From: Peggy Spieger Summary of OSSA Board Meeting Albany, Oregon October 28, 2005 The board meeting, held at the Linn County Expo facility, Albany, Oregon, was called to order at 1:00 PM by President John Bastian. All board members were present with the exception of District 6 Director Ron Greb. Ardys Reed, NorthWest Cable News, presented a proposal for promoting OSSA and safe snowmobiling on NWCN. These spots will be during the weather segments and will run December until about the middle of February. OSSA has received a grant from ISMA to pay most of this cost and the board voted to go ahead with the program. Correspondence was reviewed following the acceptance of the minutes and financial reports. Jackson County Sheriff’s department has joined the family of sheriff’s departments doing snow patrol for OSSA. They are sheriff’s departments from Deschutes, Douglas, Hood River, Klamath, Jackson, Jefferson, Umatilla and Wallowa counties. Directors Reports: The groomer shelter at Skyline sno-park was broken into and everything was stolen that could be removed from the building which included removing the tool boxes bolted on the snow cat and the compressor. The building was accessed by what looked like ramming the bed of a pickup into the door. The fortunate thing was that the snow cat itself was not damaged. A solar powered security system is being considered. Last year the North Santiam club and the Ochoco club had equipment stolen and equipment damaged. Ask everyone to be on the lookout for activity around areas where our equipment is located. Another problem has been stealing wood from the snow shelters. Bear Springs Ranger Station has been permanently closed and returned to the Indians. Road closures are continuing in most areas. Be sure that you get these areas documented as trails open to snowmobiling in the winter. North Santiam is having a swap meet at Detroit on November 13th. Clubs are getting their calendars lined out and many poker runs are scheduled. Rogue is hosting a $3,000 poker run on President’s weekend at Diamond Lake. All clubs are asked to have at least one event for charity. Be sure to let OSSA know what you do. Candlelighters are the OSSA charity of choice and if you prefer, dollars raised for the Candlelighters can be sent to OSSA to send as one check. Clubs are finishing their fall trail clearing getting ready for the snow. La Pine has widened their entire system to be ready for the new Camo 350 delivered October 31st. Several clubs are having raffles for snowmobiles. Several clubs are having Christmas or New Year’s Eve parties at the snow shelters. Your district directors and OSSA have tickets available for the CoverAll Triton Trailer to be given away New Years Eve day. All of the money from the Triton sales goes to our Legal Action fund. Our current membership is a little lower than this time last year. A discussion followed on what can be done to increase membership and keep the members we have. President John asked the directors to have the clubs ask each member to bring in one new member. Numbers are important, particularly with regard to land use issues. OSSA safety instructors certified 320 kids and adults last year. Highest numbers were Jack Matos Diamond Lake, 87, Nancy Schassen and Jean Watilo, La Pine, 73, Russ Goffin, Mill City, 40, and Shirley Vanderzanden, La Grande, 25. The OSSA safety trailer is available for classes, parades, county fairs and other community events. Contact John Vogel to reserve it for your use. Blue Ribbon report states that the fight to keep Yellowstone open to snowmobiling was successful because of involved members responding to the closure plans of the extremists. Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming is largely responsible for the US Senate legislation stating the winter use rules published in the Federal Register for November 10, 2004 shall be in effect for the winter use season of 2005-2006. This negates the claims of two lawsuits that could have closed the park to snowmobiles. The Park Service is now evaluating the input from a new rulemaking process and hopefully the unfair restriction of requiring a commercial guide will be removed. Two director at large positions were up for election. Bret Brown, Director at Large Districts 1 & 2 decided not to run again. Russ Goffin from district 2 was elected to that position. John Spieger from district 4 was re-elected as Director at Large Districts 3 & 4. Two district director positions were up for election. At the delegates meeting on Saturday morning, John Gardner was elected as District Director for District 1 and Leonard (Buckshot) Carter was re-elected as District Director for District 8. All district director and director at large terms are three years and commence at the April board meeting. |