Hidden Bear Trail ATV Club Newsletter #1, 2021
CLUB ESTABLISHED AUGUST 2009
NEWSLETTER, CLUB MEETINGS, CLUB RIDES AND BOARD MEETINGS: Hi all, just wanted to update our membership on our yearly newsletters, club meetings, club rides and board meetings. We do 3 newsletters each year, normally after each of our 3 membership meetings. The Board of Director’s decided a few years ago to reduce our membership meetings to 3 meetings in each calendar year, one in June, one in August (before our annual fundraiser) and one in September/October. We do 2 club rides each year, one after our membership meeting in June and one ride after the September/October meeting along with a club picnic following that ride. Our Board Meetings are monthly starting in March and ending in October, the Board meets the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 6:00 pm at Animal’s Bear Trail Inn. All members are welcome to attend our Board Meetings.
MEMBERSHIP MEETING: Our first membership meeting was held on Saturday June 19th at the Halfway Bar starting at 10:00 am (Thanks to Tom O’Neil for opening at 10:00 am). A total of 35 members were present at our meeting, after the meeting we went on our 1st annual club ride over to Waubee Lake Lodge for lunch. We had a total of 17 machines with a total of 30 people on the ride. The weather was beautiful, we arrived at Waubee Lodge at 12:30 and they had us all set up on the deck at Waubee. The food was great, service was excellent and they served all of us in a little over 1 hour. Thanks to Russ (owner) and his staff for excellent service!!! After lunch we headed back to the Halfway Bar and arrived around 3:00 pm. Thanks to all the members that attended the meeting, ride and lunch!!!
FUNDRAISER: Our annual fundraiser will be Saturday August 21st, 2021 at Animal’s Bear Trail Inn at the Corner of Hwy T & 64 in the Town of Doty. Our plan is to be back to normal for this event, last year we only had our cash raffle drawing, all other parts of the Fundraiser were cancelled. We have made a few changes to our event. We have shortened our event by 2 hours. This year it will start at 1:00 pm and end at approx. 5:00 pm with the large cash raffle drawing. We again will have an “all” meat raffle starting at 1:00 pm, 50/50 raffles, food, refreshments and fun will all begin at 1:00 pm. Please spread the word, this is our only fundraiser of the year and without this we would have a difficult time to function as a club. Hope to see you all there!!!
HELP: At our meeting this last Saturday we had a sign up sheet for help during the Fundraiser on August 21st. We still need help in almost every area, one nice thing this year is we have changed the shifts to 2 hours from 3 hours. We need help for 2 hours in the following areas: Raffle Sellers both shifts 1:00 to 3:00 or 3:00 to 5:00 pm, Food Server’s both shifts, Raffle runners (bring meat tickets to winner’s), and 50/50 raffle seller’s. If you are able to help us please contact Jim at 920-562-7872 or via email at: hiddenbeartrailatvclub@centurytel.net. Thanks.
CLUB ESTABLISHED: Many of our members have asked when our club was established and how we got our name. Here goes: In the spring of 2009 an organizational meeting was held at Animal’s Bear Trail Inn, members from the Red Arrow Snowmobile and ATV Club and members from the Dusty Trails ATV Club were in attendance along with individual’s from the local townships of Riverview and Doty. A request from the Town of Riverview was made to the group to start an ATV Club in Riverview and Doty to create and control ATV Riderships in this area. The 2 ATV Clubs in attendance were cautious in taking any more responsibility and suggested a new local club should be created. The next meeting was held the following month to try to raise funds and to establish a new club. After another few months with setting up a dues structure and electing officer’s and a board of director’s the club was formed. At the July, 2009 meeting names of the new club was tossed around, our first choice was the Dotyview ATV Club (Town of Doty & Town of Riverview), then one of our founding member’s suggested “what about” The Hidden Bear Trail ATV Club. The Board of Director’s voted and we became “The Hidden Bear Trail ATV Club” which was a good choice, as a month later individual’s from the Town of Lakewood attended our meeting and wanted to join forces with our club, and we would have had to change our name to the “LakeDotyView” ATV Club. In August of 2009 we filed our corporation papers and the Hidden Bear Trail ATV Club was established. Not to steal a quote from the late Paul Harvey but “now you know the rest of the story’!!!
TRAIL UPDATES: Our Club with grants from the ATV Program, repaired the ditch line along County F. If money is still available we will do some more work in that area. We also have a grant to repair some more of the trail between Traxel Point Road and County T. We also will be doing some more work between Island Lake Road and Star Lake Road. Our club also applied and received permission from the Town of Doty and Oconto County to open a new section of Hwy T in the Boulder Lake area and a new portion of Hwy W from Shingle Mill to Naylor in the Town of Doty. We also repaired the hill along Hwy T in the O’Briens Field between Eichoff and Hwy 64.
LANGLADE BRIDGE AND ATV PROJECT: Our last report regarding this to our members was that the Langlade Bridge will be fully funded as a Snowmobile Bridge. The reason for this is that Langlade County believes it will speed up the construction of the bridge. Our Committee agrees 100% with this effort. Last Thursday we had a Zoom Meeting with Langlade County, DNR, the WI DOT and the Engineer from Robert E. Lee. The exact location alternatives for this project were identified by the Engineer and at that Zoom Meeting a location was selected. The bridge will be constructed approx 25 feet to the south of the existing bridge. In about 3 to 4 weeks the Engineer will have a preliminary plan and construction costs. A final plan will be submitted to the DOT for their approval and permitting. A date that the construction could begin has not been discussed, as this project moves forward we will keep you informed. This is the farthest this project has gone thus far. As far as ATV/UTV’s using this bridge, our committee are still looking for a path to the bridge. We feel once the bridge is in place, it maybe easier for that to happen. Stay tuned for more info to follow!!!!
NEXT NEWSLETTER: Our next newsletter will be published after our Fundraiser in August!!! Have fun and drive safe!!!