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Disappointing to read this.


ZR SLEDHEAD

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35 minutes ago, Wildbill said:

We have asked time and time again for a refurbishment program for the older groomers we have been dissapointed in the newer ones 

There are problems with the new Case/Sourcy and also with the Troopers.

Refurbish groomers makes sense as long as they are no money pits. 

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15 minutes ago, Nith Valley Sledder said:

I'm one of the D5 riders that hasn't had my sled out of the garage for the last 3 years. I didn't even get my permit put on the sled the last 2 years. If the trails disappear in D5 I won't be buying any more permits. I expect a lot of other D5 permit buyers will be the same. The OFSC will end up losing a lot of revenue. The north may have the snow but the south is paying the bills.

Sorry to hear you never got one ride in this year rob. I managed two days out of recreation centre in wilmot. Came back one day it was a Tuesday a few weeks ago and trail had closed signs on it. Had to ride to truck so I went past it. Not sure why the club would close a trail that had good snow coverage on it, unless recreation centre doesn't want sledders parking in lot and riding across soccer fields? Hopefully that isn't the case, since I payed taxes for the facility too? Any light on this? 

Figured that is why the club put trail there for us riders that no longer have trail access and stag from there? 

If you need a hand removing stakes I can lend a hand and bring an atv and trailer to help the cause. 

Thanks! 

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7 hours ago, Greggie said:

There are problems with the new Case/Sourcy and also with the Troopers.

Refurbish groomers makes sense as long as they are no money pits. 

We were very successful with the br180 refurbs refurbed a tucker once and got thousands of more hours out of it

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7 hours ago, Nith Valley Sledder said:

I'm one of the D5 riders that hasn't had my sled out of the garage for the last 3 years. I didn't even get my permit put on the sled the last 2 years. If the trails disappear in D5 I won't be buying any more permits. I expect a lot of other D5 permit buyers will be the same. The OFSC will end up losing a lot of revenue. The north may have the snow but the south is paying the bills.

ONTARIO federation of snowmobile clubs means all of ontario period end of discussion 

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I am not suggesting that managing the OFSC is an easy task.  But in my opinion there is no excuse for them to not have funds available for these Northern clubs that year after year groom late into the season.  This happens every year, why do they not have funds ready for this.   If in fact these clubs cannot groom as needed late season due to funding the whole system is a crock of s**t. 

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Luc Levesque, The Groomer Guy from Dubreaville posted the following on the Golden Corridor Kirkland Lake Facebook page which has prompted this discussion:

 

”Stephen Horner  You got it right, The more you groom the more you get paid... it's that simple that's how it works with the new funding model.  Maybe its the districts that are not distributing the money properly.  I'm the president of my club and that's how I get paid in my district. I submit my grooming logs to the district office, they send it to the OFSC they then get paid and then pay use per our groomed hours from log books... that's it.”

 

“Golden Corridor Snowdrifters Kirkland Lake & Area  The district are the one holding you money not the OFSC, submit your groomer logs and you will get paid... something is not right in your district if you are grooming many hours and not being paid... the problem is at the District level not the OFSC head office.  I'm only a club President, that's how it work here.”

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1 hour ago, Proxrider said:

I am not suggesting that managing the OFSC is an easy task.  But in my opinion there is no excuse for them to not have funds available for these Northern clubs that year after year groom late into the season.  This happens every year, why do they not have funds ready for this.   If in fact these clubs cannot groom as needed late season due to funding the whole system is a crock of s**t. 

You used the key phrase... If in fact.

 

Way too much unknown here to make judgements. One short Facebook blurb from one individual doesn't tell all. So if one club is claiming they are out of money, why aren't all the other "northern" clubs out of money as well?

 

All this dialogue and rhetoric is just too similar to the condemnation we saw a few weeks ago where there were "comments" about trails not being groomed. Then the real information comes out. The groomer was broken down. A group of dedicated volunteers scrambled to get it repaired. If I recall a club Pres or VP met up with someone from another club who had the parts available. The volunteers did the work to do the repair. Up until the real facts came out everyone was prepared to line people up for the firing squad.

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15 minutes ago, FROSTYNUTZ said:

Are there any clubs actually getting slammed with traffic these days ?

Would be interesting to see some actual numbers.

Are we talking in the hundreds, or thousands of sledders ?

Indeed. I wonder what they call slammed. Perhaps it's all relative. Total grid lock in Port Severn for example is 6 cars waiting for the swing bridge at the lock.

 

I wonder how the "northern" traffic numbers compare to a typical nice Saturday on the Sequin,  the C trail from Coldwater to Midland or some of the other old rail lines that get slammed regularly on a normal season.

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Here is Golden Corridor FB Post from 1 hour ago.  They haven’t changed their opinion on what is happening.

 

“Trail report Feb 26
One groomer out last night. The Bourkes groomer groomed from the intersection of the "A" Trail and A108 down the A108 south to the intersection of the L101 and back to the "A" Trail.
Some riders are reporting to us the condition of some of our trails from excellent to very rough. We;re trying to keep up grooming the worst trails with the money we are receiving. 
Hope this lack of funds will be resolved soon. We all want to ride on smooth trails.
It looks like the snowmobile season south of us is over.
Ride safe.”

 

 

 

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I find the older I get,  for the effort and expense involved to get to what are suppose to be decent trails, only to be disappointed, it is less and less worth it for the actual enjoyment I get out of sledding.

All my lack of snow anxiety must of finally caught up to me, and directs my thoughts towards a nice warm spring and summer.

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1 hour ago, FROSTYNUTZ said:

I find the older I get,  for the effort and expense involved to get to what are suppose to be decent trails, only to be disappointed, it is less and less worth it for the actual enjoyment I get out of sledding.

All my lack of snow anxiety must of finally caught up to me, and directs my thoughts towards a nice warm spring and summer.

You are quite right, I think this disappointing season will bring an exodus of sledders like yourself who will decide it really isn’t worth the time, expense and aggravation.

 

Apparently there was a significant drop off in Trail Permits Sold this season but no official numbers.

 

The sport/business faces a lot of real challenges.

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18 hours ago, bbakernbay said:

This is a copy and paste from their Facebook page.

 

“Apparently our district received $5900 last week and this has to be split to 10 clubs in our district.  And we had to borrow money to pay our outstanding bills”

I call BS. 

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1 hour ago, bbakernbay said:

You are quite right, I think this disappointing season will bring an exodus of sledders like yourself who will decide it really isn’t worth the time, expense and aggravation.

 

Apparently there was a significant drop off in Trail Permits Sold this season but no official numbers.

 

The sport/business faces a lot of real challenges.

Someone must know by now? I feel ofsc should be communicating more of its performance and challenges to permit buyers. If system is short on funds tell us and what plan is to improve situation. To have clubs come out and post things isn't good as a whole. If grooming stops early in north, more riders from south will go to Quebec next time instead, and support there system. 

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43 minutes ago, Doogirl69 said:

I call BS. 

 

Bbakernbay quoted their most recent facebook post, which I read and was going to quote.  It's quite possible they do have money issues, the question is, Why.  It's them and Jackpine that seem to be running in the red, as per social media.  Why all the other clubs are still going ?

 

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9 minutes ago, Viperules700 said:

Someone must know by now? I feel ofsc should be communicating more of its performance and challenges to permit buyers. If system is short on funds tell us and what plan is to improve situation. To have clubs come out and post things isn't good as a whole. If grooming stops early in north, more riders from south will go to Quebec next time instead, and support there system. 

Don't forget this is one voice from one club, perhaps with an unstated agenda and/or axe to grind. I asked the question before. Why aren't all the other "northern" clubs coming forward complaining they are out of money. From what I have been reading it seems many/most are doing very good grooming. What are the others doing right and this one club doing wrong if the others aren't having the same problem?

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3 hours ago, bbakernbay said:

Surprising that we haven’t heard about any southern groomers being transported north to help out those clubs getting slammed with traffic.  Big transport bill I know but there are some trailers heading back north empty.

 

Have I missed something?

An offer was made to Golden Corridor to look into finding them another unit.  They declined.  Not an equipment issue.  They just want a cheque.

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13 minutes ago, signfan said:

An offer was made to Golden Corridor to look into finding them another unit.  They declined.  Not an equipment issue.  They just want a cheque.

If they have no funds to put diesel in the unit they have, what good would another one do?

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9 minutes ago, zoso said:

If they have no funds to put diesel in the unit they have, what good would another one do?

Our District pays all the fuel bills even though each Club looks after their own grooming.  Whether their District does that or not is not known.

 

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12 minutes ago, zoso said:

If they have no funds to put diesel in the unit they have, what good would another one do?

Another Club may wish to generate some grooming hours and could possibly pay for the fuel depending on what type of Agreement is reached but that appears by some accounts not what is being requested.

 

Lending Groomers can be a real problem as there are various issues that crop up after the fact and it can be very unpleasant to solve them then.

 

In my view the OFSC should have a go to boiler plate Agreement that requires both parties to acknowledge and agree on what happens in various scenarios and make amendments as they deem fit.  Even small things like missing tools can create friction.

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7 minutes ago, bbakernbay said:

Another Club may wish to generate some grooming hours and could possibly pay for the fuel depending on what type of Agreement is reached but that appears by some accounts not what is being requested.

 

Lending Groomers can be a real problem as there are various issues that crop up after the fact and it can be very unpleasant to solve them then.

 

In my view the OFSC should have a go to boiler plate Agreement that requires both parties to acknowledge and agree on what happens in various scenarios and make amendments as they deem fit.  Even small things like missing tools can create friction.

Lets assume funding issues are real. Why is there not in place a way to expedite funds to clubs with snow that are out of money? Of course if the entire province is open and grooming there may well be no funds, but being most of the province has groomed very little it would seem there is something wrong in this system. I know other areas that are short on funds, and many have restricted grooming frequency due to this. Is this district not treating all clubs equally? Is the district also broke and has nothing to give, why are some clubs in the district still flush with cash?  Did this club groom more than the average for the area leading up to this? Loots of aspects to this, but the bottom line is, the trails should be groomed, the permit buyers from all areas paid for these trails to be groomed being their home trails would be groomed if there was snow. Right now my home district has plenty of money to run groomers if we had snow, yet a club with snow claims they have no money.  I doubt very much this has anything to do with how this club spent money, but more to do with the amount they were allocated to spend.

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We just came back from the north this morn and there is still a pile of trailers heading north ,I’m sure there all going to liskeard and up

this was the first year I have even seen any chop on cochrane trails ,so yes the traffic has been heavy and more coming to invade 

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12 minutes ago, Muskoka Man said:

We just came back from the north this morn and there is still a pile of trailers heading north ,I’m sure there all going to liskeard and up

this was the first year I have even seen any chop on cochrane trails ,so yes the traffic has been heavy and more coming to invade 

Somewhat justifying my previous “Slammed” comment and likely more coming as you suggest.

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1 hour ago, bbakernbay said:

Our District pays all the fuel bills even though each Club looks after their own grooming.  Whether their District does that or not is not known.

 

as does ours...

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