Attendees:

Chris Norfolk (Chair), Adam Morgan (secretary), Greg Hughes, Kristy McClellan, Shawn Bethune, Mike Delaney, Terry Melanson, Denise Hamel, Max Heffler, Josh Shewbridge, Patrick Arsenault, Kurt MacDonald, Chris Hennigar, Joe Kennedy, Marc D'Astous

Minutes:

Chris Norfolk called the meeting to order with a suggestion to go around the circle with informal introductions.  Chris then reviewed the meeting agenda and proceeded with the first item.

Goals

Ascent NB has achieved the three main goals it set out a year ago.  These were to finalize the two major access agreements with CFB Gagetown and JD Irving, to make progress towards the formation of the Rescue Team vis a vis the Gagetown access agreement, and to reach a milestone of 100 memberships.

Access

At the last AGM we were close to finalizing the Gagetown agreement.  Soon after, it was officially completed and we are now working on the yearly renewal.  It has definitely been a rocky summer with the recurring access limitations due to military training.  Since then we have had more conversations with the military officer now in charge of such matters with respect to minimizing these closures in the future.

Almost on cue, a Range Control patrol appeared at the end of Cochrane Lane and we had a small discussion with them, reiterating the call in policy for Ascent members and contrasting it to what non members are required to do.

Shawn Bethune spoke up, suggesting we start a discussion about the ‘big yellow sign’ in the farmer’s field at the end of Cochrane Lane.  The sign is misleading, leading some to think they can call the number on the sign and gain access, whereas that privilege is only for UNBRock and Ice members (and now of course Ascent members).  The general public will tend to ignore the sign and thus puts our access in jeopardy. ��It is decided that we make a new sign that is more forceful in its wording, making it clear that non members of UNBRI or Ascent must go to Camp Petersville in person.  We will need to work with UNBRI on this effort since the sign is clearly associated with them. The sign should have details on how to purchase a membership, sign a waiver, and get their name on the membership list to gain immediate access and membership privileges. We should have such signs at Cochrane Lane, Sunnyside, Mount Douglas, and Bald Peak.

The JDI agreement has been in place for a year now also, and Chris reviewed the list of areas covered by the agreement. Chris also commented that JDI has expressed its satisfaction with our mutual access agreement.

Rescue Team

The second main goal for the year was to form the Rescue Team.  Thanks must go to Chris Hennigar and Steve Adamson for their efforts towards establishing the team.  

Since our insurance provider explicitly declined having the team under the umbrella of Ascent, we decided to partner with NB Search and Rescue.  The floor then went to Chris Hennigar, who reviewed the progress thus far.

Chris H reported highlights of the progress; including our gear cache, which has received donations from UNB Rock and Ice and from Black Diamond, as well as pricing deals for gear purchases from Radical Edge and Black Diamond; quite a few people have signed up with a full range of rescue and ropes experience; one training exercise was already held, and another is planned for October 3rd; outlining goals of improving self rescue skills in the climbing community in general; and finally, Chris reviewed the benefits of partnering with NBSAR, which includes access to their liability insurance and their training curriculum as well as deals on gear and replacement of damaged goods.

Chris N suggests we recognize the efforts of Chris H on the rescue team with so much progress in a short time.

Members

We have reached our goal of 100 members.  This includes the gamut of regular memberships, student, gold, family memberships.  Even includes some out of province people!

More on Welsford Access

Chris N reiterates the frustrating summer of closures with respect to the cliffs situated on Gagetown land.  He has had several talks with Danny Hone, the current military officer in charge of the base land use.  Mr Hone related that the closures had nothing to do with Ascent, and on the contrary, he looks very favourably on the military’s relationship with Ascent NB.

He did leave the door open to the idea of putting the cliffs into a different zone from the rest of the training range, in an effort to minimize future closures where actual training operations are taking place far from the cliffs themselves. He could not, however, give any ground on the idea of some advanced notice to Ascent since it was not the military’s policy to inform the public about their training exercises.

Greg H suggested we put the area numbers (ie., 40 and 41) on the membership card, with which crags they cover, so that members can be precise in their details when following the call in protocol.

Finances

Chris N reviewed Ascent’s finances.  He has calculated that it takes about $4000/year to run Ascent, most of which is the insurance costs. Ascent came very close to dipping into the red in August, but since then many memberships were renewed, and we had a few donations. For two years in a row, Precision Pilates and Cara Hazelton donated $500, and Fredericton VW (Dan Caldwell) donated $250. These combined pulled us back into the black and we now have enough in the bank for a few more insurance installments.

We had to increase the membership cost from $20 to $40 in order to cover the insurance costs until we have more 3rd party financial backing.  With respect to this, Joe Kennedy is proceeding with our charity organization application.  We are not 100% whether we will qualify, and it will mean more paperwork, but being able to give tax deductible receipts will make it easier to attract donations.

Open floor

There was a recent spotlight of McQuirk’s Mountain on CBC.  This was received well and everyone was delighted with the profile.

Someone mentioned that we should recognize those who are doing route development lately.  

• Greg Hughes has gone above and beyond with development at McQuirk’s, which has now become one of the most popular crags, especially with the closures in Welsford this summer.  Large round of applause.
• Jon Adamson has been busy at BaldBearBase and Utopia, as well as investigating a couple new potential cliffs in the SW of NB.
• Eric Samas has put up routes at Green Head, in SJ.

Chris MacLellan mentioned meeting a SARTech who said our cliffs *should* be covered by SARTech but in practice we haven’t seen this.  It more comes down to how they are launched, since it has to go thru the lines of communication thru the RCMP/military.

Fundraising.  It was suggested we do a once a year event but no details on what exactly we should do.  Terry M suggested his brother could donate beer for such an event. Agreed that we should try to involve the community, and not just make it climber oriented.

Tshirts. We actually sold the last of our initial shipment at the AGM!  People agreed that new designs and colours would be ideal. We will get feedback on colours and designs as we did last time.

Finally, there was a discussion about Ascent’s communication channels. Ascent has not been consistent in the past year with how it disseminates information to its members and the community, as was discussed at the last executive meeting.  Adam related to the group that we had already decided to formalize our pattern of communications, that being for announcements, we will first post to ascentnb.com, then to email the link to members, then post the link on the Facebook Ascent NB page, and to the NB Climbers group.

Elections

• President
  • Greg Hughes
  • Acclaimed
• VP
  • Kristy McClellan
  • Acclaimed
• Mike Delany
  • Treasurer
  • Acclaimed
• Director
  • Adam Morgan
    • Acclaimed
  • Joe Kennedy
    • Acclaimed
  • Steve Adamson
    • Acclaimed

A quick vote to see if we can support having extra board members for this year at least. The vote was unanimous in support of this.

• Secretary
  • Chris Norfolk
• Directory
  • Shawn Bethune

Meeting adjourned.