Chapter Meeting Minutes - 7/13/09

Jay Wilkes opened the meeting thanking Canyon Burgers in Woodstock for providing hamburger meals for tonight’s meeting. Everyone was encouraged to visit all the businesses who have provided meals for our meetings and thank them for their support.

National Mountain Bike Patrol training was conducted last Saturday, 7/11/09. we had 28 patrollers certified, more than twice the number in past years. SORBA Woodstock paid for the training for each patroller and will provide each a NMBP jersey. The suggestion was made that we have some way to indicate at the trailhead when any of our bike patrollers are on the trail (i.e., a magnet with our name on the $1 box). We will explore the options and report back to the chapter.

There was discussion about the recent injured teen who was extracted by boat from the Dwelling Loop. As many may have seen, it was covered by one of the local TV stations—obviously a slow news day. He initially complained of neck pain and the emergency responders took every precaution to immobilize him and transport him to the hospital. Fortunately, the rider was treated and released without any severe injuries.

There have been a few other injuries requiring emergency responders, including a first time rider who suffered head and shoulder injuries immediately following the bike patrol training class and another rider with a compound leg fracture. There was also a recommendation that we send out an e-mail to all bike patrollers to alert them to demo days at Blankets Creek due to the number and experience level of riders that those events attract.

Jay gave an update on the Olde Rope Mill project. The City of Woodstock has voted to fund building the Taylor Randahl Memorial Trail, providing $150,000 in their 2010 budget. We expect this to be about 10 miles of trail on the north and south sides of Little River that will be connected by a pedestrian/bike bridge the City will build across the river at the park. It will likely be a two year project for SORBA Woodstock. We have already flagged and mapped the trail. The plan is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That process will take approximately 90 days which will bring us to a start date for work on the trails sometime this fall.

We are still in the process of setting up our new web site. As we have reported earlier, we have contracted with a company for this service rather than use freeware that is more subject to being hacked. This site has features that will allow us to do a better job of distributing information to members. We also continue to get new people signed up for our Facebook page, which is another vehicle we use for communicating about our chapter activities.

As we have publicized, we will have a group ride at Raccoon Mountain this coming Saturday, 7/18/09 at 11:00 am. A group will leave the Blankets Creek parking lot at 8:30 am or you can meet at the trail. It is an intermediate ride with sweepers and there will be a faster group, too.

We have a meeting with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Cherokee Recreation and Parks Agency on Thursday, 8/6/09, to review our relationship and future projects and plans.

We have designed a SORBA Woodstock jersey that has been for sale on our web site for $45. Bill Blount designed it and Kevin Long has found a company to make them at a very competitive price. The deadline for ordering is 7/31/09 and we will have a fit kit at the August meeting to confirm sizes.

Thanks to Charlie Shultz for repairing the dingo.

Jeff Murchison has published our trail data for June on our web site which continues to show very heavy usage on the Dwelling Loop.