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Permalink Reply by Austin Fenwick on October 28, 2012 at 1:55pm

While I cannot speak directly to the concerns you have listed I can say that this step will be a good one for both IMBA and Cambr. IMBA will gain a large membership base that will help its national campaigns while Cambr will benefit from IMBA's structure. You do not have to select that you wish to be a cambr member when you sign up for IMBA, you can remain unattached or you can simply join cambr. There will not be 3 or 4 different cambr chapters to choose from. 

I recently moved to Illinois and find myself living INSIDE the city only blocks from Wrigley. I will be working with Cambr on grant writing and sponsorship work. Trust me, I would love to see trails for Mountain bike specific actions within city limits, and I can agree that wider publication of Cambr within the city would be great. In the mean time, a big step has been taken and they are becoming part of IMBA in the most direct way possible. That should be celebrated and, due to it, their abilities will likely grow over the coming years, hopefully to a point where in city work will be attainable.

Speak, Build, Respect, Ride. Pretty good motto i believe. 

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Permalink Reply by Austin Fenwick on October 29, 2012 at 3:02am

What i am saying is IMBA members, when they sign up for IMBA, have two options. They can join Cambr, which will show up as an option. Or they can remain unaffiliated. They don't have to join Cambr to join IMBA but if you want to join Cambr you will have to join IMBA. Does that make sense?

As far as it being broken down into multiple regions within Cambr, I can tell you thats not an uncommon feature for larger bike clubs throughout the US.

In any case its certainly not my position to defend the operating system of Cambr, being the newbie around here. I can say that they will have to make some changes with IMBA chapter status and it will take a bit of time to work around it. As I always say, if you wish to see change come out to meetings if you can or be involved in some way. Everyone deserves a voice if you are a member, and thats the way it should be.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Stoeckigt on October 29, 2012 at 4:16am

CG, as with any anonymous posting, it is hard for me to directly respond to your experience, but I can respond in general to your concerns. So for the sake of convention, I will use your last initial and refer to you as Mr. George.

Dear Mr. George,
When CAMBr and IMBA complete the Chapter integration members will be able to join one of the three chapters, to support their favorite trail systems, or CAMBr as a general member. Most members choose to join the chapter that builds the trails they ride most frequently, not the one geographically linked to their home. (That would explain why Copper Harbor MI has a population of less than 100 people and a Trail Club with over 400 members)

CAMBr is a volunteer organization and as such people who volunteer to run for a leadership position are on the ballot. If our members that live in Chicago want to run for office, we would welcome it as we can always use more help. For example, many people from Chicago ride Palos every week. If they are interested in helping develop the trails in Palos, getting involved in the South Chapter would be ideal for them.

Also saying that CAMBr does not talk to city bike shops is not true. There are several bike shops and bike teams based in Chicago that work with CAMBr. Keep in mind, not all bike shops are interested in mountain biking. With a limited amount of volunteers, we can only spend time working with shops that want to work with CAMBr. Regarding Chicago events that are bike related, we just don’t have enough volunteers. We have to intelligently use our resources, human and capital, or we will run out of both.

As far as the chapters not trusting each other, this is another erroneous assumption on your part. The chapters are separated to make them more effective regarding the day-to-day management of our trail systems and to keep a clear and non-redundant line of communication to the land managers. Rather than a trust issue, chapters make the people closest to the trails able to manage the trails without having to run everything through the CAMBr Board.

It would appear from your post that you are opposed to the boathouse and want CAMBr to get involved, even though it does not affect the bicycling community in Chicago. CAMBr is a bicycling advocacy organization with limited resources, which we use to fulfill our mission statement. Just as I am sure there are neighborhood advocacy organizations that have a mission that would align with your boathouse concerns and offer you assistance.

As far as Santa, you once again are twisting reality to meet your need to attack CAMBr. Santa who we found in the woods, along with Charlie Horse and the Trail Gnome, all show up from time to time at events decorated to match the theme. The theme could be a pirate’s outfit, Charlie Horse had a pretty cool eye patch, or holiday lights for the holiday party. The term effigy is offensive and an absolute twisting of reality.

If your second post was instead your only post, this conversation could have been more direct and focused on real issues, instead my having to set the record straight in response to the serious distortion of the truth you placed in your first post. You are not the only one who sees challenges in finding the correct management structure for an organization. Believe it or not, the volunteers that lead CAMBr have continuing conversations regarding the structure of CAMBr. We are in communication with other clubs around the country and there is no right answer, but we are shaping a few ideas that may work better for CAMBr than our current structure. What I can say is that any restructuring will have to do with better communication with land managers and advocacy and less to do with naming a chapter after the area you live in.

Mr. George, I’m not sure why you are so angry with a volunteer organization, in which many people donate thousands of hours each year to promote bicycling and building of multi-use trails in the Chicago area, but I hope this response helps you better understand the realities of CAMBr and encourages you to use your energy to help us promote bicycling in Chicago proper.

Respectfully,

Jerry Stoeckigt
Executive Director CAMBr

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