KAMO – November, 2021 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s remarks – Hello to all KAMO members and friends,
This is Kids And Mentors Outdoors President Mark Walters with my monthly report. The Covid issue is still a big thorn in the world?s rear end and most volunteer organizations are basically just treading water. The Baraboo River Chapter is making the best of a bad deal with a pretty cool idea. On December 20th they will be having a chapter members meal at Rivers Edge Resort in Wisconsin Dells. I will be attending this get together and that is where their first meeting was held back on March 2nd, 2007.
I was at that meeting and the night before I met at The Natural Resources center in Florence with what would become The Northwood’s Chapter. That was a Monday and a Tuesday, the weekend prior I slept on the ice on Lake Galilee by Mellen for three nights and participated in an ice fishing tournament and the day of what was my first night on the ice I met with several people at The Backdoor Cafe in Ladysmith for what would become The Indianhead Chapter of KAMO.
To me it seems like that was a million years ago and that was the very start of this organization that has endured several hardships and always continued to plow forward. The idea that Baraboo River has is excellent. They are taking their own funds and buying the group a meal,we do not have much of a history of that in KAMO but in these trying times I suggest it for every chapter.
In this Newsletter I am asking Mike Brown to throw out some dates to our Board of Directors members for a meeting to be held the first week in January and we will discuss dues, activities and I am sure much more. As always I want to thank every one of you for everything that you do for KAMO and wish each of you a very merry Christmas.
Mark
Board of Directors Meeting – January – Teleconference – Discuss 2022 dues payment, activity ideas – especially that would be interchapter, set a date for the state convention (whether in person or via teleconference), other?

KAMO wear – Received our order of hoodies, hats, and t-shirts. The hoodies cost us $27.00, the hats $11.00, kids t-shirts $7.50, larger t-shirts $9.00. If you order something, you?ll reimburse the state treasurer for your order plus shipping..

Solicitation via email – If you get solicitation about making improvements to the website or anything else, that email can be moved into trash or spam. Once moved into spam, any future solicitations from that address should automatically go into spam. Conversely, if you see something in spam that you wish would have come into your inbox, you can move it to your inbox by dragging it there or clicking on the ?move to? icon. After doing that, any future emails from that address should come directly to your inbox.

Insurance – Our liability insurance policy was renewed late in October. The policy dates are October 21st, 2021- October 21st, 2022. SECURA is our company. Over time, the list of exclusions has grown. The best insurance a chapter/ mentor has is to review safety concerns prior to activities and to make good decisions when kids are under our care.
An electronic version of our new policy was recently sent to all chapters.

Forms
Every chapter should have a Gmail account with a copy of our proof of insurance, a certificate of exempt status (shows our tax exempt number), the KAMO directory, policies and bylaws, electronic enrollment forms, logos, an inventory of the chapter’s equipment all come to mind. If you would like assistance getting setup like this, contact me (Mike).

Website – The header picture was recently changed to a winter sledding scene.
Is your chapter’s page up to date? Our analytics show that the most visited pages on the site are the individual chapter pages, usually by people visiting for the first time.
Does your chapter have someone designated to work on your webpage?
The web design place establishes a login for that person if you don’t already have one.
Once set up, the chapter webpage person can only change material on that page. Once set up, go to your page, click on edit. Add or take off words just like any other word processor. To add images, go to the gallery, add images,select images from your browser, upload and save them.
If there is ever an accidental deletion or other problem with any page on our website, QTH saves a backup copy daily and can restore it, so you are protected from error.

Inter-chapter outings – There is good potential for our chapters to share activities we do during the year. The Meadow Valley chapter has an ice fishing event coming up on February 13th that will be open to other chapters. It will be in the Oakdale area and is mentioned in Meadow Valley?s report. The tubing at Fort McCoy the week of December 27th could be a multi chapter event. If we had a group of 25 or more, we could get a substantial discount per person and can even have a portion of the hill reserved for just our group.

Chapter Reports

Baraboo – The Baraboo chapter met on November 8 at Rivers Edge Resort. Greg Wagner has been one busy guy taking kids out on many ducks and goose hunts over the past 2 months with even a mentored trip to South Dakota. A few of our mentors were able to take some kids out for the youth gun hunt. Our December meeting will be something different. With all the turmoil that has surrounded this ongoing Covid virus and the disruptions that took place with KAMO as a whole, we decided to do a mentor appreciation dinner. This will give us a chance to say THANK YOU to all those who give of their time and many times money to do what we do because of our commitment to raising the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts. We know we could not do this without the support of our wives or significant others, so we will be having them join us for the dinner as well. KAMO is a terrific organization that has and will continue to do great things as we invest in our youth. Tradition Forward.

Rick Miotke

Coulee – Our members met via Zoom on November 8th and churned out a winter activity schedule. which include activities of both other groups and those we generate. Waterfowl observation at Brownsville started late with the mild weather. When the birds piled in,they came in big numbers.
During Christmas break for kids, we are offering to take them to Whitetail Ridge at Fort McCoy and to have an event at the Genoa Fish Hatchery.
Fritz Funk and Jim March have taken novice duck hunters and their parents out on days off of school.
Scott Linssen continues to take small groups to La Crosse Archery on Friday evenings.
We invited the BBBS to join us on some activities – tubing, ice fishing, Genoa Fish Hatchery activities. We are preparing to scout some ice fishing spots using lures with names such as: ?rat finkee?, ?diamond?, ?dart?, ?flash?, ?balance?, ?bug?, ?pill?, ?top secret?, ?that which we don?t speak of?, and ?demon?? .
Mike

Dodge County Conservation – Dodge County Conservation KAMO is going to have a float in the local Holiday Parade. Great way to spread the word about KAMO. Also looking for a few young people that might want to hunt the December doe only hunt. Planning some things for January as well.

Meadow Valley – We had 6 people in attendance at our November meeting. Much of the discussion centered around the antlerless hunt in December and whether the deer herd could support a hunt. The deer herd in Juneau County suffered EHD this fall and the extent of the damage would be determined on deer sightings in the gun deer season. This topic has been tabled for the December meeting.
Aaron has agreed to create the gmail address for the new enrollment document created by the coulee chapter.
Continued discussion on the current scholarship offerings and whether to extend to neighboring schools. We agreed to expand to the Necedah school district for this spring.. Bob to reach out to the Guidance Counselor in Necedah.
Ice fishing activity is waiting word from Jeff N
Craig to look at the school calendar to select a day or 2 for potential pheasant hunting with kids.
We decided to pay for a “KAMO advertisement wrap” for Jody’s new carp boat.
We tentatively put the maple syrup day for March 5th weather dependent.

Bob N.

Yellow River – We had a very brown rifle season, unfortunately very little of it was in the form of deer. I was able to hunt both Marathon and Oneida county with one youth, we saw a couple but were unable to get an ethical shot at them. The best part about it though, is that we have successfully scouted some great spots for Grouse for the next few weekends! Also have procured a 40 acre spot near Mosinee a friend has committed that KAMO Kids can hunt the antlerless hunt on in the future. he no longer hunts and has big gardens so it is a win/win, although he said the deer may taste like the neighborhood bird feeders…!
Hoping things start freezing soon for fishing and some snow for an activity we want to organize for tubing at Powers Bluff. Merry Christmas to you all!

Brad