The annual UMTR member banquet took place on Saturday night, and we had a fantastic turnout with somewhere between 80-100 members in attendance. The food was abundant and the company was second to none.
Three huge pieces of business were accomplished during the banquet: the incoming UMTR Board of Directors was elected, awards were given, and our year-end donation dollars were announced.
During the Annual Business Meeting portion of the evening, the 2018 UMTR Board of Directors was made official, with eight new members elected by the membership to join five returning members. The 2018 UMTR Board will be comprised of returning board members Jake Hegge, Josh Henningson, Robyn Reed, Jordan Schmidt, and Jamison Swift; and new board members Loren Albin, Carl Bliss, Kate Hanson, Lisa Kapsner-Swift, Tim Peterson, Todd Rowe, Ann Starr, Christopher Vitek. The first meeting of the 2018 Board will be in January.
Awards were given for our Trail Series and Ultra Series, and those receipients (as determined by cumulative point totals) were as follows:
Trail Series – Women’s Division
Open: Katrina Anderson
Masters: Linda Evert
Grandmasters: Amy Wasson
Overall: Stefanie Anderson
Trail Series – Men’s Division
Open: Erik Raivo
Masters: Tim Peterson
Grandmasters: John Eiden
Overall: Jim Wiese
Ultra Series – Women’s Division
Open: Tina Johnson
Masters: Brook Wheeler
Grandmasters: Maria Barton
Overall: Kelly Jaworski
Ultra Series – Men’s Division
Open: Jeff Leuwerke
Masters: David Lenahan
Grandmasters: Mark Martinsen
Overall: Erik Raivo
Each year, the Board chooses a representative Trail Runner of the Year and Trail Person of the Year. This year, those individuals were:
Trail Runner of the Year: Tina Johnson
Trail People of the Year: Long Nguyen and Michelle Stoltz
Finally, our donations for the year were announced. As in prior years, we based our donations upon the number of hours that UMTR members spent volunteering and giving back to our parks, trails, and races. It was decided that $3 would be given for each volunteer hour reported to UMTR, and the recipients of these donation dollars were voted upon by the membership via email survey. With a total of 1,815 volunteer hours reported, the recipients and total donations are:
Superior Hiking Trail: $3,812
Three Rivers Park District: $1,089
Ice Age Trail Alliance: $545
We couldn’t do any of this without ALL of you! Your participation makes our trail community thrive, and your membership dollars give us the ability to help support the parks and trails that sustain us as runners. Please consider joining us again in 2018 as members – or join us for the first time! Membership is good for a calendar year, so unless you joined within the last few weeks, it’s time to register for 2018! Please visit http://www.umtr.net/membership/ to sign up.
See you on the trails!