Allegheny Mountain Chapter of Trout Unlimited

The officers and directors wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and a warm Holiday season. We recently held our re organization meeting at Hoss’s in DuBois, during that meeting it was decided that committee assignments would be made at a special meeting at Martin’s on November 9^th. Here are some of the major changes for the new year. Matt Marusiak will be the newsletter editor as well as the web site editor. We voted to have 4 newsletters sent to all our members per year going forward. The first one should be going out soon so those who do not have email receive the same information as you are. Kelly Williams will be the banquet chair and is our social media (facebook) person. To keep up with any news please follow us on Facebook. Once again this year plans are in the works for a special meeting on the banquet planning to be held on January 3^rd at the DuBois Nursing Home. Anyone with a desire to share their knowledge or ideas is welcome to attend this session at 7PM. We also discussed ideas to increase participation in the chapter and some major changes are in play as follows.

Changes to Board of Directors meetings.

It was determined that we do not need to meet every month before the membership meeting, but rather once a quarter. Also to facilitate more participation the day for the meeting has been changed to the 1^st Tuesday. The first meeting will be February 1^st and we will continue to meet at the nursing home. Watch the newsletter for a complete list of dates.

Changes to the Membership meetings.

Since I joined the chapter back in the seventies we have always met on the 2^nd Wednesday. After a long discussion we felt that we needed to make some changes to date we meet. Many on the board were having trouble with Wednesdays and the 2^nd Tuesday did not fit with all either so here is the most major change. Starting with January’s meeting the day will be the 3^rd Tuesday and we will continue to hold our meetings at Martin’s in the community room at 7pm. We have a list of programs that will be published in the newsletter so keep an eye out for it and keep it for reference We are sure this will take some getting use to as we have long held to the Wednesday date.

Still an open position on the Board.

We are still looking for members to help serve on the board of directors for the chapter. I know I have spoken to many who said they had and interest, but due to schedule conflict they could not make the commitment. We feel that with the changes in the day and the number of meetings that are needed to attend, perhaps some members will step forward. If you do have an interest please contact any of the current board listed on the back of the newsletter.

Finally some good news.

Seventeen years ago we started to work on restoring Camp and Rock Run in Clinton County. Dr. Colson Blakeslee devoted much of his time to getting the parties together and finding the money to allow for the restoration of these fine streams. After a long process it appeared that in 2002 we would be building a bio reactor to treat the acid mine drainage that had killed these streams. These hopes were dashed and due to fractures in the rock below the mined area our plans would not work. We continued to push to have the area re mined and restored since with the fractures this was the only solution. The responsibilities for this kept changing between the Federal government and the State. Only recently was it transferred back to the state. Members of the chapter attended a meeting at the DEP office in Philipsburg on 11/15 and were told that they were going to re mine the site and that with the addition of alkaline material we should see Camp and Rock Runs become capable of supporting wild trout and this would add an additional 4 miles to Cooks Run for trout to swim. I know for some this has taken forever to see happen, I would like to thanks all who have contributed to this financially and with time, we may see trout swimming yet.

Tight Lines,
George Kutskel, President