You may have heard that the club recently purchased another Ski Doo Alpine Snomobile for trail grooming. Our grooming process has always been to do the heavy grooming with the Cushman Tracksters, and the fast cleanup and maintenance grooming with one of our two aging Alpines...
We will be losing access to one of the Green Cushman Tracksters as it belongs to Dave personally and he is putting it on the market now for various reasons, tho the club's "Kermit Trackster" will continue to be available for heavy grooming....in fact "Kermit" was used last night to roll all the trail system.
We have needed a new snomobile for some time now, because the old ones are worn out and quite undependable. The problem for the club has been that a new grooming snomobile costs over $10,000 dollars, money the club just doesn't have, and is unlikely to be able to raise anytime soon.
This Fall Dave Wykoff spotted a 1980 Alpine for sale on Ebay. The remarkable thing about it is that it had been stored in Green Bay WI and not used much for the last 25 years: so it is in incredible shape.
The groomers agreed we should bid on it and Clay, Ken/Jessica and Paul volunteered to provide the funds, and Dave, our Ebay specialist, handled the bidding, which was intense and contested right down to the final minute. Dave prevailed and got the machine for a $2200 bid. It cost another $699 for shipping from Green Bay, so these benefactors have around $2900 tied up in the machine. Here's a photo of it while we were getting it tuned in the Apogen shop in Los Alamos:
The two old alpines will be put on Ebay and should defray around $500 of the cost, as both snomobiles are in running condition, since there is a surprisingly large market out there for old Alpines, regardless of condition.
In the meantime we need to get together and help repay Clay, Ken/Jessica and Paul for some portion of the big bucks they put up for the new Alpine.
So I propose a "REPAY CLAY" [and Ken and Paul] fundraiser. To get things going both John Ullman and I have each put up $200 challenge grants, and we're asking that you members and donors respond with whatever you can spare. It doesn't have to be $200, any amount will help whether it be $25, $50 or whatever.
You can send a check to SWNSC, P O Box 1556, Los Alamos NM 87544.... make it out to Southwest Nordic Ski Club, but do specify that it is for the "REPAY CLAY" fund. Also if you haven't yet joined for the 2007-2008 season, now would be a great time to take care of that.
You can download membership forms from the club website at: http://www.swnordicski.org/
Thanks for your help,
Tom Berg
http://tombergpaintings.com/
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