Tantramar Outdoor Club

Grooming meeting 26Jan,2008 Ross, Graham, Peter M, Ian D, Harold J

1. Brief discussion re the club purchasing and operating snowmobile. Graham , Ian and possibly Cy Bernard as potential groomers, Paul Chamberland as a possible tech support. Decided that this would be a long term goal-next year at the absolute earliest. First we should exhaust the possibility of improving the work Brett does by first deciding what our priorities are , communicating them to Todd, and trying to work out a direct relationship with Brett. It was decided Graham Watt would be the liaison as this would keep communications simpler. If we are not able to get what we think is a reasonable grooming level we would relook at doing it ourselves. This could be a lot more work and expense, even if we got a grant from the Town.

Graham also discussed the benefits of using the new Trackor Groomer to groom level walking paths in the waterfowl park.

2.Grooming Priorities:

-We feel grooming should be done within 24 hours after fresh snowfalls and every 3-5 days otherwise to freshen up the trails.

-We felt Beech Hill Park itself should be the priority for grooming. We will propose that a figure of eight loop around the now unploughed road loop, around the outside of the field within the park and back up to the main road via the serpentine trail which presently has a stop sign to the main trail should be groomed for both skating and classical skiing. This would allow walking on the skating track.

Besides this we felt an additional classic loop inside the field would be an asset.

-Presently the Red loop is quite curving, bumpy and crisscrossed by a new ATV trail several times. This part of the trail is all on private land and subject to non pedestrian use and the committee felt there were potential safety issues. If there are time or financial constraints we would propose this be the lowest priority for grooming.

-We would like to see the Beech Hill blue trail be groomed, even though it is largely outside park boundaries.

-We would like to see the Crooked Tree Trail continue to be groomed.

-It was felt that for this year the Twisted Creek Trail was not appropriate to groom because of narrow and wet sections.

-We will propose that any hills(the “Caution” hill, and hill coming into the “fields with a view”on the Beech Hill Blue, and the hill 200 m before the Crookd Tree and the CyRoy hill before the bridge at the end/start of the CTT) be groomed with the corduroy part of the groomer, not the grooves to allow snowploughing down or duck walking up. Less fun/more safety.

-It was felt there should be a review of signage with perhaps names or at least degree of difficulty designations for the Beech Hill trails, new maps, snowshoe trail signs(these trails do exist!), and pictoral signage about walking on ski tracks-i.e it is OK to walk on the pole track but preferably not on or in the grooves. This won’t happen until the summer.

1. Brief discussion about the Cross Country ski “open house/try some skis” session which is set to take place Saturday afternoon, February 7^th as part of Winterfest-likely around 1 or 2 p.m.. We will encourage TOC members to come out to help show novices how to put skis on, show them around and some technique tips. We will do a mail out closer to the event.

There was also a proposal that Brett be asked to groom 3 or 4 classic tracks down and across the big field to be used for sprint races. Some of those involved in this proposal suggested they would be winning this event but there was no consensus nor bets placed. This event will take place at ~3:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon.