PO Box 557

Dalton , MA   01227

www.westernmassatv.org

July 1st, 2008 TO September 31st, 2008

Where Do We Go From Here

This newsletter is going to be a single topic letter.  There are several points that need to be made perfectly clear and that is what this newsletter is all about.  You may want to re-title this “ The Ranting’s of a Loonaitic”.  “Where we go from here” is entirely up to you.  

Over the past several months there has been an attempt by our State Government (MA), to cram a bill and pass into law a bill that would change almost every aspect of our sport.  If this bill gets through and passes into law, this will not let anyone under the age of 14 ride an ATV on Public or Private Property this includes your own property.  This in our estimation will bring this sport to its knees.  The Bill S 2772 is now in the House of Representatives, in the House Ways and Means Committee.  There are so many aspects of this Bill that are wrong, I could spend the entire newsletter pointing out the bad things.  For example: All Off Highway Vehicles must be registered even if they never leave your property and even if they never get ridden in the State of Mass.  I could go on for hours even days about this Bill.  What I encourage all of you to do is to go onto the Western Mass ATV forum and get the information for yourself.  Don’t be complaisant and expect everyone else to protect your rights.  Stand up and be counted.  I have been preaching this for the past several newsletters, “NOW IS THE TIME TO REACT”. 

A brief history:  This Bill started out about 18 months ago as a one page bill that wanted to ban anyone under the age of 14 from riding an ATV.  If under age riders were caught, their parents would face Loss of license, jail time and they would be reported to the Department of Social Services for child abuse.  That Bill was called HB 3592.  At that point it, HB 3592 had sat in the Senate Transportation Committee for about a year.  Early this spring in the Transportation Committee the DCR was asked for their recommended changes to the Bill.  The DCR who had been working with the OHV Working Group did the most insane thing possible.  They took the worst of HB 3592 and combined it with the Worst parts of the Working Groups recommendations.  The 2 separate items were combined and passed through the Transportation Committee.  The Bill was passed to the full Senate where it has been amended numerous times and tamed down a little.  It was renamed and numbered several times (I think to throw us normal people of track).  It passed through the Senate in record time and has finally ended up in the House of Representatives House Ways and Means Committee.  It still has all of the draconian language that it started out with.  With the exception that for the most part NETRA won’t be effected by this.  I have been told by several legislatures that in their past history they have never seen a bill move so quickly through the Senate.

During the process of the Bill moving through the Transportation Committee and into the Full Senate, we needed to react fast.  So, we ended up hiring a Lobbyist to help us fight.  Since then, things for some of us have been moving at a rapid pace.  I know for myself and Tim Crennan, this has become almost another full time job.  Thankfully through the umbrella organization called Mass Trails Association, comprised of The Central Mass Trail Hogs, Northeast ATVers , North Quabbin Riders, Western Mass ATV is not standing alone on this one.  They are not only helping with the $5000.00 dollars we had to pay, but also with the work load.  We have also had the tireless efforts of Chris Ryan a Lawyer at MTA’s disposal.  Mass Trails Assoc.  has been a huge asset through this whole process.   

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security by this good news.  The fight can not be shouldered by the officers of these clubs.  We all need to pitch in and do our fair share.  For all of you MA residents we need you to contact your State Reps by letter, email and phone calls.  Let them know that “You are mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore”.  You can also donate to the Lobbyist Fund.  For all of the out of State members, don’t feel left out, although your voice won’t be heard through the Reps, please dig deep into your wallets and give generously to the Lobbyist Fund.   Large or Small, your donations will be greatly appreciated and put directly into the Fund to hire a lobbyist on a full time basis.  It is our turn to tell this State that we are sick of not having decent riding areas and too few of them.  Even if we win this battle, the war is not over.  They will come back next year with another Anti ATV bill.  We need to stand together with the other clubs and pool our money and man power.  It’s like I’ve been saying all along, there is strength in numbers. 

I know I feel very strongly about this, our club is one of the Best ATV clubs in New England .  We offer our members a lot of benefits for very little dues.  Where else can you be paid to be a member, you ask what I mean by that. You pay your membership $20 or $30 for single or family; you go to our 3 work parties in a year, at the end of the year you get a $100 gift certificate.  If you are a family of 4 and all of your family has shown up for the work parties, that’s $400 dollars the club give you.  That puts $370 dollars in your pocket.  That’s what I call a good return on your investment.  We have a scholarship ride, we raised over $600 dollars, we only had 1 (one) applicant.  We have our annual holiday party, each member only pays half of the cost of putting on the party, the club pays the other half.  Every time we have a Poker Run and Holiday party and people walk away with prizes, where do we think they come from, ( I know you don’t believe in fairy’s any more), our officers are out begging our sponsoring dealers for prizes.  We (the officers) work hard to make sure this club is one of the best.  No other club in Mass works as hard to maintain decent trails for you to ride on.  Name me one other club that applies for and gets the Federal R.T.P. grants to help maintain the trails, NONE.  What other clubs officers work tirelessly with the Berkshire Trails Council and the State to make sure the trails stay open to even the most ungrateful of riders that can’t even bother to join a club, NONE.    

I know this sounds like a rant and maybe it is, but my hope is that you will get as mad as I am and get the urge to help.  Here is what we are asking every single member to do with no exception.  Go to Our forum, sign up as a member (if you haven’t already) log on and get all the information about this newest Bill S 2772.  If you don’t have a computer or access to the internet, call me or one of your other club officers and we can get you all the information you need.  Get informed and get into action.  If this thing passes and we did nothing, we will have no one to blame but ourselves.  There is a load of information and no one is getting it.  For those of you that don’t know our web address is: http://www.westernmassatv.org   Go to the Forum button at the bottom of the Home page.  When the page opens you will need to register, you will need to create a different username and password (other than the one for the website).  Your username will also become your screen name on the Forum.  The webmaster will need to verify you and your account.  This keeps anti’s out of the protected stuff.  Once on the Forum you will have access to things like how to find your state rep at: http://www.mass.gov/legis/city_town.htm  and sample talking points and letters. These are the tools you need to get this task done, please, use them.   If anyone has problems getting to the Forum, email Chris <western3@westernmassatv.org>, if  you want a copy of the current bill go to: http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/185/st02pdf/st02772.pdf  this will give you the current bill in PDF format. 

So there it is in a nut shell.  We don’t ask often and we don’t ask much of our members, but we are asking now.  Please get mad and get into action we need everyone’s help. 

  Old news:

April News: 

April 6^th:  Board of Directors Meeting.  This is the meeting where all of the Board gets together and sets our long term goals, not only for this year but sometimes for the years to come.    One of our long term goals is to work with the umbrella organization, Mass Trails Assoc.  It is the Boards belief that this sport needs the umbrella organization in order to maintain and create a future for us in the state.  We all know that WMATV needs to become a fund raising machine.  So, if any of you have a creative idea’s please feel free to talk to one of your board members about it.  We need to think outside the Box on this one and draw from more than just our members. 

It was also the Boards decision to make available to the other clubs a portion of our $50,000 dollar R.T.P. money, we will be using a large portion of this money to work on Pittsfield State Forest , but some of that money needed to filter into the other State Forests with riding trails.  The only way to accomplish this was to make some of this money available to other clubs on an interest only basis.

April Mass Trails Assoc. News:   The By laws and club officers were voted on and approved.  We can now start the process of filing for our NPO status. The clubs that comprise this new organization are: Western Mass ATV Assoc.  Central Mass Trail Hogs, Northeast ATVers , North Quabbin ATV, New England ATV and last but not least Mass ATV.  Each club is allowed 2 full time members on the Board and 2 alternates.   This will give us a diverse base to start from. 

May News:  

May 4^th:  Our first work party to open the 2008 riding season.  We had about 40 members in attendance.  We were able to get everything cleaned up and opened up for the season.  Most of the water bars were in decent shape, but some of the mud holes needed a lot of work.  Thanks to all who attended and hope to see everyone at the next one. 

May 18^th:  Our second annual Meet the Dealer Day.  All said and done we had a great turn-out of riders.  We had riders from New England ATV, Northeast ATV’rs and North Quabbin Riders plus a whole lot of people that came in and signed up.  We were able to hand out a lot of information and sign up some new members.  We had Ronnie’s of North Adams , Central Mass Power Sports from Leominster , Bob’s Campers and Nichols Insurance.  I know for a fact that Bob’s Camper made a sale as a result of them being there.  There was also a lot of interest in the Polaris Razor that Ronnie’s brought.  All in all, it was a great day.  The weather held off just long enough for us to complete the event. 

May WMATV Meeting:

The web site design proposal was approved by the board, so that project can now get under way.  The New T-shirt and Sweatshirt design was approved, so that we can have the new apparel by the Poker Run.   

The new design on the shirts was designed by Jennifer Lula of Pittsfield .  They look GREAT!

May:  Mass Trails Assoc.:    Mass Trails Assoc. found out at the end of May that the HB 3592 was amended in the Transportation Committee, to include language that the ATV community could not live with.  At this point all the clubs were called into action to try to stop this bill.  A meeting for Mass Trails Assoc. was held at the meet the dealer day.   The State OHV working group was also notified that there will be a meeting on June 23^rd for a final revision of the language that it wants to propose to the State.

June News:

June WMATV Meeting:   Our new schedule was set for July, August and September.  Our new t-shirts are in.  They were available at the Poker Run and they were a big seller. There are sweatshirts available by special order. T-shirts are selling for $20.00, crew neck sweatshirts $30.00 and hooded sweatshirts are $35.00.  If interested, please call any of your officers.

The club has hired Fox Computer Systems to design our website.  This has been a long awaited project and Fox has begun on the construction of WMATV new website.  We are all excited about this new change and we hope you will enjoy the ease and contents of this website.

Yearly dues were discussed and due to the increase of operating costs of maintaining the club, a long over dues increase is necessary.  Starting immediately, dues will be $25.00 for single membership and $40.00 for family membership.  We have put off this increase as long as possible but found it necessary to make this change. This was a difficult decision to make and was debated for a long period of time before being voted on.

June MTA Meeting:  The MTA made a crucial decision to hire a lobbyist for our fight to keep our state forests open.  John P. Burke was hired as our lobbyist. JP Burke (as he likes to be called), has many years of experience lobbying in the capital.  The financial burden will fall on all of the associated clubs of MTA.  WMATV sent the initial check and will be reimbursed by the other clubs.  We needed to act quickly in order to get a lobbyist fighting the house bill S 2772.  We will need to continue to raise funds in order to retain the lobbyist on a full time basis.  MTA also had a meeting to discuss the language that the members of the OHV working group needed for their June 23^rd meeting with the state.  It was great to see all the clubs come together and work on this language as one group. 

New Members:

We would like to introduce and welcome our 8 newest members!!

Patrick Day, Southampton, MA; Joshua Love and family, Berlin, CT; Ted Tenenzapf, Somers, CT; Mike Lane, Lenox, MA; John Holmes and family, Redding, CT; Jeff Gamelli and family, East Otis, MA; Hector Melendez Jr., Pittsfield, MA; Stephen Sjostrom and family, West Springfield, MA

We look forward to meeting and riding with all of you. 

New News:

WMATV Scholarship was awarded to Lynn Crennan of Pittsfield .  Lynn is currently enrolled at MCLA and BCC, working towards her teacher certificate.  We wish her all the luck in the future!

Work Party is scheduled for July 27^th.  We will be leaving from the meeting at the West St parking lot at 9:00a.m.  We will be repairing the bridge at Doll Mtn. and brushing back the trails. 

 Wayne Ballou Memorial Scholarship ride is Sept. 14^th.  See the flyer included with the newsletter. 

Don’t forget that there is ATV insurance available for MA residents.  If you need information, please call one of your officers and they will be happy to assist you.

There will be a FUNDRAISER ride coming in the fall to support the lobbyist fund.  Details will follow this newsletter.

Upcoming club events for the next 3 Months: 

(Club rides are for members only)

Be sure and check the Website for any changes to this schedule

Any questions on these events or any other Club business please call one of the Officers or Directors listed below:

Club Officers:

Board of Directors: