Hi fellow hotspringers,
This must have been snake week end. I was down at the springs yesterday and caught a 3.5 foot gopher snake. I took a couple of phots of it before I caught it, with the plan of taking others once I caught it only to find I had run out of photos and left the new film in the car. There very few familiar faces and no regulars that I could recognize. A young rowdy group as well. I am no expert but some where defenitely under the effect of something. They had parked at JF3 not the Bowen Ranch, as I saw them arrive shortly after me and charge down some hills screaming, by the afternoon the efect was wearing of and they mellowed out.

Going back to the meeting. Jobe, I think Deep Creek Camping Bares is fine idea but is not the purporse of this meeting. A Mission Statement is not the same as an agenda. The mission statement is more like the objective of the group. The agenda is what we plan to discuss at the meeting. As for your suggested agenda of choosing authorities for the group, that should probably be left to a later meeting. As DCR suggested we should start with "baby steps". The initial agenda, should be more like mission statement, general goals, and possible names for the group. We should not approach BLM or FS till we are little more organized. Wiz, I would agree with meeting at a park and then going down springs later. On the other hand I feel that meeting at Bowen Ranch or even JF3 trailhead would not be a good idea as it is not neutral enough.

As for keeping notes of what we are discussing, this forum is doing it for us. All we need to do is print this thread. At the first meeting we will need to choose a person to take notes and somone to chair that meeting. As I see it so far we have five willing participants, DCR, Jobe, Naked Man, Wizard, and myself. I would like to hear the opinion of people like Paul P., Viejo Bill and Will Alan just to name a few. Also spreading the word to regulars at the springs would be a great idea.

Unless I hear otherwise I will volunteer to start a new thread this evening sumarizing the concensus I see emerging and proposing Saturday (Naked Man) May 18th. as the initial meeting date.