HTRA Meeting Minutes

January 12th, 2017

The meeting was called to order at 6:30pm. Attendees: Jane Brown, Walt Cook, Vickie Banyash, Wendy Golding, Roxanne Miller, Dave Snyder, Donna Snyder, Joyce Love. Guest attendees: Don and Jan Packard.

Treasure Repot (Joyce) – Provided current status, as well as deposits from 2016 events

Membership Renewal(Dave)- Sent out an e-mail to all people that he had e-mails for and asked them to renew their membership before January 20th. To those who have not renewed he’ll follow up with members and non-members. Dave will solicit to those who camped but not members.

Saddle up (Donna) - Open to suggestions for future articles. Please let her know if you have any ideas. The February issue will include information about the art show so people can get prepared and it will also include the 2017 proposed plan for HTRA. It was suggested to include what members will get for their donation to joining the club. Saddle up article is due by Monday.

Wendy suggested having a clinician come in. Wendy will organize this event, possibly held in April.Jane suggested having the event under cover in a park and to bring horses. The charge would depend on who she gets and if she has to pay them. Wendy will gather some information and will propose her findings to group at the next meeting.

DNR workshophighlights (Donna) – Donna and Joyce attended a DNR workshop on December 3rd& 4th in Roscommon. The meeting was held to address certain issues that people wanted to know about. It was a ton of information so Donna purchased a flash drive with all the information stored on it. Some of the highlights:

  • DNR went over forms. Overall, a lot more paperwork for clubs
  • Spoke about grants and funding sources
  • Matt Lincoln provided flow chart on how to get funds
  • A new process for trail proposals. The proposals will go through different committees and each committee will go through the proposal separately. Ultimately, the decision is a collaborative effort involving many and no longer just the park DNR making the decision. Donna intends to bring up old proposals from HTRA that never went anywhere. They will have a trail database that we can use to track the proposals
  • Clubs need to sit with their respective park manager on an annual basis and do a strategic plan so that the DNR knows what all the clubs are requesting to do. Park density will be looked at when making decisions on proposals
  • When reporting volunteer hours, it will be more detailed based on each individual’s skill levels, types of equipment being used, etc.
  • Camping policy- reservation fee may change. Despite last year’s effort to inform the DNR that mixed camping does not work, during the meeting the DNR said mixed camping is working at Highland. Dave did a memo to all parties involved and reiterated that it is a problem with mixed camping. Ortonville is also shared and has had issues as well
  • Grant sources-places to go and what to do was discussed
  • DTE came in and talked about easements. To even get the DNR to look at an easement, a land lookover costs $500 per mile
  • Event permit-new fee structure. It’s going to a point system based on how much the club will use the park amenities and how many people will attend the events
  • Each person was able to list their concerns and turn them in prior to leaving the meeting. Nothing so far is concrete, as the meeting was based on a “draft”. The DNR intends to look at the concerns

Maps- The DNR has come up with a template for new park maps. All maps will be consistent among the parks. Having a template in a database will be easy for the DNR to make future changes to the maps

Future meeting schedule (Dave) – February 9thwill be repurposed to talk about the art show, April 13th-talk about May camping, May 4th- discuss about last minute details for camping, August 10th-plan for September camping event, and the September 4th meeting is rescheduled to possibly August 28th

Annual membership meeting (Dave) – Dave and Donna looked into renting a hall and having a silent auction, but too costly. They may look into having the meeting at a restaurant and having the attendees pay for their dinners.

5 year strategic plan (Dave) – Dave sent out in e-mail with the plan attached and it was reviewed during today’s meeting. Dave is trying to get a meeting with the DNR early February to go over the plan.

Michigan Department of Natural Resources Meeting (Dave) - Open house taking place onJanuary 26th. There is property being looked at to potentially expand the dog trial area and horse people need to show their interest in this land becoming available to the equestrians by showing up in numbers to this open house. We need spread the word to other equestrians to show up.

Don-A 501c3 is more favorable for grants. WHAM- Don suggested to the group WHAM to contact HTRA to possible combine efforts and hold some events. Don asked for a HTRA patch, as he is riding in the President inauguration. Joyce will get him a patch. Don asked if HTRA will join the Michigan Horse Council.