Nov 8, 2023 | 7:15pm Metro MTB Public Meeting
Ray’s Growler Gallery
5 Board Members in attendance
40 Attendees
Mission Statement
Metro Mountain Bikers is a non-profit, volunteer organization dedicated to safeguarding the future of mountain biking through the preservation and promotion of responsible off-road bicycling opportunities. Which includes the education, sponsoring events, trail construction, and trail maintenance.
Board Members
Chris Shay, Co-Chair – not present
John Slawny, Treasurer
Melissa Clark, Secretary
Kevin Eccles
Tom Hartman
Lindsay Carlson
Topics:
Thank you to our host, Ray’s Growler Gallery!
Trail Fairies Trio for the Month Award for August, September and October: Mike Vance, Jeremy Dietzel, and Darrin Jaeger!
- These three guys have put in countless hours building and fine-tuning Young Guns, Double Dragon, Dirt Waves and Gunslinger at Heritage Trails County Park. To construct these types of trails, it takes a lot of experience and physical work. We cannot thank these guys enough for helping to make Heritage a regional MTB destination!!!
September Heritage Metro Meet & Social
- We had a beautiful day to celebrate the opening of Dirt Waves. Thank you, Low Key BBQ (Rider Tom Smith), for donating & volunteering to cook up over 90 pizzas on site to help us fundraise over $1,000 for our Phase 3 Skills Area at Heritage! Thank you, Armando de le Torre, for the great photo captures!
Dig-In Campaign – Heritage Skills Area
- We met and exceeded our $21,000 fundraising goal to raise $23,005!! Huge thanks to all 180 individuals that donated! We met our $5,000 minimum to receive our $5,000 match from the IMBA grant. A number of individuals donated more than once, and the majority of the donors were non Metro Members. We will begin construction on the skills area Spring/Summer 2024.
Heritage Trails Updates:
- Our newest trail, Gunslinger, has just opened! This is Metro’s first ever double-black diamond trail and rated for expert riders only. Thank you, Gavin and Dirt Waves, for your latest masterpiece!
- What’s next? We are working with Washington County Park on our Master Plan for our future trail projects. Gavin’s next projects include working the Double Dragon return, a new trail called Flow Rider, and the new Skills Area.
New Double Dragon T-shirts:
- Congratulations, Katie B, for the winning Double Dragon t-shirt design competition! We have shirts here with us for sale, along with new winter hats (beanies). Stay tuned for pop-up merch sales on site at Heritage to get your shirt! Proceeds go back to our trail projects.
Bik-E-Shaw:
- Thanks, Magellan’s on Main and Ron Stawicki for hosting another fun Bik-E-Shaw social ride on November 4th. The ride raised $450 for our Minooka MTB Trails. For those that have not been to a Bike-E-Shaw, it’s a social casual ride on paved paths (some road riding) out to Fox River Park where there’s beverages and then the group returns to Magellan’s for free pizza and a social.
2024-25 Board Member Nominations: Accepting nominations for the Open Board Positions (Chair, Co-Chair, Club Secretary and 3 Members at Large positions)
Board Nominations:
- Marion Gottschalk: Lives in Shorewood and coaches for North Shore NICA team.
- Mike Golden: Lives in Ozaukee County and expressed interest in running.
- Melissa Clark: Current Club Secretary announced she will be running for the Chair position.
- Kevin Eccles: Current Board Member at Large shared he is interested furthering help the organization and running.
Minooka Update:
- It’s Berm Rehabilitation Month! Final workdays scheduled for Sunday, 1112 and next Sunday, 11/19 from 9am-Noon. After we have volunteer, Ryan Edwards, grilling up brats and beverages to share.
- NICA Race at Minook. A record 700 kids participated in the race at Minooka. We held a post card campaign at our Metro tent and had 150 post cards filled out to send to representatives to advocate for more trails. We did a second post card campaign at the NICA Trek race and got another 150 post cards filled out which we’ll send to the event hosts and sponsors thanking them. Thank you, Kevin Eccles, for organizing and leading our post card campaign!
Milwaukee County Update:
- Kletzsch Park: Metro’s newest MTB trail is about to begin construction! Kletzsch is one of the eleven parks the County gave us to look at for the potential of adding mountain bike trails. Our first Trail Workdays are next week, Saturday & Sunday Nov 11 & 12th. Please sign up on the link shared on our Facebook pages.
- We have a 5-year renewal agreement completed with Milwaukee County which includes provisions for 3 renewals. This is a huge gain, as previously our agreements with the County were only for one year. Thanks to all our Volunteers, Marty, for putting in years of great ground work with the County to make this possible!
- Kevin Eccles and Craig Ruhland are working to put together a bike trail opportunities for Milwaukee County.
- Glendale ARPA Funds Meetings: Not a great response. They want any pump track or bike projects to have shared funding from neighboring municipalities (Shorewood).
Giving Tuesday
- Giving Tuesday is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, November 28th. If you work for one of the many companies that gives or does donation matches, please think of Metro. We are a 501c3 non-profit organization and all the money raised will go to tools and trails equipment.
Meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm
