Summary of 2009 and a look ahead to 2010

2009 was an odd year but MBOSC knocked it out of the park. It was a year of growth and opportunity for us even in a collapsing and stagnant economy. When times are tough we can look to our trusty metal/aluminum/titanium/carbon steeds to give us perspective about the most important things in our lives: friends, family and health.

We had a very active year and accomplished quite a bit. It started with a "crisis" which threatened to take away the riding areas that we hold dear but it's ending with a better organization and more engaged volunteers and officers.

• UC/Henry Cowell enforcement crisis was turned into opportunity. We negotiated with the District State Parks leadership to change their enforcement program to education.
• Introduced the inclusive monthly slow ride in February. This ride as has been a huge hit and has been a great way to welcome women and beginners to mountain biking.
• The District State Parks are finally moving forward with addressing our trail conversion proposal. Our trail proposal is the highest priority of the Mountain Sector Superintendent
• MBOSC represented Santa Cruz and mountain biking at the Bike Summit in Washington, DC.
• MBOSC went to Sacramento for Park Advocacy Day to support our local State Parks.
• Provided Dual Slalom course marshals for the Sea Otter
• All active MBOSC officers attended the IMBA California summit at the Sea Otter
• We donated $1000 to IMBA California
• MBOSC was part of a bunch of NorCal clubs who went to Lake Tahoe to ride, ride, ride... and build trail. 70-80 trail builders (26 from MBOSC) helped to build 860 ft of full bench cut single track on the Donner Lake Rim trail
• Our first film presentation: We presented Freedom Riders at the Rio Theatre.
• Raised over $4500 through 3 fundraisers: Freedom Riders, Micks Automotive, Surfrider Cafe
• We donated $3500 to Wilder Ranch for a new trail head sign.
• Helped to facilitate the re-engagement of the mountain biking community to Soquel Demo Forest
• MBOSC had a build team for Turning Wheels for Kids and built about 26 out of 2,300 new bikes which were given to needy kids as Christmas gifts.
• Membership: we gained 53 new paid members and 45 renewed memberships. This despite the hassle of printing a form, writing a check, finding a stamp and mailing an envelope. Thank you all!
• 96 people joined our email list this year. Our email list now has 345 members.

Some projects we will be working on for 2010

• Will be hosting the California premier of Awesome Land: Women of Dirt on Feb 28th. You will be hearing more about this in the next couple of months.
• Signature gathering for ballot measure to support State Parks funding initiative
• Coast Dairies: We have a subcommittee of very engaged people who will help push TPL and BLM towards conveyance and transference.
• Sea Otter: We will be providing the DS course marshals, will have a booth in the grassy area of the expo (next to the IMBA booth) and will be camping.
• Bike Festival. The city of Santa Cruz would like to have a bike festival in May to co-incide with the Santa Cruz stage of the Amgen Tour of California.
• New Wilder Ranch sign: Should be completed and installed by May
• Annual Tahoe trip: Will be in August again. Perhaps south shore.
• Electronic online memberships and payments via PayPal. Membership database conversion to FileMaker.

I would personally like to thank all the active officers of MBOSC: Daryl Breuninger (Vice-President), Eve Davidson (Treasurer), Sebastien Praly (Equestrian Relations, Brewmaster), Johauna Rathbun (Secretary), Megan Zemny (Social Coordinator), Steven Gemeolos (Event Coordinator). It was wonderful working with you all this year. You all really stepped up and helped develop the capacity of the club to get things done.

We would also like to thank the local bike industry, the local bike shops and other local businesses for supporting our events and members. We are really blessed to have such a concentration of world class industries in the playgrounds of our backyards.

Finally I would like to thank our membership. We are a volunteer organization and many of you supported our events and volunteered to help out. It's been a pleasure to meet many of you at rides and meetings and I'm proud of the quality of people within this mountain biking community.

2010 looks like it will be another good year for MBOSC and I hope you be there with us!