Hello and welcome to the first EMBA news letter of the New Year. Hopefully everyone had a great winter season.

A Word from the Board

At the March meeting EMBA voted into effect new bylaws. These bylaws can be viewed at our website. Included in the bylaws is a restructuring of the board of directors itself. The restructuring has created a couple of new positions and those are currently vacant. The positions that need to be filled are Vice-Chair, Membership and Bike Club. If you are interested in helping out this year please contact any of the board members.

Trails

For the upcoming season we will be building on our successful 2009 trail days. Plans at this time will be to do some trail work and remediation on the Canada Cup trail. The goal here is to make a loop with the least amount of pavement as possible. Of course we will be through out the river valley fixing and remediating trails where needed. If you know of any areas that could use some work please send them to us and we will do our best to get out there to fix them up.

Learning from the Past

While we had a great turnout on the first trail day as the season progressed we had less and less volunteers show up for them, there was only one volunteer at the last trail day in the fall; disheartening to say the least. We believe there are a few reasons for this. A full day of trail building is too long so this year they will be only half days, work until midday, have an EMBA supplied lunch and then head out for a group ride so be prepared and bring your bike out! Second; living where we do the riding season is short and few of you want to give up weekend of riding and road trips to dig up some dirt. Third, bike swag! Who wants to work all morning with out the chance of winning some bike gear? So while we are enjoying lunch we will draw some luck names for door prizes. Also at the end of the year we will have a prize for the volunteer that puts in the most hours.

Look forward to seeing you all out there on your bikes and for a few days a shovel.

Bike Club News

This year EMBA, in addition to trail maintenance and advocacy, has started a bike club. This will be a way for members and board members to meet and get to know each other. While most rides will be after a trail maintenance morning on a Saturday or Sunday there will be some rides held during a weekday evening and a couple of trips to the mountains will also be on the calendar. If you would like more information go here.

Happy Trails;

EMBA