The Initial Meeting of the "Friends of the Little Miami State Park"
Sunday night Nov 16th, 2008
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| Some of the attendees at our first meeting. |
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To watch the presentation that was given to the attendees, please double click on either of the following links.
The PowerPoint Slide show requires that you have PowerPoint installed, if you do not have that, please download the PDF file. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat reader installed it is available as a free download from www.Adobe.com
PowerPoint Slide Show
PDF Slide Show
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We had a very successful first meeting on Sunday night Nov 16th, 2008.
When we out grew “The Corwin Peddler” we went to a larger Day Lodge. Eventually we almost out grew the Day Lodge, there was standing room only and we had approximately 80 people attend our first meeting. We now have many volunteers and some great suggestions to review. We elected an interim Board of Directors who are empowered to coop other Board Members as our needs change. The Interim Board will craft the Articles of Association, and Bylaws, apply for 501(c)(3) non profit status, etc. There will be full democratic elections no later than the end of June 2009.There are minor changes between the presentation and what appears above. Those changes show who has been elected to each position, some additional comments, courtesy of our Secretary and also corrects some minor errors. Our Board is happy to answer all of your questions, listen to your suggestions and make use of your offers of assistance, but please be aware that we have been attempting to correspond with well over 160 people about “The Little Miami State Park”. If you do not get a personalized response as quickly as you deserve please do not take offence.
Our Board are entering in all of the membership details, creating the By-Laws, Articles of Association, submitting a lot of legal paperwork, etc, to establish our Friends Group as a legal entity. After we have got those essential activities performed, we will then start working on other programs and activities.
Sincerely,
Simeon Copple
e-mail: President@FLMSP.org
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| Personal thoughts of the President |
What I have below is my (Simeon Copple's) personal priorities / desires for the "Friends of The Little Miami State Park" :
1) To ensure that the bridges remain structurally safe. (So the trail does not
become fragmented.)
2) To blacktop all of the bridges, so that the bridges become safe. (We have
had many accidents on our bridges, including at least two broken hips, a
broken collar bone, a broken shoulder blade, and recently a person
hospitalized for 3 1/2 weeks because he was paralyzed from the neck
down. The paralyzed man actually is recovering well enough now that he
came to my store and rented our three wheeled recumbent from us on
Oct 31, 2008.)
3) Analyze the effect of river erosion on the bank supporting the Little Miami
State Park close to Oregonia, and if needed prevent further erosion.
4) Ensure there are adequate bathroom facilities for the many ladies who
would like to use the trail year round. The State closes all of the bathrooms
from now until May. The Trail is 60 miles long and there are very few
business along the trail, therefore the lack of facilities limits quite a few of
the ladies.
5) Resurface areas of the trail that have degraded surfaces, because of tree
roots, or subsidence.
6) Obtain reliable and current usage data, showing the number of people, the
times, and days of the week they are using the entire Park. This data has
many purposes:
a) Provide The Ohio Dept of Natural Resources (ODNR), Ohio Dept of
Transport (ODOT), Counties, benevolent organizations with usage
data. This data will justify their continued support of our Park.
b) Enable businesses to tailor their opening hours to support the largest
number of cyclists and other users.
c) Encourage other business and individuals to invest in the communities
adjacent to the Park.
d) Document the benefits to our communities, which may be used to help
other communities to invest in similar Parks.
7) Publicize the trail, to encourage even more users, which in turn will enable
us to raise more funds allowing us to enhance this Park and adjacent Trails.
8) I would also like to get a number of improvement done, such as park
benches, improved signage and landscaping. Quite a few of these
ideas are very suitable as Eagle Scout and Gold Award Projects.
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