b'Club Newsdad likes his company, but for both ofice and such to contend with. With the them a 1012 hour day in the groomerconsecutive weekends of riding and is a long day! Thank you again, Ray!snowpack throughout the state in the Remember, our club meetings are thefollowing months, does anybody really second Tuesday of every month. Rideremember that? Its been encouraging safely and ride right! to see prior members getting their sleds Roy Arthur, Vice President & Trailmasterback out on the trail after a year or two shrewsburysnobirds.orgoff, and seeing folks upgrading their Like us on Facebook sleds as they continue onward with this great winter recreational activity. Back in December, we certified almost 40 students, which is also encouraging Tucker and Tessa Hawley, join their father,to see families continue to get involved Caleb, in the Tweed Valley Travelerswith snowmobiling. Hopefully, these groomer. students become active with the Tweed Valley Travelers volunteer clubs and VAST boards and and flat. The cold temps really helped.What a winter! All of our groomerhelp us take this great sport into the We have been out 11 weeks groomingoperators have been busy trying tofuture.some or all of our trails. It is not akeep up with the trails. They haveFebruary was an active month for us. great season but better than some. Ourbeen doing an amazing job, and theWe hosted the Coles Pond Cook Shack average is 11.8 weeks. We have seentrails are awesome. Hopefully, theon Feb. 2. Its always great to work with more riders out and more vehicles intemperatures will stay cool so we canGeorge and Colleen and throw some the two parking lots that we maintain.keep the trails in tip-top shape until thevolunteers their way to help out this That is a great thing. Maybe theend of the season. The club thanks allgreat trailside eatery. Our neighbors, membership in VAST will be up.of our landowners. Without them, weThe Sno-Bees of Barre, hosted a few The Tucker has had a few issues thiswouldnt be able to have the incredibleweeks later on the 23rd, and the year but nothing major yet. Before weseason we did.Thunder Chickens showed their go out this weekend, I will have toSince we know the winter wont lastsupport with a bunch of sleds making replace the wheels on one assembly.forever, we have started to think aboutthe Cook Shack the destination on that It seems like we are getting to the endand plan all the things we need to getday.of their life expectancy as a few moredone this summer. We have a prettyWehosted the 19th Annual Travis are showing age issues that we willbig list of trails that need maintenance.Mercy Skate Park fundraiser on Feb. address this summer.We even decided to makes some16. Conditions were great and we saw We did our part again this year at theupgrades to our groomer building toabout 40 sleds participate in the poker Winterfest on Center Street in Rutland.help the operators keep the groomerrun, with other sleds riding direct The children had a great time. Werunning great. We hope you all wereto the event. Randy Henry and the are having another raffle for severalable to get out and enjoy the trials thisRacing Chefs served up another great different gift cards this time. I will letseason, and we cannot wait to see youmeal. Adding in Grams Quilt Raffle you know how this works out in ourout there next year! and silent auction proceeds, we will be next post.Ally Martin, Club News Correspondentpresenting approx. $5,500 to the Town tweedvalleytravelers.comof Barre selectboard to be used at the This month, I want to thank RayLike us on Facebook park.Duquette for all he does for ourAs we start to see the end of the season club and Rutland county. He is thecoming, our attention is starting to treasurer for both, and his figures areWASHINGTONfocus on plans to build a garage for very accurate to the penny. This takesour Tucker Cat.At this time, site has a lot of his time, but he still has timeCOUNTY been prepped, and we are obtaining to be my dads grooming buddy asquotes for concrete and building much as possible. In the off season,materials. Well be lining up donations, he helps with debrushing and bridgesponsorships, and seeking help to building and anything he is asked toconstruct the building once we have do. He also gets all of our TMAs set upactual figures in hand. If you are and delivered to the sellers and picksinterested in helping or supporting this them back up. He also does the reallyBarre Town Thunder Chickensproject, or want more details, please hard job of making sure that all thereach out to me at Drouleau23@gmail.figures match up and does one of theWhat a great season weve had this yearcom.hardest jobs, stress-wise, in the clubin Central Vermont, with snow allowingDavid Rouleau, President and county. He is not a young mantrails to be open early in 2019 and, morebarretownthunderchickens.com but we hope he continues to help ourimportantly, stay around for us to playLike us on Facebookclub for many more years. I know myon.Yeah, we had some rain, flooding, 40 | Snowmobile VERMONT'