9359-R3_MSA_May2026_Newsletter

From The Executive Board

Director of Operations

From the President

opportunity to spend some of their spare time on themselves or their family. It takes all those hours of volunteerism to make it so we can hop on our sled and go have a great ride for the day, weekend or longer. Thank you to everyone who chooses Maine as your place to ride. Whether you pack up from home in Maine or somewhere else we are thankful you choose Maine snowmobile trails to explore and make memories on. You help make some of our rural communities survive. The additional business they receive (thanks to the landowners & volunteers) helps to make ends meet. That keeps a store open, a local restaurant open, employment close to people so they don’t have to commute. This is key in a rural state like ours. This is my final article in the Exec VP column. I have had a great time in this role, working closely with the regional VP’s the last 2 years, supporting them and meeting new people in every region and even on zoom at directors’ meetings. Thank you all for what you do. It seems like just yesterday when Mark Chinnock took me outside at the Madawaska showcase ride & meeting to ask if I would be his VP candidate. Don’t worry, I won’t be far away, just a slight change to the Presidents column. I appreciate all the support and am humbled by the opportunity to be elected as the President of the association. I ask that as you go through your summer that you think of 1 or 2 individuals or families that ride but are not involved in a club. Check in with them and ask them why, invite them to a meeting. And then the next step, if you are involved with your local club, is the club attending MSA director’s meetings? You can do it from the comfort of your home as they are all hosted in person & on Zoom. This is an opportunity for your club to meet people and learn and engage in topics that matter to you and the snowmobiling in Maine. We have something unique here in Maine and want to make sure we can pass that on for generations to come. I know that’s what I am involved for. And why many of us at MSA spend time going to meetings, being on a zoom call or traveling to meet with other state/provincial agencies. Enjoy your summer, get your sleds ready for next season and I hope to see you at an event this coming season. As always, please reach out with any questions or concerns. Matt Stedman I said earlier that I couldn’t have made it through these two years without the help of everyone from our executive committee members, steering committee, the boots on the ground being the Trails Committee as well as roughly 280 individual clubs Statewide. It takes thousands of people each year to make our sport successful. And THAT is why we put out the best product and are a benchmark for many great people, passionate snowmobilers, that give their heart and soul to the sport of Snowmobiling every day. People that are willing to help you and not expect anything in return. I couldn’t ask for a better team around me to walk me through the last two years. The ups and downs, the adversity and challenges that I faced these last two years, I honestly couldn’t have done it without the support from you all. I never in my wildest dreams thought that when I became active in the MSA many years ago that I would someday be speaking to you as President. And I want to thank you for having the confidence in me to do just that. The MSA, and that includes everyone reading this, have made great strides in the last 4 or 5 years from working tirelessly on funding for our Clubs, to stepping into the 21st century with many online portals for membership, raffles, the MSA website and countless others. One year ago, MSA entered a partnership with Mapgears and launched a digital trail mapping app, which I am very pleased to say that it has been an overwhelming success and the mapping team of Brent Spaulding, Mike Grass and John Monk have hit it out of the park with this one! This online Map would not even be possible without the input, suggestions and trail data from each individual club. One year into it and it has grown like wildfire and we have so much more room to grow.

every other State. I would like to thank Eileen and Liz for countless hours taking care of memberships and making sure every member is entered into the database. Al for making my job as president a little easier by being Director of Operations and traveling from one end of the state to the other. To Bob for being my voice of reason and also taking care of all the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff that most people don’t see. To Matt for always having my back and ready to take on any challenge, and for spending many hours on funding, crunching numbers and working closely with James, Joe and myself with one goal in mind, how can we put more money back into the club’s hand. His even keel demeanor often kept me in sight of what was important at the moment. And to Lori for working many nights to make sure we have a quality newspaper, one that is worth reading cover to cover, for creating the Maine Guide, for updating the social media page and the helping Bob with the web page, for creating numerous online portals through Formstack and for taking care of the office accounting and bill paying. Honestly, I don’t think there is anything she can’t do or teach herself to do! All of these components are needed to have a successful association because there is no I in team. I am proud that I had the opportunity to serve as President of the MSA. I hope to stay with my MSA family and will serve the association whenever and wherever needed. I truly feel that the MSA is in a very good place, largely in part to the thousands of passionate members who are determined to make Maine one of the premier snowmobiling destinations hands down! Thank you, Outgoing MSA President Mark Chinnock

Alan Swett, 207-872-7282 234 County Rd, Waterville ME 04901 snowtraveler@roadrunner.com W e had a pretty good winter here in Maine. More cold weather, ice, and a few more snowstorms would have been better. But, with the best groomer operators, large and small, in the Northeast, we had some great riding. The best thing I’ve noticed over the last few years is that clubs are working together more; we’re no longer just an ‘I-team’ bunch. We’re a group of statewide snowmobile clubs that want the same thing: the best trails in the Northeast. And we’re making it happen. Every club from Limerick to Madawaska have gone above and beyond this year to make Maine a destination point for folks from all over the Country and Canada to visit. These clubs are a piece of the trails puzzle that make sacrifices every season, and I’m sure proud of this team. The signage has improved, and good signage makes riders feel safer on the trail network. Thank you all. I traveled to a few events last season, but my mom became very ill, so it was hard to get away. I didn’t travel as much as I wanted to and usually stayed within 80 to 100 miles of my home base. It’s been a sad time. But I did get to some cookouts, club meetings, and a fishing derby. Unfortunately, I also attended a few funerals along with a couple of vintage sled shows, which are always a great time! Maine Snowmobiling is a life of adventure and friendship. Snowmobilers are grateful to our generous landowners who open their land for us to have fun on. Yes, there are some bad apples in the bunch, but most folks take pride in how they act on the trail. We finished up with close to 80,000 sleds registered. That’s a great improvement from the early years. We were in the top five nation wide registrations. Wisconsin had 224,665, Minnesota 200,595, Michigan 167,140, New York 94,700, and Maine over 78,000. These numbers came out in early March, so they may increase as more registrations come in. The Powersports show will be on October 23, 24 and 25 this year at the Augusta Civic Center. The Super Raffle is coming together; we have some awesome prizes, along with trailers and snowmobiles, again this year. We’d like to start ticket sales in early June. Please check online and follow our clubs’ fundraising events this summer. It was wonderful to see many of you at the Year-End Banquet. I got lots of positive feed back, sorry I was under the weather. I’d like to thank Mark for the great job he did as Presi dent. He’s a hard worker who runs a business, plus his passion for the MSA was overwhelm ing. Thank you all for making snowmobiling in Maine a lifetime of memories. Please call if I can help out Be safe out there! AL In order for MSA to have ALL the correct information about your club you need to complete an OFFICER UPDATE FORM EVERY YEAR. Please go to the MSA website: www. mainesnowmobileassociation.com click on memberships, scroll down to MSA forms, open it and you will see Officer update form. Fill it out with all the information and submit it. This information has a variety of uses for MSA including membership info, club address, officers and more. It is placed on file and if someone contacts to MSA asking about your club it is used to give them infor mation. Thank you ATTENTION ALL MSA SNOW MOBILE CLUBS!! WE NEEDYOUR HELP!

Mark Chinnock, President 207-754-9874 544 Plains Road, Poland, ME 04274 napadude66@hotmail.com

T his is truly a bittersweet time for me in that on one hand it’s hard to step down and a lot of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. But on the other hand, you’re like thank the lord, I’m ready for a little bit of a break. You might say well it’s only a two year term but in all reality it’s more like a ten year term because you start out as say a Director or Regional V.P. then in my case four years as Trails Committee Chairman then Executive Vice President and then President, unless you’re Eileen Lafland then it’s more like a 40 year term! God Bless you Eileen. But you know the truth is I wouldn’t have given up any of those years for the world. It’s been an awesome journey and I have met so From the Executive VP

Trails Committee Chair Report

Matt Stedman 207-557-1921 (call or text)

Y esterday was the MSA annual banquet and final directors meeting of the season. We had a packed house, one of the best attended meetings and awards banquets that I remember with close to (or over) 200 people in attendance. Thank you to those who helped organize and throughout the day. It is wonderful to see everyone there and thank so many for their support & contributions to sport, their clubs and communities. It is bitter-sweet. Another snowmobile season has come & gone. I made many memories, I met new snowmobile people, rode in new locations, purchased a new (4-stroke) snowmobile and new legislation passed. The winter was filled with events hosted by & for clubs from Sanford to Sinclair, Vassalboro to Van Buren, Alna to Allagash. It was a good winter, not a record setter but people rode their sleds from home in almost every community. This is very important to keep riders and club members engaged. I was very impressed to see clubs out & about packing snow and dragging trails as soon as the snow ended. If you are reading this, that means you are a club member and I thank you. If you helped your local (or far away) club by means of volunteering or financial support above membership I REALLY want to extend a HUGE thank you. This matters so much. Most individuals who do not help do not have any idea how much 1 weekend of help means to a club. The “regulars”, the dedicated core from each club works tirelessly throughout the year to ensure their club is ready when the snow flies. Your help may give them the PO Box 621, Ashland ME 04732 Stedman.matt@jdirving.com

G reetings from Brewer, The 25-26 season is well in the books. Although relatively short, it was a good year for the entire state. There was riding everywhere and most people had the convenience of riding from their hometown no matter where they were. I didn’t meet them, but I just missed a group in Washburn that had left from Saco. There were clubs that had the best conditions they’ve had in several years. As of the end of February, there were over 76,000 snowmobile registrations and the final number will be a bit higher. We’ll take it! It was a busy year for the Trails Committee. Inspection rates were very good and we completed 5 signage workshops throughout the state. Inspections and workshops are part of our normal function, but the big news was the release of our new MSA Trails App. We appreciate all the clubs that reached out with trail updates and POI data. The admin team worked every day from November to mid-March to continually improve our App. We managed over 900 trail updates, over 100 POI updates, and about 200 general APP questions and technical support. We all have learned many aspects of the App and the processes. We will continue to inform and educate about the App and will assess where we still have missing trails. We will also continue to accept trails and POI data over the summer at TRAILS@MESNOW.COM I hope you all have an enjoyable summer, Brent Brent Spaulding, MSA Trails Chairman 207-944-7762 41 Madison Ave Brewer ME 04412 msatrailchair@gmail.com

(207)557-1921 – call or text stedman.matt@jdirving.com

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