AGM2013participants

AGM attendees after a day long meeting

By Jodi Appleton, Program and Administration Manager, FMCBC

We had a very successful AGM weekend from June 7th – 9th in Kamloops this year.  The Kamloops Hiking Club was our host and put on a fun weekend for us which included hikes, music, and lots and lots of food at the McQueen Lake Environmental Education Centre.  Most people attending the AGM stayed at the camp which provided a great opportunity for FMCBC Directors to visit and share ideas.

Thank you to our event organizers,Doug Smith, Katherine Roberts and Michelle Dressler for hosting us.  Your hard work and super organizational skills shone through!

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Scott Webster gave a presentation on the SFU Research Project

Friday night included a social meet & greet potluck.  KHC was very organized with name tags and meal tickets for everyone.  When the dinner bell rang (so fun!) we all came running.

Saturday started with a great, big breakfast with all sorts of options and lots of coffee and tea to get us rolling.  We had a great turn out of 19 people who attended the business portion of the weekend from 10am to 4pm on Saturday.  Scott Webster managed the meeting and we only fell a little bit behind in the morning, but with some creativity he got us back on schedule for the afternoon.

In the afternoon, Scott gave a short presentation on the research study being conducted by SFU.  We are still waiting on the final report, but should receive it soon and be able to share the findings with our member clubs.

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Break out session to discuss whether it is possible to work with and/or partner with mountain bike organizations.

After Scott’s presentation, we split the group into two for a break out session.  One group discussed the topic of Club Affiliations/Associate Memberships and how these might work.  The other group discussed whether hikers and mountain bikers can work together and if building partnerships might work.

I gave a short presentation on everyone’s favourite topic of insurance.  The presentation focused specifically on best practices when using waivers as the FMCBC has just released our Universal Waivers which have been in development over the past year.

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Everyone was happy to go for a hike after the meeting

Overall, we had lots of great discussions, but by the end of the day we all were anxious to get outside.  Doug took the group of us on a short afternoon hike before dinner and the rest of the weekend consisted of more eating, playing and listening to music around the fire pit, and, for most people, more hiking on Sunday morning.

Thank you again to the Kamloops Hiking Club for being our host.  The Kootenay Mountaineering Club has volunteered to host next year’s AGM in my hometown of Castlegar.