December Board of Directors Meeting Highlights

January 1, 2002

The minutes of the December meeting of the Board of Directors of the NCTA are now posted. Excerpted highlights are noted here. All the materials which the Board Members receive, which are referenced without note in the minutes are not reproduced with the minutes due to space and time considerations. However, specific questions of substance may be directed to the Executive Director, or a local board member of your acquaintance.

Due to the increased base funding through the National Park Service, as appropriated by Congress the NCTA will begin implementing the plan to form regional offices. Initially there will be two regions, East and West. The East region will cover New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The remaining four states will be served by the West Regional Office. It is hoped that Regional Directors can be hired this year. Creation of regional service centers was selected as the top priority by Chapter Presidents at the 2001 Annual Conference.

A new paradigm of interaction with bike groups has been adopted. In concert with the Michigan Mountain Bike Association, the NCTA will strive to help bikers find appropriate and appealing places to recreate. We will not compromise our vision for the North Country Trail as a hiker trail, but will seek to direct bikers to alternate locations.

Chapter Charters will be reviewed at their 5-year anniversary. If the chapter has By-Laws on file, and has no other violations of their charter, the charter will be given permanent status. A charter may still be amended or revoked, but will not come up for review at a specified time period. This step was taken because the number of chapters has grown to the point where reviews were time-consuming and largely unnecessary.

The new NPS Trail Manager, Fred Szarka, attended and began learning about us. Here's his mug... so we can get to know him!

Comments on other reports and topics can be seen in the minutes. Minutes from the past several board meetings are available on line from the link below.