The President's Column

News and Musing From President Pete

SEPTEMBER

CVOA Has Busy Year, Plans Even More for 2010

By Peter Weston, President

Carrabassett Valley Outdoor Association

In its 10^th year, the Carrabassett Valley Outdoor Association continues to host a pile of activities throughout the year.

The shooting range has been a busy place this year with the state-of �the-art trap machine being the big draw. In addition, the rifle range and the covered pistol range are in use frequently. Other than some improvements to the berms on the rifle range and finishing the pistol range structure, the range committee has focused on promoting the use of the facility.

In February a large group of CVOA'ers packed their skis and headed to Snowmass for a week of skiing at Aspen, Aspen Highlands and Snowmass. We had great weather, perfect snow, and lots of excellent skiing. John Chapman last skied Aspen in 1948 and everyone on the trip enjoyed hearing his stories about skiing and living in Colorado over 60 years ago. Later in the season CVOA put on another ski trip to Quebec City. It was a cold couple of days, but our hardy crew said no problem and headed out to the slopes.

Our annual meeting was held in March at the Sugarloaf Golf Course Club House. We honored John McCatherin who stepped down as the club's secretary after many years of incredible service to the organization. Warren Cook was the guest speaker and provided us a very interesting look back at his days at Sugarloaf.

The spring and summer were busy for CVOA as usual, despite the rain. A bike tour of the southern coast of Maine was a great success, followed by a cookout at Kathy and Dan Gagne's place in Biddeford. In July a group of hardy campers spent the weekend at Gulf Hagas, enjoying a beautiful hike along the gorge. August found the group camping in Baxter State Park for the 7^th year in a row, with a number of people hiking Katahdin while others hiked South Turner Mountain. Later in the month of August 54 people canoed down the Kennebec River from Solon to Madison, followed by a barbeque at the Weston Homestead. September we returned to camp at Tenants Harbor and to spend a day on Monhegan Island.

One problem with all these trips is the CVOA members always bring and prepare too much great food. Despite the rigorous activity of hiking, biking or paddling, I always seem to gain weight on these excursions.

In October we will be invading Bar Harbor for the 7^th year in a row, spending a weekend hiking, biking, golfing, kayaking, shopping, eating and generally enjoying the grandeur of Maine's own Acadia National Park.

We have been busy in the Valley this year as well. The organization is working with the Town of Carrabassett to maintain a stock of brook trout in the pond at the Outdoor Center. The annual spring cleanup of Route 27 was attended by a large number of CVOA members. And as we do every year, we picked up trash along the Carriage Road, the Narrow Gauge Pathway, the road up Popular Mountain, and on other hiking trails in the area. We continue to sponsor Boy Scout Troup 525. Christian and Patrick Beauregard received their Eagle Scout metals in August, a great achievement that all in the Valley should be proud of.

2010 will be just as busy as past years for CVOA. We have already made plans for a week at Jackon Hole in February, and will have our usual array of activities throughout the year. We are also planning several community improvement projects which we hope to implement in the coming year.

For more info, please visit our website, cvoutdoors.com. Memberships only cost $10 a year for individuals, $15 for families. The application form can be downloaded from the website.

JULY

Hopefully, this will become a regular feature to keep you all updated about the plotting and planning going on behind the scenes at CVOA Central. Comments and suggestions are welcome!

July 4th:

The snowmobile club is not planning to run the concession stand at the town's annual July 4th event. This could be a good money
maker for the club. In the past, Ray Cloutier cooked and we sold lobster, and he may be willing to do this again. It takes about a dozen people to put this together, and someone to organize the whole thing. What do you think? Should be take this on? Anyone want to volunteer to head this up?

Jackson Hole:

Dick Foote, organizer for our 2010 ski trip, has come up with a great package for the Jackson Hole trip. We'll be traveling January 30 to Febuary 6 and can handle about 30 skiers.

The cost will be $1,529 per person, which is a great price and it includes bus transport from Portsmouth to Boston, flights to
Jackson, accomodations at delux on-slope condos with hot tubs, and six days of skiing.

Dick will be putting out the information soon. The initial $100 downpayment will be paid to CVOA; the rest of the payments will be sent to
ski.com directly, instead of going through the club.

Club House:

Harvey and Sherie put together a detailed cost estimate for the clubhouse
with a total cost of $180,000. This is pretty conservative, as they did not
assume volunteer labor or donated materials. At this point the ball is in
my court, as I need to put together an information package for you folks to
review. I'd say we need to raise $200,000 to cover any unforseen
contingencies. I'll try to get this to you in the next couple of weeks.

A sketch of the proposed clubhouse and detailed minutes of the clubhouse committee meetings are posted on our web under clubhouse news.

IRS:

Greg Foster has agreed to continue to help me with getting the application
completed for the non-profit status. He and I will get together sometime in
the next month.
Lombard Log Hauler recovery project:

LOMBARD PROJECT

I spoke to a Bill Lynch from the Maine Forest and Logging Museum in Brabury,
ME. He is in charge of their Lombard restoration project, which will end up
with a working unit in about 6 months. He is very interested in helping us
in any way with recovering the Lombard boiler. He also has information on
possible other Lombards in the area, including at Chain-of-Ponds and in
Rangeley. In addition he has lots of photos and other documentation that we
can use in our display.