NEA4WD Meeting Notes:

Topics Covered:

Land Access:
CT: There's the potential for a 100 acre ORV part in Waterbury CT, which is described by the EPA as a 'Brownfield'. What that means is that, due to the industrial use of the land in the past, it would either need significant investment to become usable for residential construction or would be need significant improvements to be commercially viable. The town of Waterbury has had this property for 30 years, unused, with only one bridge in and out - which would need to be upgraded / replaced in order to support any commercial / industrial traffic. The CT membership has petitioned the city with the proposal to make it an off road park, which would contain approximately 5 miles of trails that larger vehicles could navigate.

NH: The NH work continues, with Scott Hatch leading the effort. There are a few trails in the process of being cleared and mapped, which should start to become available over the course of the next year. This includes the political work that's required in order to make the Class VI roads available for use, both on their own and as part of an off road circuit.

VT: There is some legislation in the works that will make cities and towns officially declare roads that in their jurisdictions. This is important as there are a number of roads that are no longer clearly visible as rights of way as some have faded into the history books and are only listed on roads on the oldest of state maps. This reason this is important as this will help to identify what can and cannot be traveled to and from usable lands.

ME:
Not too much to report in Maine, other than there's a person that bought a sizeable chunk of land in Lewiston and is, right now, offering the runs up for free, in trade for sweat equity to help clear the land - which includes primitive camping.


2007 Meeting Locations:
The delegates responsible for this did not attend, but the next meeting is going to be held in VT.

Fall Crawl:
The event is just about full. It's been wildly successful and, based upon the feedback that I was given by one of the NEA4WD officers, it would be a good run for an Xterra.

United Convention Meeting:
The meeting will be held later this month and one of the officers will be in attendance. The goal of her attendance is three-fold in that she will 1) Represent NEA4WD; 2) Learn as much as she can about items that she can then bring back to the group and; 3) Present to the leadership there the proposal to hold the 2008 meeting in NH.

NEA Store front:
Two business members had presented their responses to the RFPs (Requests for Proposal) with their desire to sell NEA4WD merchandise on their sites. The two vendors (7slotgrills.com and allthingsjeep.com) gave back basic responses, but based upon the experience that allthingsjeep.com had in the business, the decision was made to go with them, offering 7slotgrills.com the option to be a supporting vendor.

Approve Full Member Status:
Mass Mudders were approved by all clubs in attendance. They promote good trail use and personal (as well as club-level) responsibility for the land that they use, which includes working with the local legal organizations to assure that only approved people use the primary trails in their area.

Access for All vehicle:
The vehicle is tuned up, with new fluids all around. The next step will be to install the suspension components and paint it, with the goal that it will be ready for the Fall Crawl.

Membership Requirements:
The NEA4WD, as an organization, had a standard that a club could not become a full member until such time as an officer went on a run with that probationary club to assess them and their group. However, when UNYX was up for a vote, it was found that that bylaw did not actually exist and that it had only been assumed over the years. As a result, UNYX was able to be voted into full membership without this step. Although this benefitted our inclusion into the group, I voted in favor of the decision to have the official bylaws modified to state that a probationary club must have an officer or one of their delegates on a run that results in good feedback to the larger membership before being voted in to full membership status.


This is the brief overview of the meeting, which will be covered in more depth in the meeting minutes when they are published.

Sven.

Thanks Mike!

Awesome write-up!

Glad to help.