2024 Snowcrest Agm

[Steve F6]

On 11/27/2024 at 11:51 AM, UsedtoSkidoo said:

The town councilors are likely granola munching tree huggers without any forethought or care for anyone or anything who goes against their agenda.

I believe it was town staff but in my opinion their names should be made public if there making suggestions that have cosequences for the local economy. 

 

5 hours ago, PISTON LAKE CRUISER said:

The OFSC already has that information. They have been tracking groomers for some time now. Those groomer tracs are what they used on the online map that shows all the land parcels and owners for this project. The only tracs they might not have are this year's new trails or reroutes.

Excellent point! I thought the same thing. 

[Spiderman]

38 minutes ago, UsedtoSkidoo said:

So here is the deal the way I see it. I have been talking about this for years.
We cannot rely on a grassroots volunteer-based system for our sport. This is what happens when you run an organization on a shoe string budget with volunteers only because people supposedly won't pay over 200 dollars for a permit., and why we needed to be way more proactive and think about the bigger picture. 

 

We pay for a trail pass to the OFSC which gives you a pass to the provincial trail system in conjunction with the province. 

 

However, we in Huntsville and Muskoka Lakes township have to rely on some guy (no offense to the advocate) to circulate a petition online to save our trail system. Why isn't the OFSC lobbying and sending in the lawyers to these small towns to advocate for us and the future of snowmobiling in our area.? 

 

What is the purpose of the OFSC and its government issued pass if not to protect and further our provincial trail system?

 

Kudos to the individual and the petition but without the OFSC and any political clout we are doomed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Was having the same thoughts on the weekend.

 

At least for where we are today, right now, what I can't understand is why or how the OFSC is not involved and dealing with the big players on behalf of the clubs, Hydro, towns, regions etc. 

 

If you want to leave the smaller local property owners to the clubs and their representatives, who procured access to begin with, fine, but to your point, the OFSC should have someone stepping up/in to deal with the large commercial, municipal and provincial entities to get these done. 

 

I don't think having Joe who works construction all summer and volunteers to run his club try to explain the in's and out's of the legal and insurance components of the agreement to someone who very likely on the other end does not understand what they're signing, is a good idea and a proper way to be going about this.

 

 

 

 

[grover_yyz]

On 12/11/2024 at 8:25 AM, Spiderman said:

 

Was having the same thoughts on the weekend.

 

At least for where we are today, right now, what I can't understand is why or how the OFSC is not involved and dealing with the big players on behalf of the clubs, Hydro, towns, regions etc. 

 

If you want to leave the smaller local property owners to the clubs and their representatives, who procured access to begin with, fine, but to your point, the OFSC should have someone stepping up/in to deal with the large commercial, municipal and provincial entities to get these done. 

 

I don't think having Joe who works construction all summer and volunteers to run his club try to explain the in's and out's of the legal and insurance components of the agreement to someone who very likely on the other end does not understand what they're signing, is a good idea and a proper way to be going about this.

 

 

 

 

You hit the nail right on the head with this comment.

After sending and receiving many emails with our local Hydro One contact and all they can offer me is to pay $1600 (non refundable) for an assessment and look into the situation. I gave up and sent off to district. Now I am still dealing with Regions, cities, townships, conservation authorities and the hoops they want me to go through and sign. I'm no lawyer and can't sign their documents. Our LUP/MOU doesn't seem to be good enough for the larger landowners. The last punch in the gut is the big players will throw at me is " we will sign if we are added to your insurance" Sure thing I say; ...however....; OFSC says "we can't add them to insurance until they sign MOU/LUP". (Insert my screams of frustration here!!)

 

We are close to the end of this and we lost many landowners and several of our trails will be shorter as we don't have manpower or time to locate new properties as we have no idea who the owners are or they won't return our calls. We have been working on this since June and many of our agreements were verbal.

 

Jerry

[stoney]

10 minutes ago, grover_yyz said:

You hit the nail right on the head with this comment.

After sending and receiving many emails with our local Hydro One contact and all they can offer me is to pay $1600 (non refundable) for an assessment and look into the situation. I gave up and sent off to district. Now I am still dealing with Regions, cities, townships, conservation authorities and the hoops they want me to go through and sign. I'm no lawyer and can't sign their documents. Our LUP/MOU doesn't seem to be good enough for the larger landowners. The last punch in the gut is the big players will throw at me is " we will sign if we are added to your insurance" Sure thing I say; ...however....; OFSC says "we can't add them to insurance until they sign MOU/LUP". (Insert my screams of frustration here!!)

 

We are close to the end of this and we lost many landowners and several of our trails will be shorter as we don't have manpower or time to locate new properties as we have no idea who the owners are or they won't return our calls. We have been working on this since June and many of our agreements were verbal.

 

Jerry

 

You should be able to add any firm to insurance as "additional insured", provide a copy and off you go - it is asked for all the time when trades do work in peoples building, etc....

I cannot see why this would be any different, the insurance for these lands/owners was already there in the past, just making the process more official now.....

Too bad it is so hard to get this done.

 

On losing trails - been talked about for years that it needed to happen, most did not seem to want to since once trail is done, usually does not come back, now there is no choice - perhaps a partially intended by-product.

[VicFish]

5 minutes ago, grover_yyz said:

You hit the nail right on the head with this comment.

After sending and receiving many emails with our local Hydro One contact and all they can offer me is to pay $1600 (non refundable) for an assessment and look into the situation. I gave up and sent off to district. Now I am still dealing with Regions, cities, townships, conservation authorities and the hoops they want me to go through and sign. I'm no lawyer and can't sign their documents. Our LUP/MOU doesn't seem to be good enough for the larger landowners. The last punch in the gut is the big players will throw at me is " we will sign if we are added to your insurance" Sure thing I say; ...however....; OFSC says "we can't add them to insurance until they sign MOU/LUP". (Insert my screams of frustration here!!)

 

We are close to the end of this and we lost many landowners and several of our trails will be shorter as we don't have manpower or time to locate new properties as we have no idea who the owners are or they won't return our calls. We have been working on this since June and many of our agreements were verbal.

 

Jerry

That is a huge frustration.  

 

I often need to provide a certificate of additional insured as part of my business. Sometimes it's in the name of a large general contractor (ie Ellis-Don or PCL..) and other times it's for the Municipality itself. 

 

Either case I send an email to my commercial broker and I get the certificate in 30 mins or less. No costs whatsoever. Super easy 

 

I can't see why OFSC insurance would be significantly different. Both are commercial liability, just a different activity. 

[stoney]

29 minutes ago, VicFish said:

That is a huge frustration.  

 

I often need to provide a certificate of additional insured as part of my business. Sometimes it's in the name of a large general contractor (ie Ellis-Don or PCL..) and other times it's for the Municipality itself. 

 

Either case I send an email to my commercial broker and I get the certificate in 30 mins or less. No costs whatsoever. Super easy 

 

I can't see why OFSC insurance would be significantly different. Both are commercial liability, just a different activity. 

 

LOL - I know, easy peasy and just part of doing construction work!

 

 

[PISTON LAKE CRUISER]

1 hour ago, stoney said:

 

You should be able to add any firm to insurance as "additional insured", provide a copy and off you go - it is asked for all the time when trades do work in peoples building, etc....

I cannot see why this would be any different, the insurance for these lands/owners was already there in the past, just making the process more official now.....

Too bad it is so hard to get this done.

 

On losing trails - been talked about for years that it needed to happen, most did not seem to want to since once trail is done, usually does not come back, now there is no choice - perhaps a partially intended by-product.

I don't understand why any landowner or municipality/region would not agree to sign a document that gives them $15 million dollar of free liability coverage and for the most part controls where the sleds go. Its a free for all without it.

[stoney]

1 minute ago, PISTON LAKE CRUISER said:

I don't understand why any landowner or municipality/region would not agree to sign a document that gives them $15 million dollar of free liability coverage and for the most part controls where the sleds go. Its a free for all without it.

Once you open up these types of talks, people, especially corporations tend to go into a very reserved mindset, now they have all these questions that need to be answered and in the "right" way, meetings that accomplish nothing, needing a person to take responsibility, what perhaps are we now losing or being exposed too, etc....

Sometimes less info is better, but we have moved into a world where that is no longer acceptable.....except maybe parts of the wild west or QC.....

But I agree, this is a win, win for people, its insurance to cover the what ifs.

[95rxl650]

Directors and trustee's will never hear a plea from us little folks. They have layers upon layers of people to filter out the noise. 

A news network picking up a story of corporations destroying a Canadian way of life might get on their radar just because of the PR.

They dont exactly make themselves available to public in most cases and dont entertain anything that may pose a liability and not make a profit. A board most likely would never even be aware. 

[stoney]

Just came across this and don’t think I’ve seen an update shared. 
 

During a December 16 council meeting, the District of Muskoka decided to enter into an agreement with the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs (OFSC) that would allow snowmobiling on district-owned land.
 

https://cottagelife.com/general/after-some-initial-concerns-muskoka-has-agreed-to-let-snowmobilers-drive-on-district-owned-land/

[skidooboy]

I haven't saw an update here but, it has been all over FB. Glad it worked out. Ski