Lucas Punkari
With the fees to become a member staying the same, and a need for more directors on their board prevalent, Fort Frances Sportsman’s Club president Ben Wiersema is stressing the importance of having more people join the club here locally.
“Like most other clubs here, our numbers are suffering, especially in terms of our directors, as we still have our membership chair and secretary spots open,” Wiersema said after the club’s annual general meeting at the Fort Frances Public Library on Monday night.
“Most of use who are directors have been there for a lone time, and we are going to be availability out there to try and recruit to get our numbers up when it comes to members and directors.
“The club is too important to let it go down,” he added.
While Wiersema was disappointed in the amount of people that attended Monday’s meeting, he felt the overall evening was still a success.
“Everything went well,” he said.
“We covered a lot of topics and we had a lot of good conversations, especially with our two presentations,” Wiersema added.
The first presentation of the evening was made by MNR management biologist Chris Martin, as he updated the club moose populations in the Fort Frances area, and the factors that affect them.
“There is always a lot of interest in moose management,” Marin noted.
“It’s a challenging area for the MNR, just because there are so many different factors, such as hunting, non-hunting mortality, habitat change, and climate change, that can affect the moose.
“The topic leads to a huge amount of interest from both the general public and from hunters,” he added.
The other presentation was made by MNR partnership specialist David May, as he discussed how the Sportsman’s Club can be involved with the non-regulatory implementations that were made in the final proposals by Fish Management Zone 5 advisory council.
“These include things like the black crappie monitoring process, and education in general,” May explained.
“The Fort Frances Sportsman’s Club here are a key group of guys that are doing these type of things already, and they could be a good partner of choice for us at the MNR.
“I look forward to speaking with them at their next meeting to discuss this further, and to see where we can take things,” he added.
Monday’s meeting also saw the presentation of the Bud Cyr conservation trophy, which was shared by Richard Boileau and Jody Bonner-Vickers.
“Richard came back on board with us a couple of years ago, and he’s donated a lot of his personal and holiday time to be on the FMZ5 committee,” Wiersema said.
“Jody, who is [long-time member] Henry Miller’s daughter, has been involved in the club for so many year and she does a lot of work behind the scenes.
“They have both done a lot for the club, and this is a way that they can recognize them,” he added.
Looking ahead, the club is hoping to finish up renovations on their clubhouse on Frog Creek Road in the next few weeks, as they are planning to hold a family day BBQ and demonstration day there on Saturday, May 11.
“It’s weather permitting, but it shouldn’t take that long for everything to dry up out there,” Wiersema said.
“We’re hoping to have members and non-members come out for some demonstrations of various activities, such as the shooting rangers we have, and to also show people around where our boat launch is and the nature trails that we have,” he added.
The next meeting of the Sportsman’s Club will take place at North American Lumber on Monday, April 8, at 6 p.m., where those who are interested in becoming a member of serving on the board of directors are welcome to attend.
For more information, you can contact Ben at 274-2995 or 274-5939, or Henry Miller at 274-9606.
