It’s hard to believe we are already into Mid-May. The weather certainly doesn’t feel like it! It doesn’t mean the NSMBA has been waiting for the sun to come out to mail your membership sticker. We love that our members love their stickers so much and we know how much it sucks when you don’t get the fun little NSMBA package in the mail. If you’ve renewed your membership in the past 5 months, you may be wondering if that little sticky piece of happiness will ever show up. The long and short of it is not yet.
At the end of January, our long-time friend and teammate Ryan Pugh stepped out of his role to focus on school, so memberships and store orders and the all the other amazing things Ryan was doing landed on the plates of Deanne, our Executive Director and Andrea our Communications Coordinator, who already had some full plates. Since February, the ladies, with support from the Board of Directors, have been working tirelessly on so many projects, here are a few of the highlights:
- Renegotiated a new 2-year maintenance agreement and funding for the trails on Fromme Mountain with the DNV.
- Are working with another land manager to have more trails added to the sanctioned network.
- Provided valuable input into the Recreational Area Management Plan for the CMHC Lands on Seymour to ensure that the needs of mountain bikers are included in the plan.
- Worked to ensure that our sponsors and volunteer builders were all set for a season of trail maintenance with no COVID restrictions.
- Engaged with a trail contractor to ensure that the Cypress East climb trail project continues to progress.
- Planned and launched the Triple Crown Raffle.
- Relaunched the Fiver Series.
- Hired more staff to get back on track with all the operational tasks.
- And so much more!
We’re like the suspension on your bike, doing all the work so that your ride is smooth and enjoyable.
So, bear with us, it’s time for the suspension to go in for an overhaul. We are going to be looking into our membership processes to ensure the best way to get those stickers to you in the future. In the meantime, we still encourage you to renew or buy a membership, as we will be fulfilling any membership that was renewed since April 1 onward as soon as the new process (and sticker) is in place!
The NSMBA sincerely thanks our sponsors and members for their continued support, and we hope that you can see that not only do sponsor and membership dollars go to help keep the trails running smooth, but they are also hugely valuable in supporting the day to day operations of one of the largest mountain bike organizations in the country.
See you on the trails!
Deanne