On Friday, November 4th, SORBA hosted chapter leaders across the southeast in Knoxville, TN, for our annual Fall Board of Directors Meeting. The meeting was held in conjunction with AMBC’s Fall Fest, a weekend-long mountain bike festival full of good times. We saw an incredible turnout, with many chapters bringing multiple board members to our meeting.
the board meeting portion saw votes on some important matters, including electing our new board and hiring our new Executive Director. The new board will be as follows:
- Mary Anne Swanstrom, President
- Chris Doane, Vice President
- Dan Thrailkill, Treasurer
- Jim Grover, Secretary & North Carolina Rep
- Tom Nelson, Alabama Rep
- Stuart Thiel, Georgia Rep
- Peter Davis, Florida Rep
- Mark Arcelle, Mississippi Rep
- Heather Fletcher, South Carolina Rep
- Kyle Ragan, Tennessee Rep
The new board will begin its term on January 1, 2023 and will hold their position for the next two years.
The board also agreed unanimously agreed to hire the current Associate Director, Philip Darden, as the new Executive Director of SORBA. Philip will take over as Executive Director on January 1 as well.
In addition to voting matters, we hosted two presenters and had updates from Michelle Mitchell from the US Forest Service as well as Anthony Duncan and Jali Fernando from IMBA Local. The first presentation was conducted by Willie Jacobsz from Trailforks. Willie went over all the offerings the website provides for trail organizations including statistics of riders on their trails and logging volunteer hours. This data will be incredibly useful for trail organizations looking to approach businesses and local governments for funding for their trail projects.
Randy Conner, of Contour Trail Design Co., gave a very in-depth presentation on adaptive trail. He went through many of the requirements a variety of adaptive bikes require and the process in which to build trails that will accommodate those bikes. He also covered the importance of including these style trails in your area, and how a good adaptive trail is also a really good beginner trail.
Thank you to everyone that attended and we are extremely grateful for our sponsors and supporting chapter AMBC. We couldn’t do this without you!
