April 20 Rundown/Summary
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Noble Anderson
Apr 21, 2011, 4:49:15 PM4/21/11
to haines-bi...@googlegroups.com
For all those who attended, or couldn't make it, I figured I'd summarize some of what was discussed. I'm sure I will miss things, so if you were there and can add to this... please do.
We have still not decided on a name, but we are much closer to having a mission statement. Primarily, we spent some time trying to figure out the organization of our group. Should this be a club with membership, officers, board members, etc? or more a loose coalition or collaborative with common goals. Overwhelmingly, it was the latter. This has advantages and disadvantages in that we will not be bogged down with "club duties", and get caught up wasting time on managing the club (and this town probably doesn't need another non-profit), but it also limits our ability to fund projects if we so choose (wouldn't it be cool if we could buy bike racks, put our name on them, and donate them to locations around town?). It allows us to involve the whole community, but it doesn't allow us to give specific numbers of our "voting members". If people are interested in forming a true "club", then perhaps it needs to be specific... ie. road, mtn bike, commuter... and can be part of the bigger bicycling coallition.
From a financial standpoint, a possibility was raised that we can "umbrella under" the existing non-profit, Haines Well and Fit Community. There are multiple clubs or groups forming in town (hockey, running, biking, etc.), and if we all bubble under Well and Fit, we could have a collaborative effort with common goals. We could then collect funds and even have our own bank account under a 501c3 umbrella that already exists. Just an idea.
Much comparison was drawn to other SouthEast communities, and their Bicycle Friendliness. Sitka is the only SouthEast town that has been recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a bicycle friendly community (To learn more: http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/communities/). It was agreed that we should push towards a similar goal, as we will meet much of our own personal goals as well as increase local business, commerce, tourism, and safety. If you would like to see what Sitka did to achieve this, check out: http://www.sitkaaoc.org/Projects/bicycle.html. We also showed a 14 minute video to try to inspire and motivate us towards becoming a bicycle friendly community. The video can be found here: http://www.bikesbelong.org/resources/video/the-boulder-bike-story/.
The Haines Comprehensive Plan was also discussed. Our past plan has been desperately lacking in any wording to promote bicycling in Haines. As it is now being rewritten, it is a significant opportunity to get bicycling built into the future plan for our town. The Mayor is in agreement, and will be making a decree to that effect at the next borough meeting on Tuesday evening. Please attend and support if you can. The bike group is now working on putting together a paper to state our goals and intentions and make requests of what we would like to see in the developing plan. If you have input, please share. Hopefully, we will be able to post drafts of this work on this google group as it develops.
May is National Bike Month (http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/), and we decided that we should be in-line with the national scene. It is short notice, but we would like to start the efforts this year with a push for bike to work week (May 16-20) - Please print up signs off the bikeleague website, and post around town. We also would like to get some radio PSAs put on the air. I talked to Al Badgley, and he will do a safety talk on bike safety in May.
Other upcoming events:
- Spring town cleanup: It would be great to have a presence for cleanup, and turn in a bunch of bags. The highway is a mess. It starts on the 29th.
- The river walk may also be a ride this year, and raises money for Hospice of Haines.
- KCIBR is June 18th.
- 4th of July Parade - Let's put a bunch of people on bikes and make ourselves visible to the community
- Ongoing Mountain bike trail building and maintenance (if you know of trail possibilities, please let us know)
- Organized rides - Saturday group rides are going to start... keep your eyes posted on this google group.
- ... I'm forgetting some, but there is a lot going on.
As we get more organized, we can begin looking into grant opportunities to build trails, buy bike racks, etc. I will be talking with SEARHC (they were instrumental in Sitka), and see if we can come up with funding.
There was talk of mountain bike riding the Dalton Trail. If anyone knows anything about the status (both physically and politically) of the trail, please post.
We would also like to put together a website, and maybe a facebook page so that we have a visible presence with clear objectives (as well as a resource for the community). If you can help with this, please let us know.
We are still in our fledgling stage, but we have many motivated people and are improving how we are organized. We need more people to step up and help. If you can help, please step up.
I'm sure there was more, so please fill in the gaps, and get a discussion going.
Noble
We have still not decided on a name, but we are much closer to having a mission statement. Primarily, we spent some time trying to figure out the organization of our group. Should this be a club with membership, officers, board members, etc? or more a loose coalition or collaborative with common goals. Overwhelmingly, it was the latter. This has advantages and disadvantages in that we will not be bogged down with "club duties", and get caught up wasting time on managing the club (and this town probably doesn't need another non-profit), but it also limits our ability to fund projects if we so choose (wouldn't it be cool if we could buy bike racks, put our name on them, and donate them to locations around town?). It allows us to involve the whole community, but it doesn't allow us to give specific numbers of our "voting members". If people are interested in forming a true "club", then perhaps it needs to be specific... ie. road, mtn bike, commuter... and can be part of the bigger bicycling coallition.
From a financial standpoint, a possibility was raised that we can "umbrella under" the existing non-profit, Haines Well and Fit Community. There are multiple clubs or groups forming in town (hockey, running, biking, etc.), and if we all bubble under Well and Fit, we could have a collaborative effort with common goals. We could then collect funds and even have our own bank account under a 501c3 umbrella that already exists. Just an idea.
Much comparison was drawn to other SouthEast communities, and their Bicycle Friendliness. Sitka is the only SouthEast town that has been recognized by the League of American Bicyclists as a bicycle friendly community (To learn more: http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/communities/). It was agreed that we should push towards a similar goal, as we will meet much of our own personal goals as well as increase local business, commerce, tourism, and safety. If you would like to see what Sitka did to achieve this, check out: http://www.sitkaaoc.org/Projects/bicycle.html. We also showed a 14 minute video to try to inspire and motivate us towards becoming a bicycle friendly community. The video can be found here: http://www.bikesbelong.org/resources/video/the-boulder-bike-story/.
The Haines Comprehensive Plan was also discussed. Our past plan has been desperately lacking in any wording to promote bicycling in Haines. As it is now being rewritten, it is a significant opportunity to get bicycling built into the future plan for our town. The Mayor is in agreement, and will be making a decree to that effect at the next borough meeting on Tuesday evening. Please attend and support if you can. The bike group is now working on putting together a paper to state our goals and intentions and make requests of what we would like to see in the developing plan. If you have input, please share. Hopefully, we will be able to post drafts of this work on this google group as it develops.
May is National Bike Month (http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bikemonth/), and we decided that we should be in-line with the national scene. It is short notice, but we would like to start the efforts this year with a push for bike to work week (May 16-20) - Please print up signs off the bikeleague website, and post around town. We also would like to get some radio PSAs put on the air. I talked to Al Badgley, and he will do a safety talk on bike safety in May.
Other upcoming events:
- Spring town cleanup: It would be great to have a presence for cleanup, and turn in a bunch of bags. The highway is a mess. It starts on the 29th.
- The river walk may also be a ride this year, and raises money for Hospice of Haines.
- KCIBR is June 18th.
- 4th of July Parade - Let's put a bunch of people on bikes and make ourselves visible to the community
- Ongoing Mountain bike trail building and maintenance (if you know of trail possibilities, please let us know)
- Organized rides - Saturday group rides are going to start... keep your eyes posted on this google group.
- ... I'm forgetting some, but there is a lot going on.
As we get more organized, we can begin looking into grant opportunities to build trails, buy bike racks, etc. I will be talking with SEARHC (they were instrumental in Sitka), and see if we can come up with funding.
There was talk of mountain bike riding the Dalton Trail. If anyone knows anything about the status (both physically and politically) of the trail, please post.
We would also like to put together a website, and maybe a facebook page so that we have a visible presence with clear objectives (as well as a resource for the community). If you can help with this, please let us know.
We are still in our fledgling stage, but we have many motivated people and are improving how we are organized. We need more people to step up and help. If you can help, please step up.
I'm sure there was more, so please fill in the gaps, and get a discussion going.
Noble
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