FORR AGM set for December 3--get involved and save the huts!
By Contributor
As required by our Society rules, this is your notice of the Friends of the the Rossland Range AGM to be held on December 3, 2013, at 7:00 PM in the Rossland Miners’ Hall, 1765 Columbia Avenue in Rossland.
You must have been a member of FORRS for 30 days before the AGM in order to vote or run for office. This is a key AGM for FORRS, so make sure you are included.
WORKSHOP ON NEW RECREATION SITE
OCTOBER 29, 2013
SUMMARY OF PARTICIPANTS’ COMMENTS;
NEXT STEPS
At the public workshop on October 29 , 2013 about the creation of an official Recreation Site in the Rossland Range high country, the participants provided written comments on 31 questions,ranging from the big picture, i.e. looking at the value of the area as whole, and how human use might affect it, to specific matters like the best and most popular uses of the area, problems to be dealt with such as health and safety, how the chain of huts fits into the area, and how to deal with the huts.
The questions were designed to be open and somewhat redundant, so that the participants as much opportunity as possible to express their views.
The comments of course express many individual opinions, but viewed as a whole, as what might be thought of as a “crowd-sourcing” exercise, they reveal a number of key themes that can be used in thinking about how to deal with the Recreation Site authorization.
Specifically, the Ministry of Forests’ Recreation Sites and Trails Branch requires the community, with the help of the Friends of the Rossland Range, to develop a management plan for the Recreation Site by November of 2014 as a condition of the final approval of the Recreation Site. The themes in the comments from October 29 provide compelling direction for the plan.
Note: An important point made in oral discussion at the workshop by Justin Dexter, District Recreation Officer, is that the provisions in the letter authorizing further work to create the Recreation Site are in the nature of an initial set of requirements, but that if the community can create a reasonable management plan, the Recreation Sites and Trails Branch has the capacity to be flexible and to work with the community.
The raw, unedited written comments made at the October 29 workshop are available atwww.rosslandrange.org, or by contacting the facilitator, Les Carter atretrac01@telus.net. (Because of the care and enthusiasm of the participants, the comments take up 39 pages – and represent 15 hours of inputting time by the facilitator.
It is very worthwhile to read the comments as they stand. They contain many excellent ideas and passionately-expressed concerns that a summary necessarily fails to capture, and provide important guidance for those working on a management plan for the Recreation Site, whether in FORRS, the community, or the approving agency.
For more information, please contact Les Carter, meeting facilitator, at 250-362-5677, retrac01@telus.net.
