November Meeting Minutes

[WrenchMonkey]

In Attendance:
- Members -
- Brad Bean
- "Big" Jim Crawford
- "Lil" Jimmy Crawford
- Robert Hull
- Kevin O'Bryan
- Pat Patton
- Jeff Ratliff
- Zach Smith
- Chris Vaske


Treasury Report:
Yes, we have money. Specific Treasurer Reports in the Members forum here.


Trail Report:

- Rush Offroad, Oct 27-28
It was a cold wet weekend, but it was still better than a good day at work. With the rain Friday night,Tony, Eric and I decided to drive down Saturday morning. It was clear that we weren't going to make any of the bog-name obstacles, so we just went exploring instead.

We ran the south route, Trail 43, to get over to Three Pole, then dropped into the valley to the right of RockGod and rode Trail 10 all the way out to 11. On the way, I found a mudhole that came up over the hood, and filled the air box. I got it restarted, but it ran like crap the rest of the weekend.

We stopped for lunch at a cool old graveyard near the junction of Trails 11 and 3, it had stones from the 1860s to 1993. From there we kept on to the actual "Three Pole" mark on the map. Even in the crappy weather, the view was impressive, but the powerline hills were slick enough to be scary.

Cold and wet, we called it a day early, and headed back to camp for dinner at the fire, followed by a gallon of cider and a fifth of fireball.

Early Sunday morning, a kid from the next camp asked if we could help recover a stuck RZR. After we agreed, he elaborated. It was two RZRs. Both broken. All the way on Three Pole. In one of the ravines we had looked at Saturday. We got the tire fixed on one pretty quick, and he drove it out. The other was dead in the water, and took us all day to winch it out, breaking Tony's cable in the process.

LIke I said, it was a cold, wet, muddy weekend, but it was still way better than any good day at work.

The hero of the trip was Eric's Rubicon. He towed his camping trailer down there, kept up with us in the slop all weekend, then towed it home again. Pretty impressive.


Upcoming Events:

- Trail Work at Rich's Farm, Nov 23
This is looking like a bust, just a bad weekend for everybody. Unless there is a huge spike in interest (in the next couple days), it'll probably get moved back to spring.

- Club Christmas Party, Dec 1
A little earlier this year, but the other details are all pretty similar. Jeff and the Smiths were gracious enough to invite us back. The Club will buy Subway and we'll all bring our own side dish, we'll have a white elephant gift exchange, traditional bonfire, and much merriment! Check in and sign up here.

- Hangover Run, New Years Day
A Haspin-holiday tradition...


Official Business:

- 2019 Event Calendar
We've got a thread going here, please stop in and make your voice heard. We talked about Badlands, and since they close the trails early, we thought it would be a good place to go before daylight savings, since it will get dark early anyway. That would put it the second weekend of March at the latest.

Nothing set yet, just discussions and ideas...

- Member Benefits
It's getting to be renewal time again, and we like to show as much value in a paid Membership as we can. A couple of new ideas that were tossed about were a Club-purchased year pass to Rush, to be raffled among paid Members; and/or a Club sponsored cookout at one of the popular rides, possibly Rush on Fourth of July or Labor Day.

We'll discuss it among the Officers and Members and see what everyone else thinks.


Other News and Happenings:
Some of us know Steven Krug, others have probably met him even if they don't know him by name. He's wheeled with us a few times, usually at Dirty Turtle, in a purple ZJ with a green fender.

Steven was involved in a very serious car crash in Burlington last month. He was working his part time job delivering pizzas, and he was t-boned by some asshole runnning 120mph down Burlington Pike. The accident scene was horrific and made all the news channels. Transmission gears were found a hundred yards from the crash.

They air-cared Steven out, and he spent weeks in the hospital. He is recovering, but has a long road to go.

Anyone who who like to help, there is a benefit scheduled Dec 8th at Muggbees in Florence, more info here, and a gofundme account set up here.

Any help you can give for a genuinely great guy, who was a true innocent victim, is truly appreciated!