M.O.R.E. IMBA Chapter Meeting

[scorchedearth]

IMBA Chapter Meetings- SAVE THE DATE | MORE-MTB

Hello all,

M.O.R.E. will be holding a general membership meeting where we will discuss the current proposal for M.O.R.E. to become an IMBA chapter.

There are two meetings:

Saturday December 1st
Stacy C. Sherwood Community Center
3740 Old Lee Highway
Fairfax, VA 22030

Sunday, December 2nd
Pfeiffer's Corner Schoolhouse
Rockburn Branch Park
6109 Rockburn Branch Park Road
Elkridge, MD 21075

Members are welcome to attend. We hope to see you there.

*edited for accuracy*

[mtbfyrefyter]

Thank you scorched!

Above is the official flyer advertisement.

Please do note that there is a limited capacity on this event. Once occupancy/capacity has been met, I will personally shut the doors as I am authorized to by the venue owners, the City of Fairfax, Virginia.

[mtbfyrefyter]

The meetings have now passed us. If you are a MORE member and came out to the meetings, thank you. If you are not currently a MORE member, please do consider joining the club and help support our mission. Good things are happening in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Thank you for participating.

[kapusta]

The meetings have now passed us. If you are a MORE member and came out to the meetings, thank you. If you are not currently a MORE member, please do consider joining the club and help support our mission. Good things are happening in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Thank you for participating.

So, have you all decided if you are going to become an IMBA chapter?

[mtbfyrefyter]

So, have you all decided if you are going to become an IMBA chapter?

Thanks for the inquiry. Since the meetings, I have heard and read a lot of back and forth discussions, however, I have not heard of 100% answer yet. I will update this thread accordingly when I get a proper answer.

[edubfromktown]

It's official... MORE will become an IMBA Chapter Club.

Important Announcement - IMBA MORE Chapter | MORE-MTB

[jabberwocky]

It's official... MORE will become an IMBA Chapter Club.

Important Announcement - IMBA MORE Chapter | MORE-MTB

So, despite all their claims of openness and wanting input, the board of directors makes the decision at an unannounced closed door meeting while the discussion is still ongoing. Not shady at all, no sir.

[edubfromktown]

The MORE board gave members an opportunity to attend two general membership meetings over a week ago and posted in the MORE forum to contact them directly with concerns. None of the relatively small group of attendees voiced any major objections to becoming an IMBA chapter at the VA meeting. Certainly there was "lively discussion" however all seemed satisfied with the responses. I assume the same was true of the MD meeting the next day.

I don't follow MORE board activities that closely (beyond reading all the forum posts- even when they get moved around w/o any notification at times!) and came up with:

o The next BoD meeting would be sometime in early Dec.
o Time was of the essence for some components of the latest IMBA proposal
o It was clear both in the meeting that I attended and from what board members posted on the forum that even with my input and others, a membership vote wasn't going to happen

The conclusion I came to was that the BoD would vote on it in December.

While I am not a fan of some of the board members personally, I have the view that it takes all kinds of people to get the job done. After reading all the materials, current and past forum posts and speaking with some of BoD in person (that I know reasonably well and others I have had little interaction with), I'm fine with all of them voting and moving forward with a majority in agreement.

[jabberwocky]

They kept saying time was of the essence, but got evasive when asked what the deadline actually was. They never stated (that I can find) that this was being voted on this week. Given how active the thread was (and the board members were within the thread), its hard to draw any conclusion other than that the meeting was deliberately kept from the membership. That doesn't sit well with me, but to be honest thats pretty standard operating procedure for MORE.

Fortunately, some of the folks running for the board of directors have said they will be making it a priority to change the club bylaws to force a membership vote on big changes like this. Its a shame that doing the right thing has to be forced on them, but hopefully it will get done.

[bobby_tables]

I'm not a MORE member (was one several years ago) and not really active all that much on their forum anymore since the new re-design so I missed any discussion of this. Maybe this was explained before, but from what I understand, they are just signing up for admin support from IMBA (and IMBA gets access to their members), correct? What makes this a big change for them seeing as they already include IMBA in everything anyways? Are there some cons to this I'm not seeing?

[kapusta]

I'm not a MORE member (was one several years ago) and not really active all that much on their forum anymore since the new re-design so I missed any discussion of this. Maybe this was explained before, but from what I understand, they are just signing up for admin support from IMBA (and IMBA gets access to their members), correct? What makes this a big change for them seeing as they already include IMBA in everything anyways? Are there some cons to this I'm not seeing?

I'm not sure if MORE worked some other deal out, but as an IMBA chapter, you split membership dues with IMBA 60/40 in IMBA's favor.

[edubfromktown]

Operationally the change will not be dramatic from what I understand (as a grunt member who enjoys riding and volunteering time to help maintain and build trails).

I'm a bit concerned about IMBA pushing initiatives that could potentially take away from the close-to-full bucket of what MORE manages now. Some appear worried that MORE will only be able to create machine made trails from now on (which is ludicrous), the grassroots feel of the club will evaporate, "big business" is infiltrating, IMBA won't remain hands off, etc. There are always tradeoffs though in this case, the positives far outweigh negatives IMO.

[kapusta]

Operationally the change will not be dramatic from what I understand (as a grunt member who enjoys riding and volunteering time to help maintain and build trails).

I'm a bit concerned about IMBA pushing initiatives that could potentially take away from the close-to-full bucket of what MORE manages now. Some appear worried that MORE will only be able to create machine made trails from now on (which is ludicrous), the grassroots feel of the club will evaporate, "big business" is infiltrating, IMBA won't remain hands off, etc. There are always tradeoffs though in this case, the positives far outweigh negatives IMO.

I'm with Roanoke IMBA, we formed a chapter about a year ago. IMBA has virtually nothing to do with what we choose to do as a club in terms of advocacy (unless we call on them) what trail projects we do, rides we organize, etc. I guess if we started doing something that was in direct conflict with their mission, they might want to discuss our status as a chapter.

Being a chapter has in no way made this a less "grass roots" thing. It's just plugging you in to a good support system.

[edubfromktown]

I'm with Roanoke IMBA, we formed a chapter about a year ago. IMBA has virtually nothing to do with what we choose to do as a club in terms of advocacy (unless we call on them) what trail projects we do, rides we organize, etc. I guess if we started doing something that was in direct conflict with their mission, they might want to discuss our status as a chapter.

Being a chapter has in no way made this a less "grass roots" thing. It's just plugging you in to a good support system.

Awesome- thanks...

[kapusta]

Awesome- thanks...

Of course, our club is small peanuts compared to MORE. We are likely not worth their time to worry about

I think they offered MORE a few things to sweeten the deal (did I read something about a dedicated paid staff member?), so they might have expectations?

[Mrs. Outlaw]

Being a chapter has in no way made this a less "grass roots" thing. It's just plugging you in to a good support system.

This was one of my biggest concerns about becoming an IMBA chapter. Glad to hear that it hasn't changed your club. Thanks for posting!

[washedup]

Just because it hasn't happened, doesn't mean that it can't/ won't in the future. And yes, those who were gung ho about passing this were leaving the board first of the year and afraid others wouldn't want it. Whether this was in the clubs best interest, I don't know, but it seemed to be in the best interest of a few board members. What rubbed me wrong was that some of these zealots had been mountain biking for less than 5 years and pressing issues that affect all of us. Please keep this in mind when voting for new board members. While the majority of MOREs members seem to be novice/ intermediate riders, there are those of us who have been doing this for many years who the club doesn't seem too concerned about representing. Just because you can't ride it doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for others to enjoy.

[edubfromktown]

Just because it hasn't happened, doesn't mean that it can't/ won't in the future. And yes, those who were gung ho about passing this were leaving the board first of the year and afraid others wouldn't want it. Whether this was in the clubs best interest, I don't know, but it seemed to be in the best interest of a few board members. What rubbed me wrong was that some of these zealots had been mountain biking for less than 5 years and pressing issues that affect all of us. Please keep this in mind when voting for new board members. While the majority of MOREs members seem to be novice/ intermediate riders, there are those of us who have been doing this for many years who the club doesn't seem too concerned about representing. Just because you can't ride it doesn't mean it shouldn't be there for others to enjoy.

There were long timer's in support of joining IMBA as well. I bought my first MTB in ~1996; as if that matters

Scud was the main presenter at the meetings. He's got a few years MTB riding under his belt (and stated that joining IMBA has been a long term goal). The Dave's were positive about the concept in general during the summer/autumn. I look at it as: the folks on the Board volunteered to do the job which nobody else stepped up for and they made it happen. If others want it different then by all means, submit a nomination (deadline is COB today I think).

I'm feeling positive waves and hoping for the best. It will take effort like anything else.

[washedup]

There were long timer's in support of joining IMBA as well. I bought my first MTB in ~1996; as if that matters

Scud was the main presenter at the meetings. He's got a few years MTB riding under his belt (and stated that joining IMBA has been a long term goal). The Dave's were positive about the concept in general during the summer/autumn. I look at it as: the folks on the Board volunteered to do the job which nobody else stepped up for and they made it happen. If others want it different then by all means, submit a nomination (deadline is COB today I think).

I'm feeling positive waves and hoping for the best. It will take effort like anything else.

None of those names are on the board so in reality, they have no say. I am not in favor or against the "takeover." Its the process and what happened behind closed doors I take issue with. As for submitting for the Board, I was on it and quit when I felt things previous votes were completely ignored. When i pointed this out, it was also ignored. Funny that it was presented a s long term goal. For who? IMBA? It has been a long term discussion with the club. A goal for some members of the board

[edubfromktown]

None of those names are on the board so in reality, they have no say. I am not in favor or against the "takeover." Its the process and what happened behind closed doors I take issue with. As for submitting for the Board, I was on it and quit when I felt things previous votes were completely ignored. When i pointed this out, it was also ignored.

A Dave IS on the board...

I'm not in the loop on what all went on behind closed doors though some of the board members were forthcoming about enough of the sorts of things plain old members (like me) frown upon to put it politely.

I am hopeful and optimistic that less (BS) will be MORE going forward

[riderx]

Washed Up is right, becoming an IMBA chapter has not been a long term goal of MORE, but IMBA has certainly been pursuing MORE for a long time. I know this first hand as I served on the 2010 and 2011 BOD.

Dave F., current MORE prez made it his highest priority to make MORE an IMBA chapter - I'm not exactly sure why to be honest. At last year's December board meeting Dave wanted the board to vote on the Chapter proposal they had at the time without even presenting it to membership. Curious how there were never any board meeting minutes published from the December 2011 meeting...(you'll need to be a MORE member to access those links which are threads in the member area)

[washedup]

And with Dave being "MORE Prez" and all, his priority should have been to have a decision of such magnitude done right, rather than to push forth his agenda. Some folks know how to play the political game, but it doesn't sit well with everyone, including some people we work with outside of the MTB world. Im not one for sales pitches and when people start politicking me first inclination is to check my shoe to see if I stepped in something.

[edubfromktown]

xxx

[edubfromktown]

Washed Up is right, becoming an IMBA chapter has not been a long term goal of MORE, but IMBA has certainly been pursuing MORE for a long time. I know this first hand as I served on the 2010 and 2011 BOD.

Dave F., current MORE prez made it his highest priority to make MORE an IMBA chapter - I'm not exactly sure why to be honest. At last year's December board meeting Dave wanted the board to vote on the Chapter proposal they had at the time without even presenting it to membership. Curious how there were never any board meeting minutes published from the December 2011 meeting...(you'll need to be a MORE member to access those links which are threads in the member area)

Hmmm - the way Scud presented it sounded different. I'm not sure why it was pushed so hard either along with another initiative up North. I still see joining IMBA as an overall positive so long as autonomy remains - which kapusta indicated holds true for Roanoke.

Like I said don't know much about the behind the scenes stuff. At least some of the board and other members posted info that was informative and helpful. Hopefully additional balance will come to the board (along with better communications) for next year.

[edubfromktown]

And with Dave being "MORE Prez" and all, his priority should have been to have a decision of such magnitude done right, rather than to push forth his agenda. Some folks know how to play the political game, but it doesn't sit well with everyone, including some people we work with outside of the MTB world. Im not one for sales pitches and when people start politicking me first inclination is to check my shoe to see if I stepped in something.

Agreed. I hate politics but they are an unfortunate fact of life. The best way to counteract them is nominate someone to advocate for us