August 2020
Well, I went fishing with friend Bill last week at an area close to my home in Loveland. It was a warm but not hot day so I took my thermometer with me. Sure enough, about 2:30, the water temperature increased to 70 deg at which time we ended our fishing. Un- fortunately for us, we didn’t catch anything but the good news is we didn’t stress the fish. I think higher elevation might be the ticket for the next few weeks.
One of the major issues that occurred last week was the agency reviewing the permit application for the massive proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay,Alaska recently moved the mega-project one step closer to reality.Without our help, the project is currently on track to begin digging a massive hole at the headwaters of Bristol Bay. It is now time to act again to try and stop this mine from being built. Please go to: tu.org/ save-bristol-bay/ for information on what TU is doing and how they can use your help.
I want to point you to an article below in which I describe our volunteer hours
over the past five years. Each year, TU National asks all chapters to file a financial report. Part of that report records hours spent by volunteers to Protect, Restore and Reconnect our cold water fisheries and Sustain our ability to do so. I hope after reading this review, you will be as proud of your Chapter as I am!
Lastly, we started a project to revamp our website last fall.Your Leadership Team working with Webmaster Paul Wehr and Member Zach Jory have created a new site that will be an amazing upgrade to what we now have.We are close to launching so stay tuned to your email and social media feeds for updated information.
We Are Only as Good as our Volunteers and We are Great!
I thought you might like some good news in these virus infested times and, since we just filed our TU Annual Financial Report that records not only our financial position but also our volunteer hours and events, I took the opportunity to go back through some past years to see how we are doing. First of all, my thanks go out to Treasurer Ryan Hogan and Secretary Jeannie Weaver for their brilliant efforts this year. Due to the change in the start of the TU Fiscal Year from October 1 to April 1, we reported finances and hours over an 18 month period.This report requires people to send in their hours by category and then Ryan and Jeannie sorted them out and filled in the correct boxes. I understand much needed changes are in the works at TU to make report- ing easier in future years.
Overall, our Chapter is in excellent shape, though we could always do better.You will see below that for a Chapter of approximately 1000 members, we average 5-6 hours per member. In reality these numbers accumu- late from the efforts of about 200 volunteers, give or take a few.To those 200 volunteers, I want to give a great big THANK YOU from Rocky Mountain Flycasters! For those of you who have not participated, there is still a lot we need to do and whether you can give a few hours a year or many hours a year, we would welcome your efforts.
The charts in the August 2020 Flypaper indicate where we are spending our volunteer time. Over the years, the youth program logs the most hours with almost double the other individual categories. Conservation, is second with an aver- age of almost a thousand hours/year with an uptick in the 2020 report as the Poudre Headwaters Project gets under way. I expect to see these numbers rise in future years, especially when we get back to pre-virus normality.
As I have said often, many hands make light work so please, if you haven’t volunteered, I hope these numbers encourage you to step out of your comfort zone to find the time to contribute to something that is important to our environment and to the future of cold water fisheries.
Mickey McGuire, President