on to develop our vision. Ideas? What would you like to see?
It was suggested by a member to email out information to members on what is happening in the club or what is needed. Not everyone uses social media and therefore don’t always know what is going on. If we are looking for more participation we need to use all media outlets to engage members. James did commit to sending email out monthly Meeting Minutes and future asks of members.
Hugh Jass Races
We are looking for volunteers to set up tent at the event. Not looking for you to stand under it and promote Metro the whole time but rather for a spot to hang out. The questions of “who is Metro” will come naturally. Just need to be visible on our trail systems. Right now everything is housed in our warehouse aka Marty’s garage. If you are interested just email the club and we’ll make sure you have it for your event.
Alpha/Kegel Race is on February 9th 9am to 3pm-ish
James to email request for volunteers to take tent
We will consider purchasing another tent for the group up north so they don’t have to drive as far to get the tent for events up north.
Other Events
Frosty Hog 2/2 at Humboldt Park
Wheel and Sprocket Bike Expo April 4th – 7th
Looking for a new Team to run the Wednesday Night Races in summer of 2019. We would like to give the old crew a break after all these years. Please let us know if you are interested. James to email this out to all members.
Winter Fat Biking
Looking for a snowshoe group that will volunteer to snow shoe if we ever get snow, who’s interested???? If so just email Metro! We would like to have a group that we can consistently rely on snowshoe our trails.
James to email this out to all members
It might be a good idea to have signage so the hikers don’t think its okay for them to hike on the MTB trails. The GEARS group has sample signage they can share.
Ball Park Commons Committee update
Marty reported for committee. Milwaukee is still looking to fill the Trail Coordinator position. Please understand that we are not able to make new trails on our own without the okay from the county. And this will not happen until they get the position filled. They have 5 candidates they are currently interviewing so we hope that this will happen sooner than later. Our push in the Milwaukee County Plan is to building new trials higher up so we don’t have the flood like in the past.
We did meet with Wheel and they have hired Jeremy Witek to design the pump track with Zimmerman. The cost will be split between, Zimmerman, Wheel, and Metro.
Other Business
Financial update: Harold gave an update on finance status of the club as it stands today. See hand-out.
Update on the Bike Bazaar: Slow but did get approached to partner with the MKE NICA team to help with skills clinic. It would need to be in Milwaukee since it is expensive for them to travel. Their NICA team falls under the schools Athletics department and they want more trails. Will need to follow up with Paul and Nick. The kids also want to help build or do trail maintenance. Most kids are 14 and over so would be covered by our insurance. Would be a great way to expand our community involvement! We also sold some socks – donation back to club $25
Donation: Marty presented the Club with a check for $355 from the Beer Sales at last month’s Meeting! Thank you Marty!!!!
Nashotah Park winter fat bike trails: It was asked of the group if winter fatbike trails could be possible at Nashotah Park. There are sections of the trail that don’t see much use and would be great to bike on. We are working with Waukesha County Parks to develop more trails and Nashotah would be great addition. However, the Waukesha Parks likes to have separate trial systems so we would have to change the use of that current trail or create new trails specific for mountain biking. Since the county parks development staff is basically all new we are working to establish a strong relationship with them and the first step is with Minooka. Once we have this ironed out we can start asking about possible trails elsewhere.
Meeting Adjourned.
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