A by-product of running successful shows over the past decade is a healthy treasury that has allowed the Quiet Water Society the opportunity to move ahead on one of our missions: To request grant applications from organizations consistent with our mission and grant funds to a wide variety of applicants with goals and projects similar to the Society’s. Funds totaling $9,000 were distributed in 2015 for: Land Information Access Association ($2,000), Hiawatha Shore to Shore/North Country Trail ($1,000), Grand Adventure Race ($500), Mid-Michigan Environmental Action Council Stream Monitoring ($500), Chicago Adventure Therapy ($1,500), Spoonville, Michigan, Pedestrian/Bike Bridge ($1,000), City of Eaton Rapids 10% qualifying local match ($2,500) for DNR Fisheries Aquatic Habitat Improvement Grant of $25,000. Look for project descriptions within the pages of this program to see how these industrious groups are doing. Some are still working on some project phase, some are done, while others are still in the planning stage.
The Board of Directors also agreed to create a Special Projects account whereby the Society could partner with an environmental project and act as the project’s funding fiduciary and leverage our 501(c)(3) non-profit advantages as required by many foundations’ grant applications. We patterned our project “roadmap” after the Huron Pines located in Grayling, Michigan. Huron Pines literally wrote the book on this type of partnership: Leading Small Dam Removal: A Guidebook for Understanding the Natural and Social Characteristics. The Returning the Rapids to Eaton Rapids dam removal project was the Society’s test-run for our partnership and will be evaluated after RRER completes the project during the summer of 2016. You may read about the RRER project update elsewhere in the program.
A new website has been in the works for the past eighteen months and is now beginning to become operational. We’ve hired an outside firm to create a better site for us but we’ll take it slowly. It should be fully operational for the 2017 show.
So please enjoy the day. Stop to ask questions. Listen to our presenters; some of the best authorities in their respective fields found anywhere in North America. And they are here in East Lansing to specifically talk to you! Take advantage of their collective knowledge. And talk to us! You certainly have the opportunity to give us your comments and we will listen! Better yet, become involved with the Planning Committee to assist us in bringing another spectacular Quiet Water Symposium back to these hallowed halls and stalls of the Pavilion in 2017! Just leave your name and contact information with anyone at the information/raffle prize table and we will warmly welcome you into the Symposium family. After all, volunteers are the life-blood of the Quiet Water Symposium and without them the first Saturday in March would be no different than the other fifty-one Saturdays!