October 20 Annual General Meeting

The AGM Report

The A.G.M. was held Oct 20 at the newly remodelled "7 West" motel in Carleton Place, whose new owners have been kind enough to supply a meeting room for free. About 20 members showed up as did two guests - those who came got a free Ottawa Valley ATV Club coffee mug ! Sportsman's Lodge donated a door prize of a free night's accomodation which was won by Guy Giles.

Nora Killeen and her son Kyle were on hand to accept the cheque from the charity run for Camp Trillium held in August. Kyle is a cancer survivor and has attended the camp several times. Nora told us how important fundraising events such as ours are in keeping Camp Trillium operating. Our club raised just over $3100 this year, about the same as last year. Great job folks !

Dan Murphy gave the treasurer's report. Quick summary: our budget this year with 74 members was approximately $13000. The club's biggest expenditures were EOTA passes/insurance, North Frontenac trail passes and printing costs for brochures, posters, stickers etc. We will end the year with a bank balance of around $1000.

Mike Pastor gave a summary of his efforts to get a bylaw passed in Lanark that would allow ATV usage on some of the roads. Long story short - Mike and spent a lot of time on this with the help of Gord Moffat but the bureaucrats decided that doing nothing was the correct course of non-action. So, if you care please email, phone or write your elected officials. Mike has sent the contact information out by email already.

Mike and Patsy attended last Saturday's public forum on ATV road usage in North Frontenac. There were about 30 people in attendance and virtually all were in favour of passing the bylaw. The council seems split on the issue. If you care about being able to use the roads in our riding area, make your opinion known to the councillors! You can email your input to: northfrontenac@mazinaw.on.ca

From the club executive's point of view, what the club did well in 2004:

• - maintained membership fees at a reasonable level (in spite of a late price hike for the North Frontenac pass)
• - got trail insurance again through the EOTA at a reasonable price
• - grew membership slightly (74 vs goal of 100)
• - kept a balanced budget
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• while we had no success in getting ATV bylaws passed, awareness has been raised and the issue is by no means dead
• - successful Trillium Fundraiser (in spite of lower turnout)
• - two overnight runs were considered big successes by all who went
• - published updated trail map with waypoints, junction markers and degree of difficulty (thanks Steve !)
• - quarterly tail maintenance done as planned with good participation

Room for improvement in 2005:

• - some runs e.g. Pony Express were very poorly attended. As a result we will do fewer rides next year and change the schedule so hopefully more people can participate
• - Barbeques in general were a bust. Since next year we will be using Alice's as a base most of the time we will let her do the cooking !

2005 Direction:

• - We will spend some time trying to expand our trail system, hopefully in conjunction with the EOTA. Two possibilities are the trail system in the Renfrew/Arnprior area and the trails in the Lake St Peter area.
• - We will spend more effort raising awareness of the club and it's activities. Surprisingly, Mike reported that few of the locals at the North Frontenac public meeting knew of the OVATVC's existence.
• - We need to engage the private landowners and get formal permission agreements in place
• - As usual, have fun !

Elections were held, and the 2004 exec were acclaimed to the same positions in 2005.

2005 Executive

• Mike Pastor - President
• Dave Murphy - Vice President
• Dan Murphy - Treasurer and Membership Coordinator
• Rich Heslip - Secretary

Assisting the executive in 2005 will be:

• Patsy Bradley - Fundraising
• John Galway - Trailmaster
• Hugh Walford - Webmaster

Thanks to our outgoing Trailmaster Steve Knobel for his excellent work mapping and signing the trail system this year.

TRAX Snowmobile, ATV and Trailer Show at Landsdowne Park Oct. 16 & 17

The show gave us a free booth - it was a great success for the club ! We had one of the busiest booths in our area of the show. We handed out over 200 club information sheets and had many long conversations with interested prospective new club members.

Thanks to Dan Vorano, Rich Heslip, Mike Devereau, Wilfred St John, Dan & Dave Murphy and Mike Pastor for staffing the booth.

Events like this will definitely raise the profile of our club in a positive manner.

Oct 30 Trail Maintenance

This is our last formal run of the year. We will meet at Alice's at 10am and head out to do some brushing and cleanup work on E104. Hopefully not too much work so we'll some late season riding in too. Bring your chainsaw, loppers, a few garbage bags etc and a lunch.

Christmas Party

Attendance at previous year's parties has been low, so if you want a party let the exec know. Mike will be sending out an email and posting on the website bulletin board, or you can just call one of us. If there is sufficient interest the plan is to go to the Mandarin Chinese buffet in Kanata on Friday Nov 26, and everyone will pay for their own meals and drinks.

Newsletter Mailers

In order to save some time and costs on snail mail we will be sending hardcopy newsletters only to those without email.

Finally...

If anyone has any questions, comments, suggestions or are willing to help out in any way with the running of the club, please contact our presedent, Michael Pastor  Hugh Walford.

Remember – have fun and be safe !

Rich Heslip