FATS Workparty Saturday, July 11th

[Angela]

We are trying to organize a large work party at FATS for Saturday, July 11th (rain date Sunday, July 18th). The trail is already becoming quite overgrown in areas and there are some nasty stickers reaching into the trail.  In addition, there are some areas of the trail itself that needs some remediation.  

The scale and scope of this work party will depend on the number of volunteers who sign up and show up to work. We had 17 people handling the Turkey Creek/Wine Creek Mowathon yesterday and that was only 12 miles of trail.

We have 32 miles of trail to cover at FATS and a lot of work to be done between the mowing, hedging, lopping and tread work. If we mobilize all equipment we'll need 18 people right up front.  If past work parties are a gauge we need between 30 and 40 people to hit the trails to make a real impact.

Please pass the word along about this work party.  In the past,  we have been lucky to also pick up some members of the running community when we have big work parties so hopefully some of them can volunteer as well. If we don't get enough people to sign up we will probably redirect our efforts to some of our outlying trails that need work since those can be done with smaller groups of volunteers and try to reschedule FATS for later in the summer.

If you know you can commit and want to go ahead and sign-up now, please email me at [e-mail]

[Angela]

It's still early but I will keep updating this as we gain more volunteers for the workparty. Once we have enough to really get some work done I will change it from tentative. Thanks to the volunteers who have already committed and signed up.

It is too late to schedule tread work at this point so we are keeping this work party to mowing, hedging and weed eating. We have also had some volunteers complete some preliminary work on other trails in this system so primary focus will be Great Wall and Skinny. Still need a few volunteers, email us at [e-mail]

[Angela]

We have about a week and a half until the work party. Currently, we only have 8 people signed up to help. We do have some preliminary maintenance work that has already been done on a couple of sections of trail and some additional work scheduled this week but if only 8 volunteers show up on July 11th we are going to have a really overgrown trail to ride/run for the rest of the summer.

We will be working in the morning and then finishing up with a cookout just after noon. Please come help get the trail back into good condition, email us at [e-mail] if you can spare three or four hours to work on this popular trail system!

[Angela]

The work party is on Saturday so less than 5 days away. I've just updated the Volunteer Chart and we now have 14 people signed up. I am thinking a whole lot more people like to ride this trail system than are willing to work on it. If you are settled back in from the holidays and find you can spare 3 or 4 hours next Saturday to lend a hand please send me an email. I will be sending out an email today to the people who are currently signed up letting them know what they need to bring and what time to meet.

If we don't end up with enough people we will just select a trail or two and concentrate on those.

Please pass the word to other people you know who might not be on Facebook, the forum or receive our chapter newsletter.

Thank you!

[Angela]

We currently have 18 people signed up to work on Saturday, we still need a few more people to mobilize all of our equipment to clear Great Wall and Skinny this Saturday. If you ride/run these trails please step up to help by contacting [e-mail]

Recon on Great Wall last night reveals many overgrown areas along this trail that need to be cleared.

[cvman33]

Count me in Angela. Give me a time, and I will be there.

[Angela]

Thank you! I have information I am emailing out to the people who have signed up about the work party, can you send me your email address so I can send you updated information? If so please email me at [e-mail]

Thank you!

[Angela]

We still need a couple of volunteers for the work party tomorrow to be able to mobilize all of our equipment and complete the scheduled work on Skinny and Great Wall.

If your schedule has changed and you can now spare 3 or so hours tomorrow morning to volunteer at your favorite trail system please send me an email as soon as you can to [e-mail]

[Angela]

The work party on Saturday was a huge success, we litterly busted the top out of the volunteer chart thermometer with 37 workers out on the trails at FATS!

Huge thank you to all the volunteers who came out to work on the trails Saturday and to the ones who had started preliminary work on FATS in the days and weeks prior to this main work party. The trails overall should be in great condition as far as foliage overgrowth (tread work will be scheduled later) but it is hard to totally cover every foot of 32 miles of trail. I inadvertently left a section off the jobs list (start of Great Wall traveling CCW for about 1.5 miles), this will be picked up in the next week). There might still be a little more work on some of the other trails that weren't the focus of this work party but we were able to send additional people in to every trail except Big Rock on Saturday.

More work parties will be scheduled as we move through the year - tread work on FATS and work on other outlying trails, keep an eye here on the forum, on Facebook, on Twitter, in the newsletter, etc for those upcoming work parties!

Here are a few pictures from the work party:

In this case the banner could have read crews since we had a lot of teams out on the trails yesterday




Getting prepped before the main group of volunteers arrive



No big group picture this time because volunteers were efficiently dispersed to their jobs as they arrived, by the time we returned from putting out the orange marker cones and dropping the DR mowers at designated spots at 8:15, all workers were out of the parking lot and on the job or heading there.



David and Matt were the first two to hit the trails and the first back out of the woods, somewhat beating the heat (it was already pretty warm and humid at 530am as things were getting underway)



Volunteers came back in and stowed their tools and equipment before heading to get cold drinks and food


This is probably my favorite party of work parties, socializing with an amazing bunch of people afterward. These people love to ride these trails but many of them consistently pitch in to help keep the trails cleared, come join us at one of the work parties if you haven't been already. 




And this is probably my least favorite part of a work party, the aftermath of getting everything torn down and loaded back up in the trailer, etc and unloading and putting things away once we get home!