Previous Meeting Minutes
| April 03 | May 03 | Sep 03 | Oct 03 | Nov 12 03 | Dec 3 03| Dec 10 03 |
| Dec 17 03 | Jan 7 04 | Feb 4 04 | Mar 3 04 | Apr 7 o4 |
Board Meeting Nov 12, 2003

Current Minutes


CHUGIAK DOG MUSHERS ASSOCIATION
Board Meeting – April 7, 2004
6 pm at the clubhouse, Beach Lake Sled Dog Trails
Hotline: 689-7899 Website: www.chugiakdogmushers.com

The Board met to discuss meeting schedules for the coming year, the race calendar, and gaming.

Meeting Schedule

All meetings are at 7pm at the clubhouse. No meetings for the rest of April or May.

1st Wednesday of the month – general meeting (July – March)
June 2nd will be a board meeting, but the general membership is welcome

2nd Wednesday of the month – board meeting – September – March

3rd Wednesday of the month – general meeting during mushing season (Sept. – March)

The topic of the June board meeting will be trail maintenance. The trail committee should attend the June meeting. The question was asked if the current committee members wish to continue on the committee. Trail issues to be discussed include rerouting the hairpin turn, working on the staging area, brushhogging the trails, and what to do about the clubhouse windows during the off-season (remove, board up?)

Tentative Race Calendar

The race committee (Dixie, Lexi, Jo, Val, and Mary Lou) will meet on April 28th to develop a tentative race schedule for 2004-2005. The biggest issue confronting the club is volunteers. The board discussed a variety of alternatives for ensuring that all races had enough volunteers so that the same few people were not being taxed week after week. One suggestion was to request volunteers now and any race that did not have enough volunteers by the June 2nd meeting would be dropped from the schedule.

Snowmachiner assistance is one of the bigger gaps – Bill can’t do it all. Doug Stenerson, Harold Capps, and Kurt Jokela all volunteered to help with trail grooming and other snowmachine activities.

There is a need to reach out to potential volunteers. The race coordinator for each race should make calls to garner volunteers for the race. As the race coordinators, Lexi will recruit for the Classic and Jo will recruit for the points races. Julie Capps volunteered to be a “volunteer coordinator” and recruit for the other races. Julie and Jeanne will work together to organize volunteers. Other volunteer recruitment techniques that may be tried include:
- posting the volunteer positions on a white board or chalk board in the clubhouse for sign-up
- getting names from Jo from the membership list
- adding a volunteer request on race poster
- requesting that mushers in the 36 and the 32/50 races bring help with them
- putting requests for volunteers in the Daily News, Alaska Star, and with military groups

The race schedule needs to be submitted to Mushing magazine by July.

Susan Cantor will do coordinate the race poster again this year and the club will try to find a volunteer to help her with the project.

Gaming

Eric Rogers will resign as the gaming contact for the club so a new person is needed. Lexi is currently the alternate. Lexi will contact Lorrie Stenerson to see if she has any interest.

Clubhouse

Dixie asked if she could bring the remaining Chinese auction items to the clubhouse for storage. Someone mentioned installing locking cabinets for storage.

CHUGIAK DOG MUSHERS ASSOCIATION
General Meeting – April 7, 2004
7 pm at the clubhouse, Beach Lake Sled Dog Trails
Hotline: 689-7899 Website: www.chugiakdogmushers.com

The meeting was called to order at 7:18 pm.
Minutes from March 31, 2004, were read and approved with one change.

Treasurer’s Report
Checking $13,938.29; Gaming $1,173.42; Savings $8,597.76; Total $23,709.47
It was agreed that during the first general meeting each month, the treasurer will present the current balance, as well as the incomes and outflows for the previous month.

Trail Committee

Bill Waddell and Doug Stenerson will continue to be on the trail maintenance committee and will come up with the trail maintenance needs. Bill mentioned that Airport Equipment, who provided trail and maintenance equipment last season, is interested in participating in the Businessperson’s Race next year.

Board Meetings

General club meetings will be held on the first Wednesday of each month. Board meetings will be held on the second Wednesday of each month from September through March, plus one meeting on June 2nd. General club meetings will be held on the third Wednesday of each month from September through March. No meetings will be held for the remainder of April and May.

Old Business

Legislation
Ron passed along that the State Assembly does not believe SB 331, discussed during the last meeting, will go anywhere this year, but it is still not a bad idea to contact our representatives on the issue (changes to gaming rules).

Web Site
Theresa Daily passed along to the group, through Dixie, that she has gotten somewhat behind on posting ads on the web site due to computer issues. She is working to catch up soon. A member motioned and another seconded that the club make Theresa an honorary lifetime member of the club and offer her a $50 gift certificate to a local restaurant to show our appreciation for all the work she’s done with the web site. Dixie offered to purchase the gift certificate.

Muni Election
Of special interest to the club, Debbie Ossiander won the Chugiak Assembly seat with 65% of the votes. Proposition 16 (Eagle River Parks and Rec) passed with 51% of the votes.

New Business

Arctic Games Reception
Ron announced that he had received an email invitation to the an event at the Alaska Native Heritage Center celebrating the Arctic Games, for anyone who participated in the Games in any way.

Title 21
Val provided a summary of the most recent Title 21 working groups. At the last meeting, each special interest got 10 minutes to present. There will be an additional citizens meeting to finish up, since there is a lot more to cover. Val provided the group with a briefing on Title 17 and dog kennels in general.

A copy of the newest drafts can be found at www.muni.org/planning/pri_Title21.cfm.
The document will got out for public comment after the current round of comments are put in, and then it will go to the Assembly – a process that could take several years.

Val said that Debbie Ossiander had indicated that she wanted to get involved in “preserving our lifestyle,” which means including dogs and horses.

Education Program

The education program this month was actually a storytelling session, including local clubmembers who have raced in the “big races” this season. Refreshments were provided and stories were told. Robert Bundzten represented this year’s field of Iditarod mushers, while several other mushers shared stories from past Iditarods and various races around the State.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be Wednesday, May 5th at 7pm. This will be a combined board/general meeting. A board meeting will be Wednesday, June 2nd at 7pm. The general club membership is welcome to attend the board meeting. A general meeting will be held Wednesday, July 7th at 7pm.