Notes from Dan the Trail Guy #7

Trail Bits & Other Bits of News

Lots of stuff to share with all of you. So the note will be a bit long….!

Runners of Compassion AGM: Was a great success with well over 30 members showing up with lots of good discussion and questions taking place. The new Board of Directors is as follows Eric Sundby, Lisa Crucil, Ken Jones, Ross Palfry, Inga Makepeace, Owen Carr, Kelly McKee and I, Dan Brady. Kathleen Richardson has agreed to stay on and look after the Social Committee. Further correspondence and more information will be forth coming once your new ROC Executive meets next Monday night.

The Bastion Running Club Cedar 12k is Sunday February 13th. If you are not planning on running the Cedar 12k, but are available to volunteer I would like you to please consider volunteering an hour or two of your time to help Bastion Running Club with the race. Bastion has always been a large supporter of ROC since our inception as a charity organization here in Nanaimo and a lot of ROC members are members of both organizations. The members and Executive of Bastion have always been quick to offer their help, guidance and support whenever we have had an occasion to call on them and they are big supporters of us when it is Half Marathon time. A strong show of support both in runners and in volunteers from ROC will be greatly appreciated not only from Bastion, but also from the Executive of ROC. I hope to see a lot of us there. Please contact Darrell Orosz at janddorosz@shaw.ca if you can volunteer?

Running Club vs. Running Based Charitable Organization. There is a difference? Bastion Running Club is what their name states, a running club, where as ROC is a charitable organization. Yes ROC does run as a group on the weekends and a lot of us do register our selves as Runners of Compassion when we are running in races such as the Gunner Shaw, GutBuster, Port Angeles Marathon, etc but we are still first and foremost a charitable organization which raises funds through staging running events. The funds we raise go towards charity work, where as a club such as Bastion is able to use their funds for such things as equipment purchases and other items. Why I am rambling on about this, well here are the two reasons……1). People are starting to ask me about ROC training clinics for the spring and the fall. The staging of clinics is not what ROC does, that is left up to clubs like Bastion, organizations such as Frontrunners, Women’s Pace or people like Kari, Kim, Stefan, Sherri, Ference and John. ROC will do all that it can to promote and participate in the clinics but we will not stage them. At this time our energies are all directed towards fund raising through staging running events…… 2) If you run in any of the Island Race Series you should register your self as a member of Bastion, not as a member of Runners of Compassion. ROC is a member of VIRA, but not in terms of gaining points in the Island Race Series. Bastion is the Nanaimo club that is the member of VIRA and is the club that gains points from you each and every one of you that runs in the Island Race Series if you register under their name. So please try and ensure that Bastion and Nanaimo gains as many points as possible by registering under their club name. You can contact Bastion, through Darrell at the above email address about membership. Hopefully that all made sense to you, it sort of makes sense to me when I read it. The main point is we (ROC) are a charity and Bastion is the running club, same city, but two separate organizations with two separate reasons for being in existence. We seem to compliment each other.

Trail Steward Ship – Norm and I have run a few of the different trails around town (Westwood, Morrell, Linley, Humility) this past week and I can tell you that other than the main trail around Westwood and the Rocky Knoll, Lake trail and Alder Trail in Morrell most trails are still in real bad shape and deep with snow. As recently as Tuesday afternoon, I was the first person to run along the power lines trail. I wouldn’t actually call it running. It would have been great if I had snow shoes. The recent snow fall has had a devastating affect on all the trails we run. There are branches down, trees down and a lot of low hanging branches bent over the trails. We are going to need to do some trail stewardship if we want to see the trails back in the shape they were before the snow fell. I would like to ask that all of you bring along one of the following items on the next few Saturday runs; pruners, clippers and small branch saws. With the number of people that are running the work will go quite quickly and can be made to be like a fartlek workout with some of the group leap frogging further a head to the next spot while a group stops and removes debris. The trails won’t clean themselves up. Norm and I will organize further work parties to remove the bigger stuff (chainsaws) once the snow goes away.

This weeks run – I really don’t see that we have any other choice than to return to Westwood and Morell this weekend. The Humility/Abyss is still to deep with snow, as would be most of the other areas. If we head into Morell we can do a clean up of the Alder, Rocky Knoll, Tranquility, Lower Maple and the Beaver ponds and still get a good work out in.. So I will hopefully see you at Westwood Lake 7:30 am (it can’t be dark). Please bring your tool, water and gloves and dress warmly in layers. It is forecast to be really cold -10. Not a good time to be a brass monkey.

Comedy Night – Sorry, but I need to do one quick advertisement. Tacky I know, but oh well! I have brought in a pretty major Comedian for this Fridays Comedy Night in Spanky’s January 14th. His name is Johnny Johnson or Johnny Bag Pipes. Johnny has done network TV spots both here and in the states and normally plays only the larger comedy clubs in the states. He has family on Island so I was abler to get him fairly reasonable. If you need a good laugh and want to see a top notch comic come see Johnny on Friday night. Tickets are $10.00 for this show. I do have a dozen freebies if any of you want to come and see it. Email if you want to go. Doors are at 8:00, Comedy starts at 9:00 and dancing follows at around 11:00. a fun night out.