Meeting Minutes     January 8, 2004 Meeting called to order at 7:35 p.m. by Richard Yeargan. Members Attending: Ron DeLaney Mike & Sally Molé Gary & Carol Pearson Don Weber Mark & Emily Stoller Mike & Tami Stoller Dean Dark Pete Elmer Scott Dickinson Fred Michel Sharon & Bob Sutton Richard & Gigi Yeargan Larry & Carol Whitehead Del Albright Gareth & Carol Hilborn and Scar Dave Langelier Jerry Thompson Buddy Kirkes Trina Cooper Ken Ketterling Guests: Don & Marlene Riddle . President’s Report: Richard hopes to serve another term. Slow month no report. Vice President’s Report: Absent Treasurer’s Report: $501.22 taken in 4 memberships so far. $145 there. Pay up before next month’s meeting so Mark can send out dues to U4WD. Circulate email from U4WD, weather report for WFF and another magazine for people to see with a picture of Del hunting on the cover. Secretary’s Report: None other to thank Tami for her help the past year. Membership: Status quo. Riddle’s are back. Ron will follow up with folks from the past to see if still interested. Once the dues issue is straight, Ron will make contact with those that have not paid up to see whether they are still interested. Delegate’s Report: No functions lately, but will be attending CA4WD Convention. We do need to decide whether he will be our delegate. We do have one more meeting to discuss the by-law decision and who the voting delegate will be. We will decide at next month’s meeting. Land Use & Conservation: Del-brought copy of an “Backroad Adventures” SUV book that he did a review of. There are more in the series. Can by several places online. Many trail and GPS coordinates, good information. Pete said he recommended Roger Mitchell books. Del agreed and said those books were used in defending Death Valley closures. Convention sent in and we will have a table together. We have room for 12 at the table. WFF coming up. Good attendance expected again, near 600 planned attendance. Still working on Stanislaus Interface Plan, will be closed completely to 4wds, even though the areas are major dirt roads. These is a group banding to appeal the record of decision to Regional office in San Francisco and then Washington D.C. if necessary. Will be open to dirt bikes and ATVs. Summit Level and Calaveras Dome areas will be affected. Appeals can last for years and years. Del’s wacko article is getting him more email from all parts of the world. More so than any other article than he has written. His mom and dad were in the motorhome with him and they never heard a thing and he didn’t tell them. Rumor that Del wants to get Mike Stoller for things he has done on the website. Also says that he is doing a great job. Mark moves to waive Mike’s dues, seconded by Mike Mole. Passed unanimously. BRC Magazime is on the counter for everyone. Del would like the club plan a trip to Moab again. Nice time to go is in the fall. Trina said week afterh Labor Day was great. Del said maybe we can use the chat forum. Mike told everyone how to access the member area. Correspondence: Ron passed bank statement to Mark. CA4WD raffle tickets and requests for donations to the raffle. United Voice. Stanislaus Forest information. Del’s magazine. Letter from Del-was sent to 700 4WD clubs telling how to organize, who to buy stuff from (are they donating to the cause in some fashion?) and Del says it is starting to be effective. Eg. Cabela’s just joined with Tread Lightly. Don W. asked if there was a list? Del said there wasn’t. Del was going to make a list, but some of his groups got nervous. Word of mouth is best, so if you want to buy, ask someone for a recommendation of where to get stuff. REI and Ben & Jerry’s will not support off-road vehicles at all, so please consider that when buying your food and outdoor gear. Ron said this was also a deciding factor when he was looking to purchase his trailer. El Dorado Forest stuff. Old Business: T-Shirts and windshield banners still for sale-Mike or Tami. Hats-Ron is out of hats, but will be getting more. New Business: Nominations from the Floor: None. Election of Officers. Richard for President. Trina, Dave and Mike Mole’ for Vice President. Sally for secretary. Mark for Treasurer. Ron for membership chair. Land use/delegate=Del for lifetime. Only need to vote on VP. Del said that we should have a speech from each of the candidates. Trina said she wants to be more active and help Richard. When asked by Del whether she had aspiration of being president? She said yes. Richard asked about job interference. Trina said she is looking for a new job, no guarantee and could be gone 3 mos of the year. Mike said he and Sally are relatively new members. He wants to be more active and to get our name recognized as a positive influence in the community. He works at Wells Fargo in Jackson. It is a great organization to be part of. Dave said he votes for Trina and withdraws his nomination. Dean wants to ask about what they will do about making us more known throughout the state. Trina said attending in more outside activities. It would be nice to see us out more and participate in more community events. Work with Richard and other officers to come up with more ideas. Mike said he agrees with Trina and also attends other community events and will be able to take our name out to the community there. Two candidates sent outside while the membership votes. 18 votes for Trina, 6 for Mike. Trina is new VP. Del said that there are lots of ways to be more active. Step up and do something and keep working your way up. Take on a run, plan a run, be a trail boss, Del will help you set up a system. By-law change proposals: Ron said that last month it was suggested to make the webmaster an officer position. Mike said it is a hassle to make changes. Richard said there needs to be recognition. Richard said it should be something like communications/webmaster only and the public relations piece should be delegated to someone else. Mark move to make an officer (webmaster), second by Del. Jerry, if he is elected, will he be part of the Board of Directors? He will not be per the by-laws. Appointed position. Propose to eliminate the immediate past-president from the Board of Directors. Bay Area Backroads-Don W. is on tv and the guy drives a jeep. Don wrote to them to see whether they might be interested in what we do. Don read his letter and the response that he received back. They said to gather our promotional material and send it to their producers. Pete said he knows them personally and can help Don make contact with them. They did part of a show on the Rubicon. Comes on Sunday evenings. Gary said should send to Jeep also. We should decide what we feel would be best to include them in. This would get our name out there regionally. Del will help them. Pete, Don, Del and Buddy will be the committee for that. Ron is going to send the member roster around so everyone can update. We also need to get emergency cards made so we can get members to fill out and put in thir rigs. We do hope to have available at the next meeting to update if necessary. Past Runs: Xmas Party December 6 at Richard & Gigi’s. Had a good time. The christmas tree that was there was taken down and donated to a family to enjoy. Dec 27-Jan 4 Doran Beach-Ron reported that there were a few bad weather days. His trailer tongue broke at the frame. It will be an expensive fix for him. This happended at Camping World. The trailer almost hit his truck from behind. Took a special low boy trailer with permits that cost him more money. $640 to tow it 8 miles. He went home and got his other trailer and headed for the beach. 8 families attended. Did some sightseeing, went to dinner (28 people). New Year’s Eve was celebrated on Chicago time and then went to bed (2 hrs ahead of us). There was some flooding. Last 2 days was perfect weather and a good time was had by all. If we are going to do it again, then need to make campsite reservations in June and not later than September. Future Runs: January 15 WFF-We are doing Saturday night dinner. 11 families and we are camping in the same area as last year. Richard has the whole terraces campground reserved so no need to reserve sites. If it is too wet to get there, we will all be together in some other place per Sam Grow. We can pull some cash to donate for the raffle. Tami moves to authorize Don to get a $50.00 gift certificate for 4wheel parts wholesalers. Second by Mark. Passed unanimously. Mike said he might also bring some stuff to the silent auction. Iron Mountain Road.-March 6. Ron called and left a message for Dana Hall for a weekend in March to do snow patrol. Hasn’t heard anything back yet. Hope for March 6th. We can go do survey anyways and then go play. Topaz snow run-possibly February 7-8. We need to book as a group to hold a block. We need to know by next week who is going to save the rooms. Reserve a few pet rooms. Mike will call the lodge and check on rates. FOTR Meeting in Sacramento February 21 at CA4WD office. 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., register on Del’s website. Hollister Hills-May 1-2. If we do Hollister, we might get the group campsite which has showers. Also considering Clear Creek-Gary is familiar with that area. Don says we can go down on Sunday. Discuss at the next meeting. Del’s Death Valley Run-March 27 to April 4. No new guests. Disneyland-Richard & Gigi tentative March 19-22nd. Get in tough with Richard. They are having AAA make their reservation. Joaquin Jeepers Crab Feed on January 31. Contact Ken for tickets. Scott said he is going to Moab on April 16th. 18 hour drive, leave to come home the following Saturday morning. Good weather and after the big run. Shaver Lake 4th of July weekend. Del would like to do Barrett Lake trail in August. Del said it is a rough trail, very technical. Beautiful scenery. Ron wants to sponsor another novice trainig day again. Teach winching, trail etiquette, why to air down. Ron has a presentation he would like to share with the club. June or July would be good. Invite local tv. Ron going to Winemucca for Memorial Day. Ron wants to do Hell Hole again this year. We also need to leave time to open our adopt-a-trails in June/July. Next meeting February 5th. Adjourn: 9:33 p.m.