CVATC's 2019 annual membership meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 20th at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 2 Forge Road, Boiling Springs.  The potluck will begin at 6:00 p.m., followed by elections and a presentation. 

All of the club's officers and directors whose terms expire this year are eligible for another 2-year term, and all have agreed to be nominated for re-election (although a couple of them would be willing to step aside if others would like to fill a position). If you would like to nominate someone for any of the open positions, please send your nomination to cvatclub@gmail.com by March 13th. According to our bylaws, no nominations will be taken from the floor at the meeting on March 20th. The following folks are nominated for the open positions that all currently hold:

President - Kevin Shannon
Vice President - Bill McCormick
Treasurer - Andy Thomas
Secretary - Jonathan Heilman
Director - Mike Bowman
Director - Skip Klein
Director - Christine Lauriello

As a heads-up, in 2020 and 2021, most of the club's officers and directors will have served the maximum number of terms permitted by our by-laws; therefore, we will be looking for several members to volunteer to serve in these positions on our Board. If you have any interest at all in stepping up into a leadership role with CVATC, I recommend that you attend one of our Board meetings to get familiar with what we do.  Our 2019 Board meetings are scheduled for March 14th, June 13th, September 12th and December 12th. All of them start at 6:30 p.m. and will be held in the back meeting room at Appalachian Brewing Company on the Carlisle Pike.

The May 19 CVATC work day is cancelled due to wet conditions.  See you on June 16.

​CVATC club member Rob Shaw, in conjunction with Silver Spring Township Parks and Rec., will lead a series of 3-mile out-and-back hikes starting and ending at Stony Ridge Park, located at 50 Bernheisel Bridge Road, Carlisle. The first hike is on Thursday, May 10th and then the second Wednesday of June, July and August beginning at 6 p.m.  The group will meet in the first stone parking lot to the left as you come into the main park entrance.There is no cost to join in these hikes and there is no need to pre-register. We hope to see you for one of these hikes!

The CVATC's annual membership meeting and potluck dinner will be held on Thursday, March 15th beginning at 6:00 p.m. Once again, it will be held at the Unitarian Universalists of Cumberland Valley Church at 2 Forge Road in Boiling Springs. Karen Lutz, long-time Director of ATC's Mid-Atlantic Region office will be our after dinner speaker. Please email Christine Lauriello at cjlauriello(at)comcast.net to let her know what you will be bringing to share at the potluck dinner. I hope to see you on March 15th! (Replace the (at) with a @)
Sincerely,
Kevin Shannon, President

"Trail Magic" is the term for unexpected acts of generosity on the trail.  Trail magic originated on the Appalachian Trail, and often includes drinks, food and other goodies handed out to backpackers.  

Our colleagues at Appalachian Trail Conservancy ("ATC") have issued some guidelines on trail magic on the trail.  Follow THIS LINK to find them.

by Craig Dunn

​The ATC Mid-Atlantic crew's two weeks working on our A.T. section in the vicinity of the Scott Farm was very productive.  Approximately 100 feet of new board walk was added to carry the trail over the worst seasonally swampy area, plus the crew reconstructed part of the collapsed rock cribbing that retains the ledge trail along the steep slope below Bernheisel Road and smoothed out the spots with previously rough footing.  Finally, the deteriorated bog bridge just beyond the first bridge north of the Scott Farm was replaced with a log lined causeway that is an excellent solution to that seasonally wet trouble spot. The crew and our local volunteers moved a significant amount of rock and shale.  In fact, when the Dickinson lacrosse team comes, we may exhaust the last remnant of our shale pile.

We had a very good local turnout to help the crew, with 10 club members and 2 KTA volunteers coming and working during one or more days.  The crew leaders were impressed with our turnout and were "surprised and moved" by our expression of appreciation by having the picnic with them.  They noted they did not experience such local participation and appreciation from the other club's they helped.  I think we can all be very proud of our club and our section of the Trail.