2017 BCHI State Board of Directors Meeting September 16, 2017 Minutes Hosted by Eagle Rock BCH in Idaho Falls, Idaho

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1 2017 BCHI State Board of Directors Meeting September 16, 2017 Minutes Hosted by Eagle Rock BCH in Idaho Falls, Idaho The September 16, 2017 BCHI State Board of Directors (SBD) meeting was called to order at 8:01 by State Chairman Bill Conger in Idaho Falls, ID, with the Pledge of Allegiance. State Secretary, Debbie Samovar conducted the Roll Call of State Directors present. All chapters were represented except Palouse and Selkirk Valley. Minutes from the last Directors Meeting of March 10 and the Annual Business Meeting of March 11 were read. Scott Nichols of Boise, made a motion to accept the minutes, Amy Lyman, Portneuf River, seconded, Motion PASSED. State Treasurer, Kay Ryan reported on the finances for the period March 1, 2016 through August 31, 2017 we started with $50, Val Johnson, Salmon River, motioned to accept Treasurer s Report, Phil Ryan, Squaw Butte, 2 nd, Motion PASSED. Chainsaw Certification Bill Conger, Chairman, has been in contact with Dale Schrempp, Priest River, who will be setting up with the FS to get saw certification. Twin Rivers has two certified trainers as they were professional sawyers for many years and fell into the FS training. We currently don t have anything set with FS yet to train some of folks as trainers. That s our goal and that is what Dale will work on. Jerry Lane, Twin Rivers, Joe Robinson, North Central and Doug Olive, FS, are certified to train. There is a policy change with the FS where they are going to train us to be our own trainers. FS trained people in the Portneuf chapter in Ogden, UT and Cache Peak is working with the Minidoka Ranger District for training. Dale will following through on this for both Regions 1 and 4. Sara Johnson, Salmon River, passed out copies of an article written by member John Burns regarding saws which will be in Broomtales. Bikes in the Wilderness Scott Nichols, Boise, H.R was introduced in March 2nd. You can go to to check the status of a bill. It has a 9% chance of being passed and at the present moment there is no action on it. Bills are introduced at the beginning of an election cycle, 2017, and runs for two years, till the next election. At the beginning of the next cycle bills that have not passed get wiped off and have to be reintroduced. There are 27 different bills with the term wilderness in them and the Pacific Crest Trail has a 47% chance of becoming a law. Website list of Idaho s Congressional delegation - Scott Nichols talked about putting hot links on our website that would go to the web pages of Idaho s Congressional delegation, elected State Officials and candidates for office and what their positions are on the issues that are important to us. Should include Crapo, Risch, Labrador, Simpson, the Governor and candidates. Scott will commit to looking behind the scenes for position stances. Phil Ryan has personally joined the Idaho Wildlife Federation to connect with lawmakers. Create a list of annual grant opportunities - Scott Nichols talked about BCHI and BCHI Foundation creating a list of annual grants, deadlines, award dates, limits and purposes. Boise will contribute information and work with our Web Coordinator, Jill Nebeker to put it on the web site. Then in March have the Foundation take this over. Membership dues set to meet operations expenses It was asked if Boise was going to submit a proposal to the Delegates in March or was this just a discussion item for today s meeting. For 2017, based on the 2016 membership, we had 285 singles and 253 families. The state collected $20 for singles and $30 for families, for a total of $13,333 of which $8,859 went to BCHA leaving us with $4,471. Based on the budget and last years membership, the membership dues to the state would need to increase to $40 for singles and $60 for families. A show of hands of the directors indicated that most chapters would reject the increase. Thus this issue will not go forward. Education Chair Report Marybeth Conger, Squaw Butte One of the problems with having one Education Chair person for Idaho is the geography. Karen Kimball, Panhandle, has volunteered to co-chair. LNT We need to re-energize Leave No Trace Education. The Board has agreed to send Marybeth to the Master Education Course in California and will do it in Would like to see a Master Educator in each chapter.

2 Currently we only have three people who have the Master Education status, but not all are active right now. Looking to get some new educators and set some expectations. There is a commitment of putting on two trainings and one public event annually for a duration of five years. It was asked if BCHI is a member of the Leave No Trace organization and is there a cost associated with that, if so we need to put that into the budget. Marybeth will check into it. There is a syllabus on our web site outlining the training course. If a trainer is asked to go to another chapter to train, there should be a mechanism to reimburse for mileage, such as have the chapter s Foundation Director fill out a reimbursement request and have it to through the Foundation. The intent of Master Educators is to train the trainers. Education Grants Marybeth will create a template for chapters to request money from the Foundation for Master Education costs along with a jacket. This will appear on the upcoming Grants page. There was a comment that in the past Forest Services have had grants to pay for training. So if someone in your chapter is interested check with your local FS contact. Chapter Leadership Training Marybeth, Karen Kimball and Karen Parks will be working on having a couple of workshops at Convention with more details to come. Broomtales Report Bill Conger, Chairman, reported that Lorelei Hamon is retiring and we need to find a new editor. An was sent to all the chapters asking them to search their membership for anyone who would be interested. Twin Rivers does have one volunteer, but she can t do it until she retires in 3 years. If we don t get an editor maybe place a $300 ad in Just Horses. We would have to be something we could budget into the system. Media Chair Debbie Samovar, Secretary at the last meeting during the Broomtales conversation, it was noted that people should also submit their articles to horse magazines. It was commented that we should have a Media Chair to collect contact info for all the various magazines and could e-blast articles to all of them. Articles that fit within our mission statement can be sent and the author can say they re a member of a BCHI chapter. We do not want to be perceived as a riding group. Don t send horse accidents. Cultivate Relationships Scott Nichols, Boise, commented that with respect to trail clearing, the age and ability of our membership shifts over time. We need to rethink how we interface with individuals that are capable of doing this kind of work. Reach out to Boy Scouts of America or some other organization you can depend on a yearly basis who can do x many miles of trails. BCHI Insurance Bill Conger reported we changed the number of event days paid for by the State to, two per chapter. Those event days need to be submitted by the 15th of February 2018 to be included in next year s policy. You can submit more than two public event days, you will just be billed for those. Event days are still running $45, parades $100 and additional insured $20. Need time if you re adding an event. A week s notice is a little tight, especially as Bill isn t always at home. Try for 30 days. When you are sent a bill for an extra event, please pay promptly. The insurance will not cover public events that have alcohol or dogs on the trail. There is no coverage for lending or renting animals to another person. Anytime you have non-members on a trail ride or work project, you must list it as a public event, otherwise you won t have coverage. Liability is third party coverage. The insurance company is the first party, BCHI is the second party and third party is the unknown party that may claim injury. Nomination Committee At the spring meeting we will need to elect one national director, an alternate director, vice-chairman and chairman. Phil Ryan will chair the committee and Amy Lyman will assist. Web Coordinator Jill Nebeker, Treasure Valley, would like to create a link for each chapter on the state map. The headers at the top really don t explain much and would like to expand those, reorganize the layout and make navigation easier. Rod Parks made a motion to let the web coordinator free range to update and improve the quality of our website, Sara Johnson seconded, all ayes. Motion passed. Membership s - Debbie Samovar, Secretary, at the last director s meeting, Bob Savage commented that he receives phone calls from actual members wanting to know what is happening because their directors are not disseminating any information to them. I have received s from BCHA which I have forward to directors and found out that they did not make it to the membership and I hope everyone got the Emergency Marking of Horses information. Sometimes s come in requesting that we contact our congressmen on a bill that will be going to vote in the next day or two. If I have everyone s addresses then I could send that out to everyone at one time.

3 The only people who would get our addresses would be me and the National if you would like to do that. BCHA is creating a social networking group of just BCH members. That way someone in Ohio could communicate with someone in Idaho. It would also require you to go onto the BCHA site and create a profile. Raenette stated that it is the duty of the directors to pass information onto their chapter. We should not get a free pass by having the secretary do an . It was commented that if a director gets an and they are away for a day or two, then timely info doesn t get out. Also there are a lot of steps in getting information out. It s received by the secretary, forward to the director, who sends it to the chapter secretary and then it is sent to the members. If the secretary has everyone s s, then it s just one click and it s out to everyone. Rod mentioned that BCHA has been requesting our s for years and maybe we need to readdress this issue. Amy Lyman, National Director, reported that because of the networking through BCHA some Missouri chapters came out and did some work with Wyoming chapters during the summer. Salmon River s 40th Anniversary Salmon is one of the original four chapters that formed BCHA and they are going to have a display and presentation at the Convention. Convention Billie Havens, SBD meeting and Foundation meeting will be on Friday, March 9th and the Convention will be on Saturday, March 10th. The location will be at the Quality Inn & Suites Convention Center, 700 Port Dr., Clarkston, Washington. Photo Criteria for Calendars Debbie Samovar explained the new criteria for photos, with the major change being that photos can be taken in any state and must be of BCHI members, taken by a member, or taken for BCHI. Additionally it was noted that the purpose of the calendar is to promote BCHI and our Mission Statement. The criteria will be put in Broomtales and in the Call for Photos. National Directors Reports Amy Lyman, Portneuf River, BCHA is in transition since Peg retired and they hired an a management firm. Erica Fearn is our contact. The convention was great. They put together a book of all the states hours. Unfortunately Idaho wasn t in it. Roland Cheek, the last living founding member of BCHA was there and thanked all the states for all their work. He wants us to focus on youth and education. Still working on chainsaw certification and every chapter should have a First Aid person. National membership is way down and we should get involved with other wilderness groups. They met a National Hunters and Angler group at dinner and they are now working with us on the National level. Also need to work with agencies, hikers and bikers. Jim McGarvey created some pass out cards for us to pass out to anyone that we meet others on the trails. California Mid-Valley Chapter goes to the Rose Parade and for 2019 they have invited packers from WA, OR, ID and MT. There is an application that you will need to fill out on the National site. Ways & Means Rod Parks, Twin Rivers, had a thought that maybe we get with other volunteer organizations and start a Crown Sourcing Event to keep trail access open. Would like to get together with a few other people to brainstorm on other options for fundraising. Some ideas were have a few competitive trail rides through the state with a championship ride at the end. Heartland has started an event called TRUE- Trail Users Etiquette. The idea of TRUE is to get a variety of trail users- horsemen, hikers, mountain bikers, ATV hunters, Razor drivers, etc. together to learn what etiquette is appropriate when meeting each other on the forest trails. Maybe we could make this into a fund raiser. The budget goes up each year due to inflation and our income from the raffle calendars tends to be less each year. We need to look forward for when the raffle won t be supporting us any more. Maybe we should revisit the amount of money we put into the legal fund as we had to cut corners on our budget. Amy reported that National had a heart attach when they heard we have a legal fund. When ever there is a lawsuit situation that this is what National if for. Raenette will check into this and report at the spring meeting Raffle Calendar it s estimated that if we sell all of the calendars, with reducing the grand prize to $3,000, assuming we eliminate the 10% payback to chapters and other expenses, we should net $14,800. The cuts saved us $6340. Otherwise we would only make $8,460. Maybe we should put on our spring agenda upping the calendar sales. We have chapters that take 200 while others only take 30. This is supposed to be equitable and we decided as a State to sell raffle tickets. We need to go over our numbers and sell more tickets.

4 Volunteer Hours and Annual Reports Rod Parks, Twin Rivers. These reports are best thing we have to get some clout, accountability and recognition from our public agencies we work with. When you put your reports together you should also send them to any agency that you did work for them. We should report our hours and the dollar value when we are speaking to other groups. Every chapter should have a Volunteer Hours Coordinator and chapters should complete and submit their reports to BCHI Vice Chairman by the end of the year. Forms and guidelines are on links on the BCHA website. Our reports will be combined for the state and sent to BCHA. Write a report on each project that you did and Rod will pick one from each chapter to put in his National report. If you need help with the reports call Rod. Report hours for newsletters that are also sent out to agencies, speaking in front of other groups. Public Lands Report North Rod Parks, Twin Rivers, he covers from Heartland north. SOPA Reminded everyone again for the need to check the SOPAS Scheduled of Proposed Action for their forests quarterly January, April., July and October. You can go to the FS website It pulls up a map and you can go to your forest. Check for Trail Reconstruction and Logging. When they go in and clear cut you can lose trails. They put out a map showing where and if there is a trail you need to make sure that they put it back in. When they do trail reconstruction make sure you check to see what trail class it is going to be built to and let them know you support it. Federal Register It lists all things coming up for FS, BLM, and NPS. Try to check this a couple times a month. There are links to all three on the BCHI website at the top of the Issues Page a couple times a month. It is very important to get involved and respond at the Scoping stage. If you don t comment, then no appeals can be done. RAC The Resource Advisory Committees in Idaho, reviews grant application every spring. Link to application forms at They offer training for filling out the grants and the deadline to submit grants is usually in January every year. Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail This trail was designated a national scenic trail in 2009, located on 1200 miles of trail from the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean. For details see; An Advisory Council was formed in Selkirk Valley and Priest River BCH have been involved in the trail section across Idaho. Issues are Grizzly Bear and Caribou habitats and non motorized trail locations for hikers and equine. Their final plan is due Wallace L. Forest Conservation Area this is BLM land located on Blue Creek Bay on Coeur d Alene Lake. They signed their decision June 16, "These projects balance the demands of the recreating public, create jobs through implementation of the forestry and fuels reduction work and help protect adjacent homeowners from the threat of wildfire, said Balm s Coeur d Alene Field Manager Kurt Pavlat. Recreation enhancements include creating additional equestrian/hiking trails on the west side of the project area where use is already occurring. Creating opportunities for mountain biking/hiking trails in the project area's northwest section. Other enhancements include development of a small, graveled parking area off Bonnell Road, enlarging the existing meadow parking area, creating a kid-friendly mountain bike loop on the east side and installing a stream crossing over Blue Creek that will accommodate hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. Scotchman Peak Karen Kimball report that there was a public meeting in Bonners Ferry. It was well organized and we had four people attend. Two of which rode up the trail prior to the meeting and helped a conservation group in the clearing of part it. There is talk of making switchbacks on the trail. Public Lands Report South - Phil Ryan, Squaw Butte Owyhee Initiative There are no meetings in the summer months for OI. Organization members did attend the grand opening of the Bruneau Overlook built by the BLM as part of the recreation aspects of the new wilderness. That happened to be National Trails Day (weekend) so BCHI members from the Emmett chapter were developing new trail routes in the Perjeu Canyon and Shoo-fly Creek area where the BLM plans to build a new trailhead in 2018 Idaho Sportsman s Alliance Next meeting is October. No issues affecting public lands this last year. Handouts from Phil The National Forest System Trails Stewardship Act Response from the Chief of the Forest Service concerning the National Strategy for a Sustainable Trail System. This is in response to the Trails bill passed last November. His strategy for the next 10 years is to get more volunteers and have less trails. A PDF can be downloaded from:

5 Sabinoso Wilderness is America s only inaccessible wilderness located in northern New Mexico. Currently two senators and a Swiss philanthropist and the Secretary of the Interior are working on to getting public access to this area. See article in Outdoor Life at: Eight lawmakers whose bills attack public lands Read this article about these lawmakers and who contributes to their campaigns in the High Country News, June 10, 2017 issue at: Idaho Conservation League Legislative Summary by Jonathan Oppenheimer, Government Relations Director, reports on how things went in (See Attachment #1) Owyhee Canyonlands Wilderness (Background) The Federal government is going to exchange lands form inside the wilderness that belong to the State to the BLM. But the land that the government is going to get must have a greater value than the State. The Owyhee Initiative opposes this and that it should be an equal exchange. (See Attachment #2) Wilderness Planning August and September Newsletters for Hemingway-Boulders Wilderness, White Clouds Wilderness and the Jim McClure-Jerry Peak Wilderness. (See Attachments #3&4) Why Public Lands Matter Phil attended a public meeting in Boise at the Andrus Center for Public Policy, covering how the West benefits and how our local politicians still want to get the timber. HR 1349 Bikes in the Wilderness The bill hasn t gone anywhere. (See Attachment #5) HR 2862 Wildfire Disaster Funding Act BCHA, BCHI and all the other States are for this. Find the bill at Click on the Text tab. USFS Idaho Buckhorn Burning regarding a prescribed burn. (See Attachment #6) Idaho Hunters learn Texas billionaires are locking them out at the last minute. (See Attachment #7) Bill commented that if we see anything, we need to get our comments in on it. Idaho Horse Council Raenette Didier, North Central. The State Vet ed that we had our first confirmed case of West Nile Virus in Payette County. The IHC awards three $1500 scholarships annually applications are due February 25th and forms are on their website. The Idaho Horse Board Grants are presented at the end of January. Applications are on their site and are due by Midnight on December 1st. Historic use of Horse Racing machines that were put around the State was that 1% of the funding was to comeback to the IHC and they finally received their money, $143,000. By-Laws - Bill Conger, Chairman, sent out proposed changes to the formatting of the By-Laws to make the language consistent, missing wording and easier to read. These items do not require a vote. As far as the two Articles we discussed, do you have to be a State Director to become a National Director and when the State Officers take office, will need to be voted on by the Delegates. There was a question on the suggested addition of Article XI, Liquidation, Dissolution or Termination, that shouldn t the assets should go back to the chapters? The assumption is that if BCHI is falling out of existence, is that the chapters are already gone. This is a requirement of our 501(c)4 and should be in every chapters By-Law. Legal Fund Rod Parks made a motion, that when the Treasurer of BCHI closes the books for the fiscal year, 50% of the excess funds will go into the legal fund. Scott Nichols, Boise seconded. Discussion All of the income from our dues and raffle calendar sales go to pay for all of our operational expenses for the year, 50% of what is left over will go into the legal fund. Amy received a text from Freddy Dunn, National Chairman, that BCHA has a legal fund, but states decide on their own if they want one. The vote was unanimous. Motion Passed. There is confusion as to whether the dropping of the 10% of the sales back to the chapters was a one time thing or is this going to be continual. The calendars go from January to December and out fiscal year ends in February. So the 10% that would be paid out for the 2017 calendars that would actually be paid in March of Adjourn Motion made, seconded, adjourned at 4:17. Respectfully Submitted, Debbie Samovar, Secretary, , secretarybchi@gmail.com

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