Please mark the February Banquet date on your calendar

Coulee Region Chapter of Trout Unlimited Annual Fundraising Banquet
Friday, February 26
6:00pm

Cedar Creek Country Club
2600 Cedar Creek Lane
Onalaska, Wisconsin

Ticket information will be sent out in mid-January. Or check our website for updates.

If you have some items you would like to donate for the banquet, please contact Rick or Eric Rauch.

Rick Kyte
(608) 782-5652
rlkyte@viterbo.ed
u

 

Important Chapter News

Dear Coulee Region TU Members:

Our next meeting is Wednesday, March 18 at Forest Hills at 6p.m.

The meeting this month will consist of a strategic planning session for our chapter.

As you know, our chapter has grown considerably over the past couple of years, attracting quite a few new members and also receiving numerous large grants for conservation projects. However, our chapter governance structure hasn’t changed over the years, and as a result it is often difficult for new members or occasional attendees at our events to know how they might help out with various projects and activities or have a voice in what our chapter devotes its energies to.

So our March meeting will focus on generating ideas and laying out a general framework for our chapter’s future direction and organization.

Some of the key questions we will discuss include:

  • What should our key areas of focus be: stream restoration, education, recruitment of new anglers, conservation initiatives?
  • Who should make the key decisions: an elected board, chapter officers, whoever happens to show up at a monthly meeting?
  • What kinds of meetings should we have: monthly for chapter members, occasional events for a broad audience, joint programs with other area conservation groups?

This will be an important meeting for determining our chapter’s immediate and long-term future. So, even if you can only attend one meeting this year, please make it this one. We value your voice and insight.

 

Coulee Chapter Announces Major Project

The Coulee Region Chapter of Trout Unlimited will coordinate a major stream restoration project in Vernon County involving federal, state, county agencies beginning in the spring of 2008. The $240,000 project will be completed over a four year period and restore 6,000 feet of stream banks on Coon Creek and Spring Coulee Creek, located just northeast of Coon Valley near County Highway P.

Coulee Region TU, a local conservation group with 190 members, recently received a $180,000 Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. WHIP is a program that provides technical assistance and up to seventy-five percent cost sharing to develop and improve wildlife habitat. The remaining $60,000 for the project will be contributed from other sources, including local fundraising efforts.

According to Sam Skemp, District Conservation Officer for the NRCS Viroqua Service Center, the project proposal ranked very high with the NRCS because of the number of at-risk species that the project will be able to benefit. Skemp added, “This is the largest WHIP funded project ever in the state of Wisconsin.”
Eric Rauch, Coulee Region TU Vice President & Conservation Chair, noted that “the overall goal with this project is to increase the water quality and species habitat in
the Coon Creek/Spring Coulee

 

Chapter Report:

Elections were held at the November meeting. Eric Rauch was elected to serve as Vice President; Rick Kyte and Bob Hubbard were elected to serve another term as President and Treasurer, respectively.

During the November meeting we discussed the possibility of teaming up with the Gateway Area Council of the Boys Scouts of America to support a Venture Program dedicated to fishing and conservation. Venturing is an activity open to young men and women between the ages of 14 and 20. As the plans develop, we will be looking for volunteers to help with this program.

In November our chapter received a $500 gift from Spring Creek Partners to be used on the Hornby Creek restoration project. Spring Creek Partners is a program that raises funds for stream restoration projects in the Driftless Area. If you are interested in donating to the program, contact Eric Rauch, our chapter’s conservation project coordinator, or visit the Spring Creek Partner’s web-site at www.springcreekpartner.org

©2010 Coulee Region Trout Unlimited