Snowy Range Snowmobile Club
March 2023 Meeting Minutes
Started at: 6:05 PM
Adjourned at: 6:49 PM.
Attendance (in person/online): 13 in person. 6 online.
Membership Update: 124 total. Still working through differentiating the types and tabulating everyone. I have all new members in our contacts but working on the list for WSSA.
Spring BBQ: Lake Marie BBQ on April 1st, 2023. Meet at 9:00 AM at the 3C Guide shop. We can go for a morning ride, then meet at Lake Marie around noon for food. Come out, eat food (we’ll provide this) and ride sleds. Planning this will ensure it DUMPS snow! I’ll email this out separately. Keith is willing to haul stuff in for this with his tracked SxS the day before.
Assorted: Couple people have had issues with getting the beacon check sign to work. Batteries getting low? We need to get the signs out before they start opening the road. We may want to start pulling them at the BBQ on the 1st of April.
Keith proposed buying an “Owl” device for our meetings: to help audio for those joining online. Meeting Owl 3 is $1049 (ouch!). Sunny & Justin have something similar we could use at future meetings.
For cutting wood in the fall, could we split the group between both sites [Nelson & Quealy] if there’s good turn out? Would save time.
April Meeting? Tentatively have a BBQ for it. Shannon from WSSA will compile the ideas from the scholarship applicants about boosting memberships. We can go over this stuff at our April meeting.
We could update the Club’s logo? Maybe do a logo contest? WSSA had no luck trying this idea. Otherwise we can pay someone to do this. A new member works in this world, we could see if they’d be interested.
Apple Watches & Phones, be aware of the new “Crash Alert” system. Albany County SAR has had a few call outs for false alarms with these. Please make sure you’ve got the latest update (reduced sensitivity) and better yet turn it off while you’re out riding. If your watch triggers a crash alert SAR [all volunteers] has to deploy to check it out even if you’re fine.
Widow Maker slid sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 AM today (3/16/23). Expect an active weekend up there & be careful.
Cameron proposed joining the SE WY OHV club. They have a bunch of members that run tracked SxS and ride the Range.
The Colorado Blizzards club does a lot in our area. They’re having a ride in the Range sometime in April. They have a website: http://www.coloradoblizzards.com/ But seem to be more active on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoBlizzards
They have more group rides than we do, you might consider joining them in addition to us. Perhaps we can coordinate joint events in the future? New officer position: event coordinator?
Business Matter:
We do not have a valid tax ID for the club. Paypal is now withholding all funds that come to us as memberships (donations are excepted) until we provide a valid tax ID number. We need to re-establish our non-profit status for this to be resolved. Currently, $2625 is being held and ultimately 24% of that will be sent to the IRS as backup withholding if we don’t address this.
At the federal level we need to be a non-profit organization to avoid having dues paid through online services like Paypal or Venmo charged as income and taxed as such.
Sunny said she can work on this; how’s it going, and can we be of help? Hasn’t had a chance to dig into yet, Mitch is willing to help.
WSSA Update: Fun Days 2023 was in Alpine. 9 scholarships were awarded for the ‘22/’23 season. For next year, approximately $19,000 was raised for the fund at Fun Days auction, and $7,000 was raised for the ACCESS Wyoming program.
$16558 generated by the raffle ticket sales, and half ($8292) went back to clubs that sold the tickets.
Elections went through, and a new secretary was voted in. Sunny will work with them to ensure a smooth transition.
Next WSSA Meeting: Saratoga September 16th will be the Fall meeting for WSSA.
Some folks at Fun Days spent the night on the mountain, and reiterated the importance of being prepared. InReach, radios, extra base layers, fire starters, etc. etc.
Future WSSA Fun Days:
2024 in Dubois first weekend in March and 2025 in Rock Springs.
Hill Climb Championship is coming up next weekend in Jackson. This is a big fundraiser for snowmobiling in Wyoming.
State Trails Update:
Job Opportunity: State Trails has been having a hard time getting down here with the roads. They’re looking for people that would be interested in working for State Trails Program in our region & based here.
State Trails is restructuring: Jordy is going to handle the trails systems for the whole state (instead of just the West) while Josh moves to more paperwork/admin side. They’ve been having issues hiring and retention, and have restructured hierarchy in the Program to provide better opportunities for people to advance their careers within the Program. Please reach out to State Trails for specifics and/or if you’re interested in working with them.
Look for another snowmobile permit fee increase in 2025 due to the increased fuel costs, equipment, etc.
State Trails has a pamphlet on their site for economic impact in Wyoming. I’ll try to locate it and share it. No luck, just a highly detailed report: https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/program-information-trails
Treasurer Update: Were donations made to ACSSAR and Carbon County SAR? Yes. After those payments and other expenses (WSSA ACCESS Wyoming & scholarship donations, and WSSA membership fees for our members), we have $9953.74 in checking, and we’ve got $2625 held in PayPal jail.
Parking Update: Cameron filmed on his drive up during a “slow” weekend to illustrate how many people are on the mountain. Josh has had counters up on the mtn this season to get user numbers. This is good data for parking update support.
State Trails reinforced what our USFS Liaison officer gave us for a parking lot update in February. Things are looking good on this front but continued support of the parking lot improvements directed at the USFS would be a good move.
Grooming Update: Huts will be going out April 3rd. Grooming ends April 1st. Straight from State Trails.
Next Meeting: April 20th at 6:00 PM.
Topics:
The WSSA scholarship topic was something along the lines of “how to get more young riders involved with clubs to advocate for snowmobiling”. Shannon (WSSA) summarizes the submitted essays as a sort of free research. We’ll talk about those ideas.
We need to decide when to hold elections.
Touch base on non-profit status.