The Michigan Mountain Biking Association (MMBA) is a 501(C)(3) charitable non-profit corporation. With nearly 2,000 members in 9 chapters across Michigan, we are the second largest affiliate of the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA). The mission of the MMBA is to promote responsible mountain biking and to work toward the goals of common land access and natural resource protection through interaction with policy makers, the cycling industry, race promoters, mountain bikers, and other trail users. Our membership represents all levels of riders, from beginners to world champion racers. This is all accomplished with volunteer support, membership dues, and sponsor donations.
The Metro North Chapter of the MMBA includes trails in Southeast Michigan that are North of M-59 and East of Woodward
Metro North October 1st, 2011
As part of the transition from being the Metro North Chapter of the MMBA to being the Clinton River Area Mountain Bike Association, an IMBA Chapter, we have moved our web presence.
Please join us over at the new CRAMBA.org page for news and updates regarding the chapter. Chapter meeting coming up on October 18th.
Metro North July 8th, 2011
Our mid-summer chapter meeting is coming up on July 19, please join us at the Rochester Mills Beer Co. We’ll start the meeting around 7:00, if you’d like to order food, please arrive a bit earlier to get your order in.
The agenda is below; if you have anything you’d like added to the agenda, please send me an email at metronorth@mmba.org no later than Monday, July 18.
Agenda (subject to change):
** IMBA Chapter Program Status – Application submitted
** Addison Oaks Race Planning Update
** Addison Oaks Jam Event – OCP event on August 20th, looking for MMBA presence and group ride leaders.
** Trail Project Updates
Bloomer (Derek / Dustin) : New trail and signing project
Bald Mountain (Steve K / Dennis) : Marking project
Columbus Park (Nick) : IMBA Trail Solutions weekend and new trail progress
Stony Creek Skills Area (Pete) : Jump line plans and progress
** Other Trail Updates
Addison Oaks (Bob)
Clinton River Park Trail (Aaron)
Pontiac Lake Rec Area (Dave)
Stony Creek (Pete)
Lake Orion HS (Steve K)
Riverbends (Steve V)
** Financial Report
** Other items / Public Comment
!!!!!!!! Remember, $6 Growler Fills on Tuesdays !!!!!!!!
Rochester Mills Beer Co (www.beercos.com)
400 Water Street
Downtown Rochester, MI
Map Link
Hope to see you there!
Metro North April 2nd, 2011
Hello Metro North Chapter!
Our next chapter meeting is coming right up! Come out and join us at Rochester Mills Beer Co on Tuesday, April 12 at 7:00
If you have anything you’d like added to the agenda, please send me an email at metronorth@mmba.org no later than Friday, April 8.
For those of us who would like to order food, please try to arrive around 6:30 to get those orders in and we’ll get the meeting started around 7:00.
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Spring weather is just around the corner and its time to start getting ready for the season with a couple of traildays.
Pontiac Lake Recreation Area – Saturday April 9
Time: 9am
Where to Meet: Parking lot by the beach near the trailhead.
Notes: Participants will need to buy a daily pass to the park if they do not already have one of the new license plate passports now available. Participants should wear sturdy shoes, work gloves, safety glasses, and bring drinking water. We will be benching in trail bed and doing tree trimming. We will not be building any new trail.
Rain Date: April 10
Stony Creek Metropark – Saturday April 16
Time: 9am
Where to Meet: Parking Lot A, near the trailhead.
Notes: Trail maintenance will include trail bed grading on eroded trail sections, tree trimming, and general “spring cleaning”. Participants need to wear sturdy shoes, work gloves, safety glasses, and carry water to drink. Tree loppers would also be appreciated. Participants will need to have a daily park pass. For further information, please contact Mike Moss, 248-670-4553.
Rain Date: April 17
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Your Name Isn’t Mud!
Do not give yourself or other mountain bikers a bad name by riding on trails during the spring thaw. The recent warm weather may be melting the snow, but the sub-surface layers of soil are still partially frozen. Trails are critically sensitive to erosion damage at this time.
Currently, water from the melting snow is unable to sink into the soil, so trail surfaces are muddy. Tire ruts help channel this water and contribute to erosion and muddy spots that can become long-term trail damage.
A good rule of thumb is that when the earthworms begin to emerge, the ground is thawed. Please ride on pavement or gravel roads for a few more weeks while the trails properly thaw and dry out. Help us keep trails open to mountain biking by riding in an environmentally sound manner.
If you want to ride and are unsure of the trail conditions, call the park where you would like to ride or check the Metro-North section of the MMBA bulletin board.
Have fun, be safe,
Marty Shue
MMBA Metro-North Chapter President
Metro North February 1st, 2011
For me, the Annual Meeting started out with a State Board meeting. Chapter Presidents, Chapter IMBA Transition committee members, and anyone else interested were all welcome to attend. The main focus of the meeting was a FAQ session for the IMBA Chapter Program.
Additionally, I was engaged by several people throughout the day who had questions about the possible transition. Let me take a few moments to share some of the things that I learned since I last sent an update.
Q. Will the IMBA take over our advocacy efforts in Lansing?
A. No, the IMBA will not take this over. And this is why the MMBA will remain. We need the MMBA to restructure and grow so that it will be able to be the voice of Mountain Bikers in Michigan.
Q. Where is my money going?
A. The 60% of the membership dollars that will remain with IMBA is dedicated to the IMBA Chapter program. Your money is not going to the overarching IMBA Umbrella. It is fed back into the Chapter Program budget to keep this program alive and growing. Because the money remains within the program, the IMBA will be able to cover all of our insurance costs, and increase the membership dollar split to 50% as new chapters join the program.
Q. What about Chapter Fund Raisers and individual donations?
A. Any money raised by the chapter outside of membership money remains directly with the chapter. Additionally, as a chapter, we will have our own EIN number and our money and assets become property of the Chapter. (Currently, our money and assets are property of the state organization.)
Q. I’ve heard there isn’t a regional IMBA representative in our area – how does that affect us?
A. Mike Van Abel (IMBA Executive Director) has said that if the MMBA chapters join the IMBA Chapter program, that they will have the funding needed to hire a regional representative for our area.
Q. Won’t the MMBA just fall apart once all of its funding has been removed?
A. The current MMBA bank account will remain with the MMBA. While the decisions still need to be made as to how the money will be divided, a sizable portion can be left with the state organization to keep itself running until it can adequately restructure.
Q. How much money will it take to keep the MMBA running after the transition?
A. It is expected that the MMBA can manage on approximately $5000 per year.
Metro North February 1st, 2011
Ed Berta was a MMBA volunteer that was killed by a car on a trail day, crossing or walking along a road. He was with his daughter when it happened. In his honor, the First Across the Finish Line (FAFL) program was started to recognize volunteers who spend 10 hours or more working on trails.
This year, the Metro North Chapter had 40 FAFL Award Winners! Thanks to everyone for their hard work and dedication in 2010.
Metro North January 15th, 2011
Hello Metro North!
This past Tuesday was our first Metro North Chapter meeting for 2011 and for the first time since the Metro North Chapter was formed, we elected a whole new board!
President – Marty Shue
Vice President – Steve Vigneau
Secretary – Kristi Heuvers
Treasurer – Nick Shue
State Board Rep – Jon Rose
Past President – Jon Rose
We also passed a motion that the former president remain on the chapter Board of Directors as Past President for a minimum of one year. This would be a voting member of the chapter board. The position was created to ensure that the former president will be around to assist the new board, and offer guidance and experience as needed. Please note, even though this year, Jon is serving 2 positions on the chapter board, he still only gets one vote.
I’d like to thank Mike Moss and Jody Delavern (outgoing Vice President and Treasurer) for their 4 years of service as we built our new chapter!
The other hot topic at our January meeting was the MMBA state board’s decision to move forward with the IMBA Chapter Program process. While nothing is set in stone, and no decisions have yet been agreed upon, the board felt that the best way to investigate this program was to start the process and evaluate as we go. We are in no way committed to the program at this point.
I found out that the information and details about the IMBA Chapter Program might not be reaching our chapter members quite like we thought it would. So, I thought I’d send out some history and information to hopefully fill in the gaps.
IMBA Chapter Program
For the past few years, IMBA has been focusing on an IMBA chapter program. The concept behind it is that rather then competing with local advocacy organizations, they would work with interested organizations to combine with IMBA, allowing the local organizations the ability to better focus on their local actives. While creating an unified voice for mountain bikers, it also allows the local organizations to get out of the mire of running a business, and all of the legal aspects that entails.
For a quick summary of the program, here’s a couple of web pages that IMBA has on the program:
http://www.imba.com/chapter-program
http://www.imba.com/resources/organizing/clubs/better-together
What this means for Metro North is that our chapter would become an IMBA chapter – instead of being an MMBA chapter.
Here’s how we understand things working as an IMBA chapter:
Members
For the same membership fee, you will become a member of the Metro North Chapter AND the IMBA — one membership for both local and national efforts.
Chapters
We would become a chapter of IMBA rather than the MMBA. We would work under the IMBA 501(c)3 non-profit, insurance and taxes.
Member dollars
You’re membership dues would go to IMBA, and a percentage of those dues come back to our chapter. Currently, your membership dues go to the MMBA, and a percentage of those dues come back to our chapter. Under the MMBA, we receive 25% of our membership dues; under IMBA our would receive 40%.
Note: We have been told by IMBA reps that their goal is to be able to increase the chapter payout to 50% as the programs grows and scales.
Insurance
At this time, IMBA chapters are responsible for the cost of their insurance plan to cover events and trailday activities. However, as a chapter, we would be able to utilize the insurance plans currently in place with IMBA for a cost somewhere between $5.50 and 8.50 per member (variables still TBD but seems to deal with the trails within the chapter boundaries).
Note: We have been told by IMBA reps that they are working toward paying the insurance for all chapters out of the IMBA percentage of the membership dollars.
MMBA
This is the #1 question right now. What does this mean for the Michigan Mountain Biking Association that we all worked so hard to build?
As an outgoing state board member, I’ll be honest – we don’t have a clear answer for that right now. We all agree that the MMBA will continue. And we have a vision and a direction that is being followed. We would like to see more cycling organizations become members of the MMBA. Each Michigan IMBA Chapter would be a member of the MMBA. The member organizations would help decide the direction and strategize for funding, advocacy and events.
It is clear that our current Advocacy Team (lead by John Gonway) plan on sticking around. They would continue to take direction from the MMBA board and continue to be our key line of support for our local advocacy efforts. The MMBA would still support CPS and MiSCA. We would still maintain the MMBA website and newsletter. The annual meeting would still bring us together in the winter and if all goes well, perhaps some new state-wide mountain biking events could be seen.
There are a lot of opportunities for a fresh new state-focused advocacy organization. We expect that removing the administrative burden from the volunteers at the state level will inspire some fresh ideas, creativity and motivation.
Resources and Conversation
There have been 2 heated threads on the MMBA forum discussing this initiative. I encourage you to check these out:
IMBA: Possible new direction for the MMBA
The IMBA Way
And on MTBR:
IMBA’s New Chapter Program
Additionally, our chapter has formed a committee to represent us throughout the IMBA Chapter process and will be meeting with other MMBA chapters at our Annual Meeting on January 30 to start moving forward with the process. If you have questions, comments, concerns, please contact any of us:
Jon Rose (leader)
Steve Vigneau
Marty Shue
Rob Ritzenhein
Erick Mile
Shawn Murphy
Philip Huyghe
Marc Harder
As always, any questions can be sent to metronorth@mmba.org!
And finally – I will do my best to keep our website up-to-date with the latest happenings in this regard, as well as more frequent chapter emails to keep you all informed. Keep your eyes on our site (rss feed: http://metronorth.mmba.org/feed/)
Here’s looking forward to a wonderful 2011!
~Marty Shue
MMBA Metro North Chapter President
Metro North April 25th, 2010
Meeting Minutes from the April 13th, 2010 meeting are now posted.
Metro North January 5th, 2010
Meeting Minutes from the October 12, 2009 meeting are now posted.
Metro North September 28th, 2009
October 12th, 2009 6:30PM
Rochester Mills Beer Co. (http://beercos.com/)
400 Water Street, Rochester, MI 48307
Map Link: http://tinyurl.com/34jl6v
Special Thanks to the Rochester Mills Beer Co. for donating their meeting room for our meeting!
Agenda
• Approval of Minutes
• Addison Oaks –
• Bald Mountain – David Moore
• Bloomer – Derek Wrathrell
• Clinton River Park Trail – Jon Rose
• Orion Oaks – David Moore
• PLRA – Norman Johnson / Derek Hill
• Stony Creek – Mike Moss / Pete Kresmery
• Stony Skills Park – Tim Dunbar
• New Trail: Columbus Park – Nick Shue/Pete Kresmery
• New Trail: Harrison Township – Jon Rose
• New Trail: LOHS Trail
• Kiosks – Bloomer – Derek Wrathell
• Chapter Trail School Trainer/Classes
• Addison Oaks / Massive Falllout
• Financial report
• January Chapter Elections
• Other items / Public Comment
• Future Meeting Dates
If anybody has anything that needs to be added to the agenda, let me know.
Everyone can start showing up ~6:00PM and get their food/beer orders taken care of, and we’ll start the meeting about 6:30PM.
I usually have previous meeting minutes, current agenda and a sign-in sheet on the bar next to the meeting room entrance, so please remember to sign in and pickup the agenda/minutes.
Hope to see everyone there
Metro North September 10th, 2009
Coupon will give you free entry to Addison Oaks Country Park for pre-riding the course for the XC race on Sunday the 13th.
Thanks to Oakland Country Parks for allowing free park access for our event.
MMBA: Metro North Chapter
Chapter News, Updates and Information.
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