The IMBA Experience

A few months back, Hans Rey (above in Ireland) and some others made a trip to Prescott to hit the Dell's Technical section by Watson Lake with Chris Hosking from the City of Prescott trails division.  Hans Rey is one of the early pioneers of "super technical/on the edge" riding as you can see.  After his ride, he contacted folks at IMBA and told them that Prescott needed to be put "on the map."  IMBA made some calls and talked to some local shops and organizers like Christophe Noel at Raven.  Christophe and Greg started Raven about 3 years ago with the hopes of getting riders together and having fun.  They succeeded.  Putting on group rides with attendance over 50 people and fun rides like the "Klunker Ride", they are a definite influence here in the area.

With that in mind, IMBA came into town and gave an impromptu seminar on how to bring in revenue dollars to help build, maintain and keep existing trails open.  With the local economy struggling, Prescott is looking for any kind of revenue they can get.   They took special notice when the annual Whiskey Off-Road came to town.  Every hotel/motel, eatery in the downtown area was booked and actually had to turn people away.  With over 800 riders last year, it was one of the biggest events to hit Prescott in recent years.

With Sedona and Flagstaff looming in the distance,  Prescott often gets overlooked.  Yesterday we heard that we were part of "The Golden Triangle!"  Umm, the what?  Apparently out of "state-rs" call this area "The Golden Triangle" because of the triangle it makes from Sedona to Flagstaff to Prescott.  OK.  Everyone that was from the area had no idea and had never heard of such a thing..........strange.

In attendance was Mayor Kuykendall, and Prescott  Town Council members Lynn and Lopez.  They obviously wanted to hear how to get more of these types of events coming in to help local businesses.  With cold hard facts and many bike savvy riders and clubs in attendance, only one thing was clear.  How to get all of these riders and clubs together to form one big alliance to spearhead this effort?  After 4 hours of presentation and fact finding, a "steering committee" was formed.   Brooke is on that committee, as well as Christophe, and others from the area.  Over the next 2 months they will be forming contact lists,  nominating a board of directors and compiling a list of supporters and donors.

Prescott has a lot more going for it than Sedona, besides that crazy Vortex thing.  Basically it boils down to this....If we can get some sort of coalition together and become one strong voice for the biking community the following will happen.  Here are some notes from the meeting....

Hello riders,

We didn't want those valuable poster notes from the IMBA meeting to get lost in the shuffle, so we're sending them out into "the cloud" so all of us can pass them around, refer to them as needed, and when Prescott dethrones Moab as the hot spot - frame them for posterity.

Keep in mind, these posters were made from audience participation, so there's redundancy in these lists, and things may seem out of sequence.

IMBA Facilitator:  Ryan Schutz

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

• Better connectivity, variety of trails, easier navigation
• Terrain Park
• Good Relationship with policy makers
• Coalition of users
• Positive Stewardship
• Brand Recognition for Prescott
• BFC Designation
• Clinics
• Better community relations
  

WHAT DO WE NEED?

• Resident buy in
• Destination worthy Fall event (race or festival)
• Improved trail access and connectivity
• Local government support
• Organized Volunteers
• Organized Coalition
• Formalized Trail Network:  trail signs, maps, web resources, ride guides, GIS information, etc.
• Brand identity
• Funding for trail project, marketing, community development, etc.
  

EXPECTATIONS: (18 Month windo)

• Establish steering committee
• Establish board of directors
• Establish officers and committees
• Define the vision of the club
• Create formalized club structure with bylaws, mission, etc
• Establish necessary "Legalese" and treasury tools
• Create communication tools
• Develop membership
• Establish goals and timelines
• Have fun
• Have fun
• Have fun
  

GOALS FOR NEXT 18 MONTHS:

• Steering Committee by February 15th, 2010
• Steering Committee to meet 3 times in coming 90 days
• Establish board of directors and set meetings for every other month
• Elect officers from within the board
• Establish committees within the club members
• Establish a group ride schedule (may all ready be in existence and just needs to be folded in from Raven Singletrack)
• Kick off event (again, Raven Singletrack has an event already planned that the club can use as a club launch)
• Build on Raven Singletrack's success
  

STEERING COMMITTEE:

• Christophe Noel (Point of contact via:  ravensingletrack@gmail.com)
• Greg Ooley
• Rob Hehlen
• Chris Hoskings
• John Shumaker
• Brooke Weitkunat
• Karen Warrick
• Pat Fraher
• Debbie Cotton
• Robert Coombs
• Paul Katan (stepped out before he could be included, but we will contact him to see if he would like to be involved.)
  

To be continued........