March 2023 President’s Report –  Chris D’Silva

Registration for the Poker Ride and the Annual General Meeting is now live.  Go to the ATVBC website to sign up.

ATVBC has decided to combine the AGM with the Poker Ride this year as it gives people a chance to attend both. We are looking forward to really good attendance at this year’s event so sign up as soon as you can.

Again, kudos to Dave Mackintosh and his team for pulling this together.  Quite a feat, actually, as Dave has been doing this all from Arizona!!

In case you were not aware, there were some changes made to the RSTBC ORV Trail Fund grant process.  The biggest change is the increase in available funding that can be applied for, from $20,000 to $25,000, and the requirement for only 30% of this to be to be matched by the club applying.   As these changes are very recent, the deadline for the applications has been extended to March 27, 2023.

The revised application can be obtained from the RSTBC website.

On the subject of grants, the second intake for the ATVBC grants of up to $5,000 closed on March 15, and the Grants Committee is now reviewing those applications that have been received. We expect to be able to announce the successful clubs by mid-April.

BC Sportsmen’s Show

Members of ATVBC including 11 volunteers from the Lower Mainland clubs participated in this year’s Sportsman Trade Show. By all reports, it was well attended and many people came by the ATVBC booth. ATVBC was happy to sign up 39 new members and had 4 prize giveaways valued between $250 and $350. Many thanks to our sponsors who provided prizes to ATVBC.

Last year, we issued a survey to the club executives to get some feedback as to what the clubs would like to see ATVBC involved in.  The results were very helpful and we are beginning to include some of the suggestions in our planning and activities. Obviously, there are a lot more things we need to find out from our members, so, we will be sending out a second survey  to every member and will be asking for your input. We should have this ready to go sometime in April. Watch your emails for this!  Your input is invaluable to ensuring that we are meeting your needs as a provincial organization.

Well, wheeled riding is just around the corner, and many clubs are already organizing some fun events for this year.  I see a number of poker rides in the works and Revelstoke is once again holding their GPS ride.  This should be a lot of fun!

So that all for now hope to see you on the trails.

Respectfully submitted

Chris DSilva