The Officers and Board members extend their greetings to you all. Thank you, to all of you, who have already renewed your memberships for this upcoming season and “welcome” to our new members.  We know that we are all in a difficult economic phase and that your membership dues and your participation in our fundraising efforts are done with dollars that may be hard to come by.  Again we thank you all.  Please renew as soon as possible. Please also consider an entry or three in our Easy Bucks drawings.  There will be twenty drawings this year starting with the October Club meeting on October 11^th.  Prizes are $50 dollars for each number drawn but are $100 if you are attending the meeting.  Each drawn number is returned to the drum before the next drawing so there is a potential to win twice in an evening or multiple times over the season.  Lucky member Gary Nash won three times last year.

We had another successful Open House at our Barn on August 30^th.  The food was good and it seemed as if all of you enjoyed meeting and talking with each other and the Club officers and Board members.  A special thanks goes to Patty Jaffarian and her family. They took time out on a busy holiday weekend to attend the open house and to help us dedicate the new signs they donated to the Club in memory of Paul Jaffarian.  We thanked them for their generous donations for the Club’s signs that are now at the entrance to the Barn along Loon Lake Road and over the garage doors there.  Both signs are in memory of Patty’s husband, and RLSC member Paul, who passed away.  Paul was an avid snowmobiler here in Rangeley and a great supporter of the RLSC and the sport in general. 

Everyone is invited to visit our booth at the Maine Snowmobile Association’s Snowmobile Show that is at the Augusta Civic Center October 3, 4 and 5.  The times are 4 to 9 on Friday, 9 to 9 on Saturday and 9 to 3 on Sunday.  The Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce sponsors our booth.  The Nash family and Oquossoc Marine have a booth this year too. So there should be a good group of familiar Rangeley area folks there for the weekend.  Unfortunately, we will not be at the Eastern States Snowmobile Show in Springfield, MA this year.  Sorry.

Our first indoor membership meeting of the season is Saturday night October 11th at the Episcopal Church Undercroft.  We plan a member prepared meatloaf dinner for a very modest donation.  Please consider bringing a small portion of a dessert or salad item to share. It isn’t required but it would be appreciated.   Social hour begins at 5:30PM and the dinner will be served at 6:30PM. A short membership meeting will follow which will include a discussion of our trail system plans for this season.  Plan to come up to view the foliage on the Columbus Day Weekend and have an enjoyable dinner with other club members.  Guests and kids are always welcome. RSVPs are not required but are helpful for our planning.  We can always use volunteer help with preparations, serving or clean up.  Remember that prep cooks eat free and the helpers get the leftovers, Call Steve at 864-5919 or Sandi at 864-2775.  We hope to see you there.

The Trail season is upon us.  We have already begun work on ITS 84 and 89 from the back of Saddleback Mountain down into Madrid Township.  This work is funded by a Recreational Trails Grant the Club was awarded this past spring.  We also just submitted our so-called Municipal Grant Application to the State of Maine’s Bureau of Trails, which is within the Department of Conservation.  Club Officer and Town of Rangeley employee, Rick Godaire heads up this effort and did his usual super job getting this document finished early and submitted.  The money from this grant is the largest single source of income for the Club.  Last year, including a fuel supplement that was added to the grant at the end of the season; the grant totaled $93,000.  Thanks for your efforts Rick and thanks to the District Trail Managers, Mike Koob, Matt Kennedy, Clark Allen and Paul Ferguson-Packard, and Mike Grey, our mapmaker, for their inputs.  Once our application is accepted by the State, we can officially begin to buy materials and to perform work on the trails that is credited toward the grant.

This year we also plan to submit a so-called Club Grant application and a Capital Equipment Grant Application, which will help us, purchase our new grooming equipment.  Club grants help with maintenance and grooming costs of any trails not covered by our municipal grant.  We will talk about Club trails at our next two membership meetings.

So with all this activity concerning trails, this is the time to call Steve Dudley (864-5919 or stevedudley@core.com), Don Dumont (864-2775) or Clark Allen (670-5306) and get your name on the work lists.  This year, if you have a partner for safety sake and your own tools, we can give you an assignment, which you can then do at your convenience.  Our focus for this pre-season is to get our trails widened where needed.  This is mainly saw and lopper work and most locations in need of work are truck accessible but an ATV can be helpful.  Please call, we really need the help.  We can also talk about a formal work weekend at the October meeting.

Finally, thanks to all of you for being so generous with your contributions to our Groomer Purchase Fund.  We will list all of you later in the season and announce those eligible for a ride along in the new machine by New Years. 

Just a note of thanks to all the members for being patient with my secretarial duties since my automobile accident and broken wrist.  I am on the mend and will soon be back into a normal routine.    

Steve Dudley, President RLSC

Sandi Dumont, Secretary

Please visit our Sponsors page to check out businesses who have donated or pledged to donate to our grooming and trail maintenance program for this season. Be sure to patronize these businesses when in the area. It is due to their donations that we have the great riding conditions we all enjoy!