President's Log: January 2025
By Jim Fetig
We have good news. Spurred on by our year-end campaign honoring John Hedrick’s decades of selfless service and the convenience of our new online membership portal (Neon), PATC beat our goal and raised over $100 thousand in the final three months of 2024! That compares to approximately $35 thousand during the same period last year. Happy New Year, indeed!
Thank you to everyone in the PATC community who was able to donate. Rumor has it that John’s agent may ask for an NIL deal.* Next thing you know, the Cadillac Crew and Hoodlums will be endorsing chainsaws, hard hats and trail tools.
Over the course of the holidays, I read a lot about how society is losing the sense of community. It begins with “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam’s 2000 book about how people are disengaging from social involvement. At the time, the Sony Walkman was scapegoated because people were plugging in and tuning out, hence the metaphoric book title.
Since then, technology has only accelerated the process. iPhones, the internet, Zoom, podcasts, and media fragmentation among other developments have played a role in our social breakdown. One member in Charlottesville posited that we are in a moment of profound change as profound as when Guttenberg invented the printing press. He may be right.
In our own case, since we started hosting ExCom and Council meetings over Zoom, the amount of social interaction and sense of community among members has been inversely proportional to the amount of convenience we’ve gained. In a volunteer led and managed organization, social relationships and trust among leaders is a necessary condition of success.
This will be a topic of the annual ExCom retreat on Jan. 4. That reminds me to welcome the new ExCom members. You can read more about them here. It is a talented group. Thanks for stepping up.
Change also breeds opportunity. PATC connects people to the outdoors in ways that foster community whether it’s the social aspects of when friends rent cabins, volunteer service, join hikes, come climbing with us, or try ski-touring. Getting outside may be the antidote for our times. People may want to join us to get some exercise, find friendship, and be off the grid for a while.
Earlier in December, five of us volunteered through the ATC to help clear blowdowns in the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area. The Mt. Rogers club was overwhelmed, as was the Forest Service. Volunteers from nearly every Virginia club showed up on two separate occasions to pitch in. As one local club member noted, when the sister clubs showed up, it seemed as if the cavalry had arrived.
To be sure, the devastation, the size and location of the downed trees, required contract crews to do the heavy lifting. Regardless, the volunteers were welcome as part of the trail community. Working together, we made a difference.
With at least 20 landslides and multiple washouts reported, Rush Williamson, Supervisor of Trails, will be working with club trail leaders to determine how we may be able to support tread restoration over the summer. There is a lot of dirt to move and relocations in the works.
If you’re a cyclist, the Virginia Creeper Trail east of Damascus was washed away entirely including the tread and most of the old railroad bridges. Hydraulic power is fearsome. Congress appropriated recovery money for public lands, but it will be a while before repairs can be done.
One last note. As the PA transitions to an electronic format, it’s worth noting that the paper quarterly edition is on hold until we can be assured there is an audience for it.
*(NIL is name, image and likeness. It’s the way NCAA athletes can make money, primarily through endorsements.
