Presidential Ponderings
By Shelley Rose
February 2012
Well, the work on the Blood Mountain Shelter is completed! I want to recognize Gary Monk for the work he did as project manager and Lawson Herron, he served as assistant project manager and was with Gary every step of the way. Of the 3217 volunteer hours devoted to this project, Gary contributed 730 and Lawson recorded 340 hours. Thanks to you both as well as to all the GATC members and prospective members who worked on the project. If you have not hiked up to the shelter recently, the new roof is a beautiful sight to behold. This has been a long and complex project involving many partners – and one we can all benefit from for years to come.
We are about to embark on a project with the USFS to update and improve the volunteer memorandum of agreement between the Club and the FS. They want to expand the scope of the agreement so that volunteers are covered for any activities they are doing on behalf of the club, not just trail maintenance. This would include things like outreach committee activities and would serve as a model for other clubs.
The benefit to GATC would be having a sponsored volunteer agreement that fully documents club activities and ensures volunteer protection via the Volunteers in Forests Act while folks are engaged in service. I’ll keep you posted as we work through this.
See you on the trail,
Shelley Rose, GATC President