Welcome to Junuary and the return of a Christensen to the president’s chair. I don’t know how long it has been, I’ll have to look through some old old letters and see.

The first order of business is to thank the past president Kim Tinker for doing a great job over the past year. Things went smooth and the club put on two good snooooow covered races and the pull clinic. THANK YOU Kim

Next I would like to jump in right where Kim jumped off at, the State of the Club address. She warned us that it might offend someone, I hope not because it’s spot on. So I’m going to add my thoughts to hers. I love plagiarism.

1. The economy of the club is healthy and we have done that while at the same time improving the things that we have (new race bibs, time boards and putting on the BBQs at the last race of the season). New ideas on keeping the club financially healthy are always welcome. I encourage everyone to be a participant, it’s a fun group and we all have a lot in common.

2. The environment: Global warming, Al Gore got the memo but not Mother Nature as the snow is still coming down in some parts of Oregon. We do need to be proactive with the grooming issues and this has already begun with a meeting planned with the Forest Service at the June meeting. Becoming a member of the snowmobile club would mean a lot also.

3. Membership: I watched my father spend time helping the new smaller kennels because he knew that was the future. Getting young people involved with mushing and educating others that it is a positive sport with a long history in this state, will help it grow.

4. Foreign Affairs: Just one thing to add here, we need to make the other groups our partners by introducing ourselves and working with them as a united group of mountain users. The pressures on the mountain for multi-use are ever growing and each user group feels their sport is the most important. At the same time the trend of the Forest Service is to close areas to use (due to lack of funds and other issues). It is going to be increasingly important that this club stay abreast of changes to policy and forest uses that might affect our ability to run dogs. It’s a big job and very time consuming but if we do not continue to be a voice when policies are being formed we may find we know longer have a place to play.

Hope to see you at the next meeting.

Lance