January 2019 Metro Meeting
1/8/19 at 7pm
Benno’s
West Allis, WI
36 members in attendance
Collin opened meeting
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.
Introduction of new board
Collin Stevens is the New Vice-Chair
James Mattox is now the Chair and Social Events Coordinator
Members at Large; Chris McArdle and Ron Stawicki for a second term
Dan Kutz is the incoming Treasurer
Social Media Chair is now Darrin Jaeger If you remember Darrin is the one who designed our new logo
Volunteer Coordinator is officially Chris Cooper
Current board positions not up for re-election this year:
Secretary - Beth Kazinski
Member at Large – Isaac Olsen
Gears, OCMB now part of Metro
Rich and Eric bring new trails
Rich Ramsey,
GEARS Chapter report
The two West bend parks they maintain are Glacial Blue Hills and Ridge Run which was a county park now a city park. Ridge Run is behind the university and has the kettle like terrain. Glacial Blue is a two way trail. There really aren’t a lot of signs but there are a lot of trail options that interlink with one another. It is hard to get lost so just explore them all. Terrain is beautiful and a real must see. They also maintain New Fane. They are still holding WEMS races there and this coming week is a Hugh Jass Race. So if you are coming to the race, make some time to stop at the other trails on your way back.
Fat Kats – Not Present but they maintain Greenbush trails. They haven’t dissolved their 501c3 status yet so not able to bring them in.
Eric Hackbarth
OCMB Chapter report
Pleasant Valley trail system. First trail of theirs they established. It really is like a sampler platter type trail - a little bit of everything. Port Washington trail was whipped out by storms in August. Huge task to get it back. A large portion of trail washed away. City had issues with lack of insurance with their club so they weren’t able to rebuild. Now part of Metro and having our insurance will get them back on track with rebuilding this system/relationship.
This merger brings benefit for both sides. There is strength in numbers with GEARS and OCMB joining Metro. Larger organization with more members /voices when looking for sponsorship/support and we are able to assist them with insurance and non-profit status so they can grow their trails and membership as well as a site to track their memberships.
Mechanically what it looks like?
Their trails are being added to our website as we speak. Wild Apricot is being updated with their region, Club Names for identifiers for new members to sign up. The new members will have an affiliation to choose when they sign up. Affiliation Types: GEARS, OCMB, and METRO. GEARS Inc dropped their IMBA status in 2018 so they have members waiting to join. They will be notifying members to sign up.
Fundraising
We need to come up with ideas on how we can get funds to get trail builders here. These are big projects and we can’t just rely on membership dollars. Need corporate dollars too. We are open to new faces and suggestions.
James: We are in a better place to develop a master plan, help Rich with Glacial Blue, and Eric with Heritage Park. We can’t break ground today but we need a master plan of what we do to build. So before we go to businesses asking for funding, we need to presentation/plan first. Once that happens then we can knock on doors.
Right now we have small projects, thousands not millions. If you are good at building presentations and want to help contact James or any of the other board members.
Up-coming Events
· Hugh Jass Race, Jan 12th at New Fane - Need volunteers. Ron has the Metro tent so let him know if you can take it to set it up.
· Hugh Jass Race Feb 9th at Alpha/Kegel - Again need volunteers to bring and set up the tent. You don’t have to stand under it the whole time, just looking to be visible on our trail systems so they know who maintains them.
· Frosty Hog – Feb 2nd Humboldt Park - Need volunteers to bring and set up tent.
· Wheel & Sprocket Expo - April 4 through the 7th - James will put something special together for our booth - IPads for signing up new members. We want it to have a whole different feel. Maybe have give-a-way item so we can collect contact information (name and email) to add to our emailing list? But what to give a way???? Another suggestion would be to give out our vintage water bottles. Sign up for volunteers will be through the Metro website. We’ll send out emails that will tell our members how to sign up.
Wednesday Night Racing
Racing 20 years and going strong. BUT we need to have a new group to help run this event. Our awesome team is running on empty and might like to race too after all these years. So if you are interested in running these races – hopefully both Minooka and Alpha/Kegel this year, please contact Metro!!!
GEARS and OCMB might do the same format if they like. Cindy Pettit might be able to help them with the insurance side of it since Metro uses W&S insurance for this event. Metro can certainly give them the format to get them started. Doesn’t have to be on a Wednesday either, whatever works for them.
Winter fat biking
Maybe next month.
Meeting adjourned at 7:50pm
