On Saturday November 11th, four members of the OREA Board of Directors – President Dawn Cope, Vice President Vera Kraft, Treasurer Steve Keim, and board member Scott Cope along with OREA member Amy Sharman loaded up tools and went to the Pinckney State Recreation Area Equestrian to help with Pinckney Trail Riders Association’s scheduled work bee and to learn about what the Pinkney Trail Riders Association is doing with their trails. This aligned with the part of our mission to “work in partnership … with other equestrian associations” and the guides: - Be a helpful partner with the DNR and other Equestrian Associations. - Develop friendly and cooperative relationships with other Equestrian Associations and fellow - equine enthusiasts. - Promote, support, and earn the respect of other Equestrian Associations. Amy Scharman is a member of the Equine Trails Subcommittee (ETS) and Vice President of the Pinckney Trail Riders Association (PTRA) and invited us to the work bee when camping at Ortonville. Amy is also an OREA member. Dianne Martin is President of PTRA. The goal of the work bee was to finish up a section of “sustainable trail” to replace a section of trail that had washed out in the 15-mile Pinckney trail system. Utilizing tools including shovels, rakes, loppers, McLeods, and Pulaskis. With a large contingent of volunteers (15 to 20 people) and DNR personnel, we were able to sustainably clear the section of trail down to the gravel bed along the hillside. If training becomes available for sustainable trail maintenance, it would be good for us to participate along with some of the DNR folks. (It is hard work!) We were able to learn quite a bit about creating and maintaining a sustainable trail. Minimum and maximum cross slopes and running slopes are important to create a trail that drains well and reduces the amount of erosion. It was nice to see two members from the local mountain bike association there helping. Maybe we should consider how we can partner with the hunters, hikers and snowmobilers who use the trails in Ortonville. We were surprised and encouraged to find that PTRA has over 150 members. We talked a lot with Dianne Martin PTRA President about how they got so many members and how they retain them. Dianne mentioned that she puts a membership application on the windshield of vehicles in the day use area. They also have several events that get the members involved that are noted below. One interesting thing about PTRA is that they have created an Adopt-a-Trail program to ensure that trails remain in great shape for riders. Volunteers are designated to be responsible for clearing back overgrowth on a specified area of trail. They also can choose to care for the downfall or not, this is not a requirement for Adopt-a-Trail. PTRA mows all the trails. Note that these are volunteers choosing a section of trail to maintain, not assignments of sections of trail. If we were to put this concept out to our audience, we might be pleasantly surprised at the response. PTRA has 14 business members (sponsors) who have contact information on their Sponsors page. The business membership is $30 and they are listed on the PTRA Web site and have the opportunity to put out an ad on the PTRA Facebook site once a month. PTRA has a Flower Fundraiser, a Spring Fling Banquet in combination with the Brighton Trail Riders Association, a Blessing of the Horse with a Ride to Hell and Back, and a Cheesecake Fundraiser. (Ionia had a Chili Cookoff). For the Flower fundraiser and the Cheesecake Fundraiser, they make arrangements with a professional vendor and coordinate the sale and delivery. For their apparel sales, they work with a local seamstress and everything is ordered through them so PTRA does not have to maintain inventory. However, they only make a few dollars per item. We might want to look into the fundraiser concept. We also may wish to explore other approaches to OREA wearables that do not require us to maintain an inventory or be physically present for people to buy. After the work bee, Steve and Vera checked out the day use staging area. It consisted of an open gravel-covered parking area about 300 feet by 125 feet (including some grass fringe where trailers were parked. The space was nearly level with a slight slope for run-off and was tree-free. (This is similar to what we observed at Ionia.) There was a tree buffer between the day use area and the road with a single entrance/exit. There was a pit toilet, a pavilion, and a couple of mounting blocks. We would probably have a better benefit from this type of approach over trying to do something within the current circle drive in the day use area that better serves our current user base as we transition away from them using the campground for day use – if not as the immediate plan, then certainly as a future phase. We may be able to survey our Facebook audience to see if we can get audience participation to reduce the cost of this type of plan, e.g. find a member with a skidsteer to do leveling or a dump truck to move gravel. We need to find out if we have access to gravel from the DNR. It would also be good to find out what the conditions are on the power line easement to the east of the Staging Area. Pinckney does not have a DNR-affiliated equestrian campground. Camping is available nearby at the private Hell Creek Campground and horses can be kept overnight at the Horse Hotel facility within the Hell Creek Equestrian Center.