Westwoods Trails Meeting
February 9, 2004
Guilford Community Center
Chair: Paul Proulx
Meeting Began: 7:35pm
Attendance: (13 Members): Shelley Green, Bob Handschumacher, Peter Johnson, Susan Kukle, Joe Ortoleva, Sandra Porter, Paul Proulx, Fred Richards, Mary Richardson, Matt Richerson, James Shaw, Kevin Smith, Simon Stewart.

Approval/corrections of minutes: Correction to the minutes for January 12th: Change GLTC to GLCT. The rest of the minutes were accepted.

Resignations/New Members/Members news: No resignations, no new members. Ellsworth Mathias will be given a patch. He has been contributing many hours to cutting and cleans up.

GLTC Report:
-Paul went to the GLTC meeting on January 13th. CT Forest and Park and received the "2003 Trails Award" for "Outstanding Organization in Connecticut". It is not clear yet where the plaque will be displayed.
-See New Business

CT Forest and Park:
-Paul reported that there is national funding for a feasibility study concerning joining the CT Blue Trail with MA and then NH trail system for a National Scenic Trail.
-He also reported that CT Forest and Park has done a study to get the Blue Trail from Bluff Head to Jacobs Beach.

Trail Reports
Westwoods:
Team A: see work parties

Nut Plains: Kevin Smith reported that there doesn't seem to be any hikers but lots of deer tracks.
Paul Trail: No report
Kampmeyer: There seem to be ATV's and snowmobiles using the trails.
Eastwoods: There seem to be skiers using the trails.
Hoadly Creek: No report
Spencer Creek: No report.

Past Work Parties:
-(24hrs) Paul Proulx, Kevin Smith, Peter Johnson, and Ellsworth Mathias cut 95 trees on the Yellow / Violet Circle trails. There is about one 1 more day of cutting left.

Future Work Parties:
-The Yellow Triangle will be next.
-A new bridge is needed on the Yellow square south of the blue rectangle, connecting the yellow square and the white square.

Old Business:
-Shelley Green has recently joined the Town's Conservation Committee to take part in the Natural Resource Inventory .This activity is short term to be concluded by June. Therefore, the Westwoods Wild Life Impact Study will temporarily be put on hold.
-Kevin re-introduced the idea of year-round programs to encourage responsible trail use other than just peak time and peak locations. The group conversation continued with the idea of developing the educational piece by encouraging involvement of school groups, scouts, the GHS Environmental Club, and the Outdoor Educational Center.
-The ideas were well received-
-Susan Kukle is heading up the stewardship committee for the GLCT and announced that is a public meeting coming upon February 24, 2004 inviting people to become involved. The group was interested in a follow up about attendance and interest displayed from the community .
-Paul announced the results of the survey regarding the appropriate way to spell out WWTC. It would seem that from this point forward WWTC is to consistently be spelled Westwoods Trail Committee.

New Business:
-Paul was asked what the WWTC thought about the Greenway Trail. So he created a survey ain1ed at polling the Westwoods Trail Committee for views regarding the Greenway Trail. He will bring the results to the next GLCT meeting and back to us in March.
-There was a group discussion that involved entertaining many questions regarding the criteria for choosing which GLCT properties would have trails and how were the trail locations chosen. There was no defInitive answer The conversation continued to pose and entertained the questions what is the mission statement and what are the goals of the WWTC. There were no defInitive answers-
-Jim Shaw shared the mission statement of the Greenway Trail Committee. The conversation continued with a discussion containing several viewpoints about the creation of a trail of the proposed type.
-It came to the attention of the group that there had been a report that someorie had been entering what appeared to be Land Trust property by way of Moose Rill Rd and cutting and removing firewood. A declarative statement was made that this is not permitted. The idea of posting "signs was offered and dismissed. It was not completely clear what piece of land was involved and whether or not it is defInitely Land Trust Property.

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.
Recording Secretary: Sandra Porter