Hello Members of EOTB

This is to let you know that, as Vice President and Treasurer, I have called a meeting of the executive of EOTB to discuss a number of issues. The meeting is scheduled for next week.

If you have anything you would like to raise with the executive, please feel free to call or email me and let me know your concerns or interests.

We do not have many meetings of the club membership – I try to use emails, the website and the telephone hot line to keep you up to date. If you feel that the methods I am using to keep you up to date are not sufficient, please let me know. We could have a membership meeting in the near future if you want, or more newsletters. I would be interested in your view.

In the meantime, here is a little status report on some items:

We have had a pretty good year – lots of outings – lots of new people – I think we have only missed a couple of weekends since last winter – lots of new trails – and a doubling in membership, a result primarily of the work that Roger and I have done on the web (he really deserves that trophy he won) as well as the New Offroaders Program that I started last spring (I am receiving an average of one email a week from new people interested in offroading), not to mention the seminars that I started last February.

Evan and I have been busy all summer scouting out new trails – we have had help from Trevor, Sebastien and Yannick – thanks guys. It is hard work because often it results in nothing, but we have had some successes. However, I have had to go to the government to find out who owns land and work with land owners to negotiate use of the trails. This has been quite time consuming. We still have no resolution at Galetta, despite many hours of work on my part in negotiation, and a couple of other trails that Evan and I have found still require further investigation. Problems with land owners has resulted in having to work closer with other clubs in Ottawa to ensure that organized off roading is done in a manner consistent with respecting private property so that our clubs do not become tainted by people who go off and use private land on their own and give us all a bad reputation. Unfortunately, it has happened. We are also faced with dangers related to having our trails barred to us – this is a provincial problem and we have been working with other clubs as well as Northern Lights to lobby politicians to keep land open.

But as far as the future is concerned: trail runs continue to be organized and offered most every weekend using a variety of trails to keep us interested and challenged. We have some plans to offer more night runs over the next few weeks – starting with some of the easier trails in the area – at night everything is hard but a lot of fun.

If you have any suggestions for events or something you would like to see the club do, please let me know.

So..once again – if you have any issues you want brought up with the executive or if you have anything else, please let me know.

best regards

Harold Kohn
Vice President and Treasurer
EOTB Inc.