This is an afternoon event, and will be held at the Adaptive Outdoor Education Center. Do you have a fun outdoor activity you would like to share with the group?  Please call or email Betsy Chapman, 207-944-3264 or [email protected]. 

We have an opening for two or possibly four people on our Copper Mountain ski trip. Interested? Contact Cindy Foster, Trip Leader, at 644-1334 this week.

 

The Banff/Lake Louise trip is full, but you can add your name to a waiting list in case someone drops out.

More information about our trips is on our web site.

 

Copper: Cindy Foster, Trip Leader, [email protected]

Banff/Lake Louise: Gail Miller, Trip Leader, [email protected]

Although we have traditionally held our Annual Meeting with a Saturday night dinner, on March 18 we will try something different - an Annual Meeting with a Sunday lunch. As in the past two years, the event will be held at the Sugarloaf Inn.

 

More details will be available in the January newsletter, at which time you can be sure to mark the event on your 2018 calendar.

 

~ Bonnie Farrar and Cindy Foster

 

The Carrabassett Valley Outdoor Association officially opened its new $70,000 five stand sporting clays installation on Homecoming Sunday, October 8.

 

Shown above, l. to r., are Peter Weston of Scarborough, Harvey Packard of Eustis and Neal Trask of Carrabassett Valley, three major volunteers to whom the new facility was dedicated.  The trio racked up literally hundreds of hours of volunteer time over the year-long project development.  Weston, an engineer, designed the 70-foot long facility and donated most of the lumber from trees he cut on his own property.  Packard, a builder, supervised the construction as he has on several other buildings in the CVOA complex located off Rt. 27 some 1.7 miles north of the Sugarloaf access road.  Trask is the tireless chairman of the association's range committee and has been since it opened 17 years ago. 

 

The three of them along with a score or more of other volunteers produced a facility that is reportedly the only one in Maine meeting all the criteria for five stand clay shooting.  The building features five indoor shooting stations, shotgun racks, a scoring and operations desk and room inside for spectators and storage.  It also includes in a tower atop the building one of the six computerized clay throwers which can be programmed to imitate various types of birds and game popular with shotgun hunters.  Funds for the new facility included grants from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife and from the Town of Carrabassett Valley. 

The outdoor association was founded in 1999 with a couple dozen area outdoor enthusiasts.  Today CVOA has nearly 900 members, over 400 of whom also belong to the range, which in addition to the five stand range includes trap, rifle, pistol and archery ranges.

Since the dedication, our Saturday five stand shoots have been exceedingly well attended!  Between the Saturday and Sunday shoots, and members and guests siting in rifles for hunting season, the range has been humming with activity.  We have all enjoyed seeing both returning and new members to our range.

With all this growth, the Range Committee sent seven members to get NRA certified as Range Safety Officers.  We will also be developing a new set of Standard Operating Procedures which will include all the new venues at the range.  This spring we will send out copies to all range members.  We appreciate the care and safety you all have exercised at the range in the past and going forward.

Ray and Diane Stone, Neal Trask, Jim Heichel, Al Burnell and other range members became certified as Range Safety Officers. Thank them for their commitment to the CVOA Range.

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The next time you stop by the range, you will notice several new mountains!  This is the fill which will make up the new berms at the ristol and rifle ranges.  The work will begin in the spring so as not to get in the way of hunting season use of the rifle range. 

Ray Stone is ready to move the berm material - just kidding - thousands of yards will be used in the upgraded berms on the rifle range.

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Saturday five stand shoots and Sunday trap shoots will continue through November or until the snow starts to fly.  We will be plowing the entrance to the range during the winter for access to CVOA's storage, and provide some off-the-road parking if you would like to use the pistol and rifle ranges.

 

See you at the Range!

 

~ Diane Stone, Range Secretary 

 

~ Cindy Foster, Newsletter Publisher

 

It was a busy Homecoming weekend at Sugarloaf, and we generated a lot of enthusiasm for CVOA. 75 membership applications were taken in, including a record 20 new members. Our cookbooks were sold out, and we gave away most of our Perpetual Calendars.

 

Many thanks to the following members who volunteered their time at the table: Mary Berger, Ann and Kelly Dooling Bonnie and Bob Farrar, Cindy Foster, Mike and Jeannette Parker, Diane Stone, Steve and Elaine Smith, and Deb Sanford.

 

~ Bonnie Farrar

 

A small CVOA gang took to the coast on October 20 for a weekend of hiking, biking, eating, and enjoying friends in the Bar Harbor region.  Fred Trask, Kathy Larson, Bill Haefele, Mary Frank, Colon Durrell, Judy Weston and I met up at the Galyn Restaurant for happy hour Friday night.  The group moved on to dine at the Jack Russell Restaurant, where they put us in our own room - our reputation obviously proceeded us.  All enjoyed an excellent dinner. 

The fall foliage was near peak for the weekend and the weather just perfect, so sight-seeing in the park was on everyone's to-do list.  The park and town were amazingly busy, compared to previous years.  When CVOA started these trips all those years ago, the place was pretty much deserted, with all the stores that hadn't shut down already having great sales.  No such sales this weekend!  A large cruise ship docked Saturday morning, adding even more people to those who drove from all over the country to enjoy the beautiful fall weather.   All of the parking lots in the park were overflowing.  It didn't help that the Park was no longer running the shuttle buses. 

People spent Saturday and Sunday biking, hiking, sight-seeing, eating popovers at the Jordan House, and poking around downtown Bar Harbor.  Everyone gathered at our room at the Cromwell for happy hour Saturday night, then had dinner at the West Side Café.  Good food, but not quite as good as the night before.  John Morey and Jane Tawney joined us for happy hour and dinner, as Jane lives right in Bar Harbor.  Bill had spent the day cleaning out his trailer in preparation for his trip to Florida and eventually moving to Sugarloaf.  As usual, he caught us up on the Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park scuttlebutt. 

I've been going to Bar Harbor and Acadia all my life, and I never fail to be awed by the place.  We are so lucky to live in this State!

 

~ Peter Weston