Nutter

At first I wasn't sold on even just the thought of online sales, but having been privy in the past to seeing the costs and loses, and seeing and experiencing first hand the volunteer burden, stress and safety that came with live sales it changed my view on it real fast. I really don't like the online driver training at all. It takes away the first contact new young sledders have to volunteerism, and it's importance to organized snowmobiling, along with all the other things live courses provided hands on in person. However I do know if the boat license people were successful in their bid for it we likely would of been totally shut out. Shitty all around.

Saving money sounds great on paper but there is a lot of provincial disconnection right now, lots of clubs floundering with next to no volunteers and no clear direction of how to do things. Some volunteers adapted well to doing it this way, many haven't. Without volunteers and them having a good grasp of how to do things correctly and clubs relying more and more on OFSC staff to direct the direction of the org, along with clubs/districts and the OFSC having to contract out a lot of what used to be day to day operations (which has been grossly accelerating even before Covid). Costs to keep trails open are going to be a lot higher than an in person AGM could ever be IMO.

IMO that is always just as important as making sure your club carried the votes voice of it's membership. Over the past 18 years I've seen many new volunteer club exec leave AGM weekend with the knowledge and go to friendships from other clubs to give them a good running start at running a club. Most are still well involved. 🍻 Seems like yesterday Yukon, TVBrian and myself were doing AGM seminars/workshops on how to set your club up with a Webpage, then a few years later Social media lol 🍻

Thanks guys, I'll fiddle with it this weekend. I'm guessing it all depends on if it stays on in a standby by mode when hooked to a thermostat ? I did read this in the manual and check the cold start procedure they refer to, it wasn't of much help lol Sorry didn't mean to highjack your post Stoney

You kind of lost me there lol Would I be able to leave it turned off and turn it on on Thursday or Friday morning ?

Awesome thanks Here's a link to the manual for the stove, circuit diagram page 21. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2071/6041/files/25-PDVC_USandCANADA.pdf?14626357853177001156

Thanks Rick, going to start doing more wifi stuff for piece of mind and convenience. So far we've got a 4 camera set up and a bunch of lighting tapped into our phones. The garage pellet stove is a bit of pita to figure out, I need an electronics guru to tap into the stoves on off circuit in the motherboard, so I can jump it to a wifi switch.

It is much better spot, plus no partners in on this one. It's the perfect area for us, just over an hour commute from home, with the Haliburton/Victoria County Rail Trail right at our doorstep. Never worry about snow conditions in the winter, and access to 100's and 100's of km of SxS trails in the off season. Another bonus is road use with the SxS, the only road we can't ride on is HWY 35 south of Minden, everything else is legal, trail connectivity is just as good as sledding with road runs and bridges taking the place of lake running.

That's going to be a game changer. We have high speed internet but I just haven't bothered to put in a wifi thermostat, keeping it at 58 it's less than hour to get up to 70 in the cottage. But want to do something with the garage since it's where we spend most of our time, it takes a few hours to get up to temp with only a pellet stove. Right now it's a none issue with a buddy down the road hitting the on button for us Thursday or Friday mornings. But I would like to figure out a way to have it turn on via wifi.

The 2 story was our flip cottage/house in Norland Stoney, we finished that 5 years ago, that one was huge, we doubled the size of it, and added an attached garage. We bought this one in 2017 just north Kinmount in Howland Junction right on the rail trail, just a bungalow, intentions were to flip this one too, but we like it there so much it's keeper.

1100sqft cottage, 3 bedroom 1 bath open concept kitchen, dining and living room and 10x8 mud/laundry room addition. 40 inch crawl space on piers, sand ground with 8 mil polly covering it, outer walls in crawl space skirted with wood and 2 inch Styrofoam, under floor is pink fiber held up with stapled strapped Tyvek. Cottage and garage are both 70's 2x4 stick frame, new insulation and vapor barrier when we bought and did a full gut reno on the cottage, also pulled the oil furnace and went to propane, pellet stoves in both cottage and insulated unattached 24x26 garage. We leave the furnace at 58 when were not there, no ducting underneath never had any pipes freeze. Turn the furnace up to 70 and pellet stoves on when we get there, up to temp within the hour and the furnace doesn't run again till about 12-24 hours after we leave (we usually leave the pellet stoves running after we leave till they run out of pellets). We hang out in the garage living/party room 90% of the time, ceiling fan and window wide open with a fan in it on high blowing heat out, as even on lowest burn setting it's tough to keep it at 70 or under. Once that slab floor in the garage heats up it holds the heat well, usually only 4 days home before heading back up and it stays above freezing in there, usually around 10 deg, I think the coldest I've seen it was 5 deg. Two 420 tank fills a year and a bag of pellets every 24 - 30 hours for each stove ($6.50 a bag) while were up. Cost for both propane and pellets is $1200 to $1500 a year. Small price to pay for the convenience of leaving it heated and not messing with draining plumbing. Growing up with a family cottage my dad would always shutter the place every week, usually always had to screw with getting the water going, 3 - 4 hours till you could get down to a sweater, furniture and bedding held the damp cold till well into Sat eve LOL Never bothered to see what our cost would be shuttering every week and re heating from what ever temp it dropped too, I bet it wouldn't be a very big difference. Defiantly not worth the inconveniences to us anyways.

I'm not saying there's a law but you can bet there is a contractual chain of custody with all information collected through trail permit sales. Could a private service Ontario outlet publicly release provincial MTO stats ?

As the old saying goes, if one has enough concern over such numbers then they should have enough concern to be involved with their local club at some capacity, where they will be able to see all those numbers.

I believe the reason is because permits belong to the MTO (instrument of the province), the OFSC is the exclusive selling agent of the permit and distributor of the funds to the districts (formerly clubs). Legally that info can only be shared to these stake holders, which includes districts, clubs and their members.

Yeah it is. According to ON NFP Corp law the club prez, VP or treasurer are the only legal officers of the club/corp, and the only ones that can legally have a board seat representing the club. Silly but the actual perfectly legal way around this stupid BS is for each clubs prez to resign (remove themselves from the district table) and for each club to hold an election and make the one of the 3 corp officers whom doesn't groom (which hopefully you have) the interim club prez. Then the Dist have a board meeting with all the non grooming interim club prez's to set the district grooming wage. Then hold another election and put the original prez back in. The way NFP legislation is now written, legally a club/NFP corp cannot even have an alternate officer attend for a club to have a vote if the prez is unable to attend a dist board meeting. I'm guessing this works good to heed fraud in NFP corps, in the case of the OFSC (which likely there isn't another NFP corp comparison in how they operate) it causes so much hardship for the org)

Unless Ontario not for profit corp laws have changed in the past few weeks, a club president or anyone that sits on a club or district board can be paid to groom, or paid for any other agreed upon paid position. Though they must remove themselves from the table during any and all discussions and decision making regarding paid positions.

Keep in mind dealers get paid for warranty work by manu's in parts credit, I would think that would have a huge bearing in what gets stocked and what gets ordered. I'm guessing they need to turn over warranty credit parts as quick as possible just to cover the cost of the warranty work they did. For sure a juggling act I wouldn't want to deal with.

Have next Tuesday and Wed night booked at the Advantage in Kap that we haven't canceled yet, (2 beds). Going to Stay in Hearst for those nights then back to Kap for Thursday. Let me know if someone wants the room, I'll hang on to them till tomorrow then cancel them.

Encouraging news, thanks for the report, just canceled Mondays check in at the Westway and booked further west.

Rotax 1630 Ace super charged watercraft mill detuned from 230 - 300hp to 180 -200hp ? https://www.rotax.com/en/products/rotax-powertrains/details/rotax-1630-ace.html

Another vote here for Mission. Messed with many brands and styles over the years, full face fixed, modular, MX, nothing compares, have over a 1000kms on it so far this season and it's been flawless. Lightweight, incredible field of vision, very quiet and warm with zero leaks, have only plugged in when riding when heavy wet snow was falling. When not plugged in it tends to fog a bit if I'm muscling a workout in the tight stuff at slow speeds, but as soon as you grab a little speed it clears really fast. The internal flip down sun shield works great no issues with it fogging so far. Was worried about the adjustable visor catching wind at speed, which it doesn't at any speed, and it stays in the position you want it at, up or down and big enough to block the sun glare mornings and eves. Also as Nunz mentioned no issues riding with visor up when you feel the need to cool off and breath a little fresh air. My helmet speakers fit really well and with it being such a quiet helmet I have no need to crank up my tunes, unless something really good is playing. The quietness does mess with trailside talking though, I talk loud enough as it is, but apparently now with this lid everyone thinks I'm yelling at them, even with it open lol

No royalty or old money in the Schliefenbaum family, Peters dad was a mining engineer that bought a bunch at the time logged out scrub land no one wanted for a mere $7 an acre. Peter is a self made hard working well educated millionaire. "In the first half of the 20th century, Canadian lumber companies so thoroughly logged Haliburton Forest that by the 1960s it had almost no value. In 1962 Adolf Schleifenbaum, a German mining engineer, bought the forest for $7 an acre. Nine years later, he crashed his plane in Germany and died. His son Peter was nine" https://financialpost.com/news/haliburton-forests-peter-schleifenbaum-is-a-modern-lumber-baron-but-hardly-typical

Don't know about 9, but D3 is just using up our surplus from last season, no significant trail changes other than some side shuffling through the same fields. We also felt with local businesses hurting like most others, we'd pass on the savings to them with them getting a second season free.

Hey Steve hope all is good with you and the fam. We stopped saddle bagging and started hubbing out of one place a few years ago, after getting tired of keeping a pace. Great chance to check out all the local trails and loops, and other local attractions you passed right on by trying to make it on time to your next destination before dark. We've been using New Liskeard as a hub at least once a season for the past 3 years. Lots of good long and short day options out of there and/or Kirkland Lake. Even the ride out to Gowganda and back with a little change up coming back into town is a great day of riding. We usually just stay at the Quality Inn for convenience, but lots of options for what your looking for in the surrounding area.

Good stuff brother. Praying for the jet stream to dip a 100 - 200kms south, a side from needing more cold things are starting to look decent in central Ontario