Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64At the beginning of our fiscal year, there was a lot of excitement after a banner season the winter before. So many of us stayed hopeful right up until April, because we all knew that some of our best snow months can come in March. When that did not happen, many of us asked some serious questions about VAST and our future, and what could we do to make sure VAST as a whole survives another winter like the last one. Because of our minimal reserves we were able to absorb this year’s deficit of nearly $250,000, but without some changes, we will not survive many more snowless winters. Every one of us experienced the worst winter in our history and not just here inVermont.That is a fact we can’t change, but we also saw a lot of good things happening within VAST this year. This low snow winter brought about many conversations with state leaders and public officials about the success of VAST and what snowmobiling means for the Vermont economy. Clearly, VAST as an organization, meaning our clubs too were hurt by the low snow winter,butevenmoreseverelyinjuredwerethesmall businesses that rely on us to stay at their lodgings, eat at their restaurants, buy gas from them and buy from and repair our snowmobiles.This in turn affects the state’s tax receipts. This spring we had to take another hard look at our membership numbers and the core group of folks that understand that buying an annual TMA does not just support their riding that season, but the opening, maintenance and grooming of our nearly 5000 miles of trails, supporting our clubs and volunteers, running the organization and marketing snowmobiling in Vermont. One area that needed to be looked at was our largest expenses, trails and how could we better manage the way we expense the dollars we get from TMA sales, grants, and from the State of Vermont. There were many meetings around these issues with the Trails Committee, a new Trails Subcommittee made up of those from theTrails Committee andVAST staff, along with some directors and officers of VAST. Also the Finance Committee worked hard to develop a budget for the next year taking into account last year’s bad winter, and goals to marketVermont more, in the hope to draw more folks to join VAST and ride in Vermont. What was very important to these committees and the VAST Directors and Officers was to get to a place where the organization could be run properly that reflects the amount we are responsible for, and to make sure we always support our trails and that they stay a significant percentage of our focus and where our money is spent. This year also brought about the finalizing of your new website and its ability to offer an online TMA system. The Online TMA committee and VAST Directors and Officers spent a lot of time talking about pricing options that would be fair to everyone. This project has been years in the making and may mean the ability to offer a system that some may want to buy their TMAS from and be a quicker and more convenient tool to those just wanting to come to Vermont to ride for a weekend. The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail is also a major project of VAST. We worked hard this year to continue to grow and develop an improved relationship with our elected officials and those in charge of the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTRANS). This trail certainly has taken on a life of its own. Because of that andVAST’s success of building the first one-third of the trail, others have taken up the torch to help us more in the future. Soon all of us will be seeing a lot EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S REPORT Submitted by Cindy Locke 10