Access fight ends for SAWS
Access fight ends for SAWS
The Snowmobile Alliance of Western States (SAWS), which supported snowmobilers’ right to ride, announced in August that SAWS volunteers unanimously voted to disband the organization effective Sept. 1, which also happens to be the 10-year anniversary of SAWS.
SAWS volunteer staffers Scott Chapman, Dave Hurwitz, John Jones, Susie Rainsberry and Mindy Walker wrote a letter announcing the decision. A portion of it follows.
When SAWS was launched in the summer of 2004, we had grand ideas of what could be accomplished with enough assistance from snowmobilers. Nothing like SAWS had ever been done before in the snowmobiling community — a multi-state, pro-snowmobile access organization with ZERO membership fees and an all-volunteer staff. We felt with free membership, there would be no reason not to join SAWS. We had also expected to easily find dozens of volunteers in multiple states.
One of the primary reasons we formed SAWS was to make information easy to find regarding potential closures to snowmobiling areas. Our volunteer staff researched the information, deciphered it and delivered a meaningful message with clear action items that was intended to engage snowmobilers in the process.
Given the vast amount of information available from well-funded, anti-motorized organizations such as Winter Wildlands Alliance, the Wilderness Society and many more localized groups, it seemed realistic that a similar model for communication should work for snowmobilers.
SAWS was very successful in achieving a large membership. We have over 4,000 members, made up of individuals, clubs, organizations and associations from across the country. If we were to include the individual members of all of our member groups, SAWS probably has tenfold the 4,000 members that receive our information. It is impossible to count how many non-member snowmobilers gain valuable information from our website. On this front we were enormously successful.
Our position from the beginning was to be the ONLY snowmobile organization that would take the firm position of “NO MORE WILDERNESS,” as we felt the existing 104.5 million acres at that time (2004) was plenty. Unfortunately there are now 109.5 million acres of wilderness in the US. We were never an organization that cared to only protect snowmobile use on groomed trails. We believe the majority of our members were more into backcountry off-trail riding – although access to the backcountry riding area by means of groomed trails was also important. …
Why did SAWS finally come to the decision to disband? Our number one reason was the lack of volunteer assistance. The majority of our current staff have volunteered for SAWS since the very beginning, which was just over 10 years ago. All of our volunteers, past and present, have put in numerous hours — too many hours to even try and count.
