As many of you may know, Doug Lyons has resigned the position of chapter president. I will be assuming his duties until the annual meeting in November.

Tree planting -- a question mark for now. We have lost our land owner. Stay tuned and Peter will keep us posted.

Annual meeting -- Tuesday, November 11th -- 7:00 -- West Mountain Inn (Arlington, VT).

It would seem that our chapter is at a cross roads. For the last few years we have seen a serious decline in member participation. It has reached the point that we are consistently unable to attract a quorum at meetings. This makes it impossible to conduct any business.

It is possible that there simply is not enough interest to sustain a local chapter. If this is the case, we would do well to acknowledge an unplesant reality and disolve the chapter. This would be unfortunate and while I am sure that no one would like to see it happen, the harsh reality is that a viable chapter can not be run by 3 or 4 people.

It is also possible that the lack of interest is because chapter members have not found the kind of chapter, or the kind of activities that they are looking for. If this is the case, it can be remedied. This chapter belongs to the members. It can be nearly anything they would like it to be. At the local level, TU is structured to be run by the Board and the membership. Not the Ex. officers.

If we are to keep this chapter viable, we need to do something different. But I don't know what, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter. The ideas that will make a difference must come from the members. I hope that chapter members will give this issue some consideration and that they will contact me and the other members with ideas that we can discuss.

I will set asside a significant portion of the annual for an open floor discussion of how we can restructure ourselves into the kind of chapter that the membership is looking for.

One generality that I will throw out there--- We are currently small in number. It is better to do a few things and do them well than to try to do many things and do them poorly.

Let us start small and excellent and we can grow from there.

Any one should feel free to contact me with any thoughts and if asked, confidence will be respected.