Expectations of your snowmobile club?

[Snowlover]

What is the purpose of a snowmobile club? What are your expectations? Big club events? Little club events? Year round events with summer parties? Christmas parties? Adult only meeting places? Family play days?

What can inspire more member participation?

Meeting peeps for rides is as easy as putting a post on Snowest, so do you really need a club to find sledders?

 

[FZ700]

Snowlover,
I'm the secretary of the Foxtailers Snowmobile Club of St. Michael Minnesota. Our objective is to keep the remaining trails open in St. Michael, Albertville, and the surrounding areas for future riders (our children). The Foxtailers conduct Youth Snowmobile Safety classes. Club members maintain over 40 miles of trails and we work hard in securing landowners permission to keep the trails going through their property. We hold an annual golf tournament, fall fundraiser, family get together in the spring, and radar run. The Foxtailers also built/sponsored the track for the USCC event held in St. Michael January 2007. That was a great event! We have our annual club ride and try to get in a monthly ride in our local area (snow permitting).
The Foxtailers also donate approximately $5,000 from our fundraising proceeds to the local non-profit organizations like the Hanover Food shelf, the St. Michael Foundation, and Caring for Kids. Our club has also set up a $500 scholarship program with the local High School.

We meet once a month at the local watering hole to conduct our meetings.
Many cities in Minnesota have already closed trails in their communities. We, I mean the volunteers in our club, work many hour to keep the trails open.

Pierre

 

[R J]

What is the purpose of a snowmobile club? What are your expectations? Big club events? Little club events? Year round events with summer parties? Christmas parties? Adult only meeting places? Family play days?

What can inspire more member participation?

Meeting peeps for rides is as easy as putting a post on Snowest, so do you really need a club to find sledders?

The purpose of our club: (Which is a working club that marks and grooms trails, gets funding for the miles we have, and is more or less a group of commited individuals that wants the sport to grow and or at least maintain) We are not out there to simply ride together. Most club members don't ride together at all. We all have our responibilities within the club, some ride to locations once in a while but were one of the clubs that provide for everyone to enjoy the sport. More work then social. We do have two smaller clubs within our main club that does more of the social things, that's fine. Those clubs aren't tasked with getting state funding, paperwork, landowner stuff etc. But they are needed because some of them do work towards the big picture.

Join a club, donate some of your time doing whatever it is you like and you will have a much greater appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes then you can ever imagine. It will put things into a whole different persepective.

 

[Snowlover]

Thanks for input. I am in a club, and an active member of SAWS, but curious about what makes some other clubs work. We have been successful, but need revitalized due to major burnout from key members working so hard on previous functions.

 

[Dobber1]

Thanks for input. I am in a club, and an active member of SAWS, but curious about what makes some other clubs work. We have been successful, but need revitalized due to major burnout from key members working so hard on previous functions.

I hope someone posts with all the answers, but it's really the 90/10 Rule and probably will never change. There is "something" about this sport, but not everybody gets "it".

 

[Spiffy]

Having a club is having the cruel challenge of balancing work and social. the social part is easy, anyone can find like minded individuals to go out riding with. The work part is the hard part, and often the most gratifying.

<I know much of this may not be pertainate to many of you, but interesting none the less>
Here in Ontario we have a trail system consisting on 242 clubs, operating approx. 42,000 km of trails, 9250 volunteers giving over 75,000 hrs of service and I forget how many landowners.(our club itself has 125)
We do trail patrol days, hang out at the side of the trail, offer warm drinks, etc. and talk to all the riders that stop. There is nothing more gratifying than 200-300 riders riding past you on your trails that day and many letting you know how good it was. Next to that is the good feelings from doing my part in keeping our trails open in this time of "me me me" and "sue sue sue".
My personal favourite is riding around the province checking out all the clubhouses and chatting with others.

If you have any interest please check out our provincial website to see some of the stuff that we do here.
www.ofsc.on.ca

Spiffy - Volunteer Coordinator
http://www.adsc.ca

Making more than Great Trails!

 

[R J]

Whats really interesting to me with this topic is how few people have responded to it. Kind of shows how many people simply just ride and don't really do anything to promote it.

 

[Blu Du]

don't be a retard rj. we haven't had groomable snow for 8 yrs now.

 

[Jeff C]

Whats really interesting to me with this topic is how few people have responded to it. Kind of shows how many people simply just ride and don't really do anything to promote it.

Come on RJ, just because people do not respond?

BluDu is correct..........

 

[HMS]

clubs

everyone that reads this should call their state snowmobile associations and find out all the things they do to protect our ability to ride on public lands. here in idaho the association fly to dc multiple times a year to represent what we all love to do, but washington listens to big groups of people not small ones, thats where the greenies have the advantage on us in that they have big memberships. membership in the idaho state snowmobile association is at an all time low, when they are threatening so many of our areas. everyone needs to unite for this cause because the associations and the clubs are about much more then grooming and fun runs.

 

[Oregongirl]

What is interesting to me here, is that all the club specific feedback is from back East. We are lucky here in the NW that most of our riding systems are on public lands. But....our luck is running out. All the best snow fall happens on land owned by the government and there are ALOT of forces at work to stop any and all motorized recreation on those lands. The 90/10 rule isn't going to stop that.

 

[catmt]

Local Clubs

My hubby and I joined our local club last december, paid our dues, went to the meetings, signed up to help with different things that were going on. We are new to the riding area and hoped that by joining the club we would find someone to help us get to know the area. Well, we found that we would not be joining again this year. Know one seemed to want to embrace new members, we never got a call to help with anything that was planned. So as far as we are concerned we will not be joining, it wasn't worth our time.

 

[The Fourth Wolf]

Excellent topic

I'm on the board of my club, the Anchorage Snowmobile Club.

We work with state and federal agencies as well as with other orgs to keep areas open to sleds. We do trail clearing and maintenance. We also represent non affiliated snowmobilers to government when closures are proposed.

We organize club rides mostly to have fun and events to raise awareness more than money. If we could get just half of Alaska's riders to join ANY club that would give us far more ammo when going to bat with anti-sled officials in the Forest Service and BLM.

Even if you never go to a meeting you owe it to the sport(that you already spend thousands on) to join your state association.

 

[robwashdvm]

I am glad to see some responses on here from riders in the Western States. I am also glad the tone of this thread has changed from what you should expect from your local club to what you should DO for your local club.

There was another thread in the Idaho section a week or two ago that began about a monument plaque that fell. The bigger issue that surfaced was land use in that area and declining membership in the local club. Here were some stats that 4GR8X posted (that have been corrected) for the state of Idaho.

Registered snowmobiles: 52,200 +/-
ID State Snowmobile Assn members: 1,100 +/-
Club members in the area in question: 35 +/-

In my mind that is a statement to the fact that too many riders are either taking their riding areas for granted or feel they are entitled to use these areas no matter what. With the recent changes in Washington and several of our home states, we as responsible snowmobilers, need to become aware and much more active in our local areas to keep them open. I encourage all who read this to become members of local and state clubs, if for no other reason than to provide them with resources and numbers to continue the good work of maintaining and protecting our riding areas. Thanks for all these responses, hopefully this will do some good.

Robert

 

[Weekday Warrior]

I joined less than a year ago, joined because I was already riding with a lot of the folks in the club.

thought I'd sign up for some projects/cleanups etc as my goofy work schedule allowed. So far I've missed almost every event, either didn't know it was happening or was working.

Kinda surprised me of the vast spectrum of peeps that were in there, some of the folks really get into the politics of the thing lol

 

[Snowlover]

Glad to see this did not die. I try to represent SAWS @ every meeting and we talk about closures that are possible, like Mt St Helens. What I was curious about was the camaraderie and social aspects. One key may be focusing on a specific area that we can "adopt" as a home area and work to clear trails and be more involved in that area. We have put tons of work into one particular big event each year in the past, but it has grown to a level that takes more work than can be managed by a club volunteer. We either need to reduce the size of the event or move towards a more simple sled related service for our focus.

 

[m8inthemtns]

Our local clubs work together with the Forest Service. We help maintain trails, etc. The OSSA has also provided our club with a groomer for the area. We would not be able to have a groomer without a club. Hopefully this cooperation helps with keeping the areas open. Being a member of a club has been a very positive experience for my family.

 

[BackCountryBob]

I joined the Mile Hi SMC in Denver a few years ago mainly to find a more divrerse group of riders. This year I am on the board and the Safety VP.

Our club does summer trail work as many members ride dirt bikes and ATV and we communicate regularly with the Colorado Snowmobile Assoc. Half our dues goes to CSA and funds are used to go to visit with our state politicians in Washington because, like all the western states, our right to ride depends solely on the whim of the Forest Service which has been infultrated by the Sierra Club. Jack Welsh, one of the founders of the Blue Ribbon Coalition is a member of the club and is working very hard to foster multiuse in our NFs.

We also help with fund raising for Flight for Life which is an important asset for all back country users.

We have monthly safety seminars with invited guests: Colorado State Patrol,
Colorado Avalanche Center, USGS on mapping and GPS, Xtreme Performance Center, and me.

We also work with most of the local sled dealerships with our VIP advertising and in return receive a member discount on parts, service and accessories.

We usually have one 3/4 day over night club ride at a ride in/out location as well as bi-weekly group rides and a group that rides midweek.

I would invite you to visit our web site but it is under construction at present. We meet the first Wednesday of the month in Lakewood, Co.
Any questiions, PM me.

BCB

 

[R J]

don't be a retard rj. we haven't had groomable snow for 8 yrs now.

That's funny, the snodeo's and many, many clubs in your area have traded equipment in of around 1500-2000 hours in less then those 8 years you talk about. Maybe you need to get out of house a bit more.


And one other thing, WHAT IN THE F!@# DOES SNOW CONDITIONS DICTATE IF YOU ARE A CLUB MEMBER OR NOT? You have got to be kidding me! So we should simply close up shop if it doesn't snow? What if it snowed the next day after closing up shop? It's not something that can come and go in a New York Minute.

 

[R J]

My hubby and I joined our local club last december, paid our dues, went to the meetings, signed up to help with different things that were going on. We are new to the riding area and hoped that by joining the club we would find someone to help us get to know the area. Well, we found that we would not be joining again this year. Know one seemed to want to embrace new members, we never got a call to help with anything that was planned. So as far as we are concerned we will not be joining, it wasn't worth our time.

This pisses me off. Why do others have to go out of their way to make you do something important or worthy? Jesus, join a club, do some stuff, get involved with projects and as time goes by you may or may not find another riding partner or group. It's YOUR responsibility to make things happen, not others in a club.

You are the type of person that just gets my goat. I have been in this club that I'm in since I was 9 years old. I have been grooming since I was 16 and I did that on my own. I rode along, went out of my way to help with things, getting involved and I'm satisfied everytime I go and do something. Countless times new members and exisiting members say they want to go grooming or whatever it is. I say here is my number, I will be grooming at this time or that and give me a call. If they want to do it they will seek me out. Plain and simple. When I go groom for the club I'm not about to call every member and give them warm fuzzies and ask for them to come along.

Why can't people take on things without having to get a reach around first?