At a recent meeting at co-chair Pam Simond’s home, several new enthusiastic SGT members joined the revitalized Guilford Town Team, and volunteered to take the lead with some exciting new projects for this Spring. We hope to gain even more Guilford supporters, and volunteers to help with our events, to help build our Trail together.
Members of our revitalized Guilford SGT Town Team making big plans at an early morning meeting in January. L to R: Peter, Kim, Ted, Carol, Kristen and Mike.
Kristen d’Souza is excited about organizing a Kids Bike Safety Rodeo in Guilford this spring, and will need many other parents to help her.
Peter Dawes will lead an oral history project for our four town teams, interviewing some of our active octogenarian Board members to preserve their stories since the early days of Shoreline Greenway Trail. He will need a volunteer to transcribe the audio tapes.
And at last, there will be an event for our many Guilford members who bike, young and old! Shoreline Greenway Trail has been invited to be a participating partner for the annual New Haven Earth Day ‘Rock to Rock’ Bike Ride – to be held on April 25, 2015. This is an exciting environmental fundraising event, with over 1,000 participants last year raising $150,000. Our Guilford Team is already talking about having a Teen Bike Team ride for SGT, and a Guilford company’s employees want to form a team to ride for SGT. We will be announcing registration details soon to all Shoreline Greenway Trail members in our four towns. Stay tuned!
There are other important ‘behind the scenes’ tasks that our Guilford Town Team is tackling. Volunteer Kim Schmidt will help increase our website and Facebook visibility, while at home with a new baby and her toddler. And Carol Grave will help distribute new brochures and Winter Walk cards at favorite public spots around town to increase our visibility in town.
Of course, all these activities are only a means to help us achieve our ultimate mission….to build a Trail for safe biking and hiking for folks of all ages. We are now gearing up to explore more Trail route options across Guilford to Branford. The fact is, of our four towns, Guilford has the longest distance to traverse between our town borders. Just retired, newcomer Mike Meisel is working on how to proceed west of our Green, with longterm member Ted Braun. Meanwhile, Co-chair Milton Charlton continues to work on the east end with Town Engineer Jim Portley on the final designs and approvals for our first Trail section in Guilford, to be built this year, completely off road, beside Route One, from East River to Boston Street.
If you’d like to become more involved with our Guilford SGT Team, please email Pam Bisbee Simonds at pbsbds@snet.net, or call me at 203-453-2271.