KAMO – April, 2022 Newsletter
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s remarks – Hello to all KAMO members and friends,
Hello everyone this is KAMO President Mark Walters with my monthly report. April was perhaps the busiest month that I have had in many years and KAMO was a part of it.
I started out the month speaking at a Whitetails Unlimited Banquet in Beaver Dam on behalf of KAMO and I believe The Dodge County Conservation Chapter was given a $2000.00 donation.
The following Monday I went to the Yellow River chapter meeting “Marshfield” and about all I can say is that I am impressed. I am trying to be a part of their rebuild and it is going incredibly well. On the way home I hit a deer and thus I’m charging KAMO for a brand new Chevy pickup to replace my “close to new” pickup.
The following Sunday I helped The Meadow Valley Chapter of KAMO as they assisted The New LIsbon High School Fishing Club. About all I can say is get your local school to start an outdoor club and let your chapter be a big help, simply put, no more excuse for not having KAMO Kids, it works.
I also took an 11-year old turkey hunting and we had a blast. Later I took my daughter Selina turkey hunting and she got a dandy. I also went to Canada and must of stunk or something because at the border they did a check of my truck.
That’s about it, as usual Thank you for doing everything that you do for KAMO!
Mark

The KAMO state treasury has money that we could be putting to work for us Suggestions so far. Do you have any ideas to add?:
1)Have a table at the MOHEE event and hand something out to the kids. This is in May – see below.
2)Set up a statewide scholarship with some of the funds.. Each chapter could pick schools in their area. Criteria requirements could be set on the scholarship such as a student who is going into an outdoor type of field, has attended a specified number of KAMO events. In time as word spreads maybe it could help get kids and keep them.
3)Develop a marketing campaign/ budget – Have someone, perhaps a college intern, focus on mentor recruitment in existing chapters. Also work on a new chapter in an area such as Madison or the Eau Claire/ Chippewa Falls area. See if community members near an existing chapter would be willing to form a ?sister chapter?.An intern position has been posted on a site called handshake.com which is used by the university system. If you know of someone who would do a good job on this, it is open to a wider applicant base.

Interchapter Outing Potential – Have you considered taking kids to Baraboo?s camping trip on Castle Rock Lake?
Financial – Has your chapter paid an annual state due (if applicable)? Has your chapter reported an annual balance for 1/1/2021 and 11/31/2021 and the value of your chapter?s inventory to the state treasurer – Tom St. Clair?

Trempealeau County – We have heard from people from this country often over the years. This would be a prime spot for a new chapter. Currently,there is a family from Blair hoping to connect their boy with a mentor. The Coulee Chapter does not have the resources to help. If you have any ideas, please let Mike know.

Chapter Web Pages – Your chapter?s page counts. Somebody is looking at your chapter?s page every month kicking your chapter?s tires.
Have you looked on your chapter?s page lately to see if it’s up to date? Does your chapter have a person designated to look over your page and keep it updated?
There were 262 visits to the site in April. 222 were first time visitors. They stayed an average of 73 seconds. 15 – 18 of those viewers were looking at YOUR chapter?s page. What they saw there was whatever you left it with last time.. They were looking for evidence of activities your chapter has planned.. If they saw outdated information or no activities mentioned, they joined the ranks of the other hundreds of visitors to your page who looked at your contents once and never came back.
It is both important to maintain and easy to overlook the website details.
Photo ID permission – Remember, when you post pictures on the website or Facebook, it is important that you have parent permission to post that photo of their child publicly. There’s a spot for parents on our enrollment forms. It is a good idea to let parents know that photo permission is important to your chapter before they complete the enrollment process.. If you have the media come to your outing, they may want to take pictures. The first thing the reporter will ask is if all the kids present have photo consent. If you?re not sure or you know one or more kids in your group did not give clearance, the reporter puts their camera gear away.

Midwest Outdoor Heritage Education Expo – MOHEE event – Mackenzie Center in Poynette. The dates are Wednesday May 18th and Thursday May 19th.
At least one KAMO person is attending this. For more information to see if you might be interested, contact
Kim Cooley – 608-575-3615/ kimberly.cooley@wisconsin.gov

Chapter Reports

Baraboo – The Baraboo chapter met on April 4 at Rivers Edge Resort. I have been asked if other chapters could join us at our June 24-26 camping weekend at Juneau County Park. Other chapters are welcome to join us that weekend, but you may have to reserve your own sites. Last year the park had a covid restriction of one camper or tent per site where normally they allowed you to double up on each site, and our chapter has only 3 sites reserved, which are 53,54, and 55. I currently have an email in to the parks dept. to see if they lifted the covid policy for 2022, but have not heard back yet. If there is someone interested let me know at ramiotke65@yahoo.com and I will update you when I hear back. Our chapter is reaching out to a group called Rural and Urban Flow located in Milwaukee and trying to get some Milwaukee city kids to be a part of the camping trip. We are looking at doing a fishing outing and possibly a couple fund raisers but are still in the planning stage.

Tradition Forward.

Coulee – Our April 2nd hunter ed class (mentioned briefly in last newsletter) went well, especially since we were able to have it indoors at the Onalaska American Legion. It was a cold, rain/ snow mix day.
We sponsored an April 8th fossil hunt at Norskedalen near Coon Valley for a 4H group. These fossil events are unique and popular, something families really like. And yes, there are fossils in most areas.Our April 14th fishing float day was canceled because of high winds and the subsequent float closure. We sponsored a Nature Day at Norskedalen on Saturday,April 30th with all KAMOKIDS.
May activity offerings include – river clean up, Genoa Fish Hatchery Kids Fishing Day and in June our own FishingDay, a Bugs,Bugs, and more Bugs event at Vets Park, West Salem, and more fossil hunting at Norskedalen. A July 19th date was chosen for our annual pontoon rides which includes around 10 pontoon units owned by locals. Usually around 90 people come in for these rides,which begin at 6:00 PM..

Dodge County Conservation – Dodge County Conservation KAMO Chapter met for our monthly meeting on Tuesday april 26th. at 6.30 at Tower Lanes in Beaver Dam. We will be finishing up the Kids Art projects on Sunday May 1st at Art on the Town just in time for Mothers Day. T J Wendel attended our meeting and talked to our Chapter about teaching Hunters Safety courses. Some of our Mentors will be attending some classes to get their certification and get the Ball rolling. Brian O’ Dovan also attended and talked about Cops and Bobbers fishing event that they are putting on and would love to have our Chapter involved . Further discussions will take place. Jim Braker will be Volunteering at the Event coming up at the Mackenzine Center in the middle of May, Lots of exciting things are being planned for the Summer and we hope to have kids talking about KAMO all summer long.

Meadow Valley – We had 6 members attend the April meeting. No visitors or new members.
We reviewed the BOD teleconference meeting.We partnered with the NWTF and offered some mentoring for kids during the youth Learn to hunt program for Turkey.
We planned a fishing outing with the New Lisbon fishing club for April 24th at Bigalkes pond. We had 13 kids attend with crappie, blue gill and bass caught, cleaned and deep fried for lunch. A great day was had by all with thanks to Aaron and Janine for hosting the event. Bob will be attending the next fishing club meeting discussing fish line and the various knots with the kids.
Calendar of events is light and needs more attention from the group.
June shooting day. June Bowfishing

Respectfully submitted

Bob

Northwoods – The Northeast chapter will be holding a meeting in May to start planning our summer outings, a hooked on fishing event for sure and maybe something new. That is all for now.

Johnny Johnson for NE chapter.

Yellow River – First off, we would like to thank Mark Walters and the state KAMO leadership for the very generous donation of $1000 to our chapter to help get us back on our feet after the long Covid dormancy. The funds will be very useful in helping to purchase additional items for use by youth during events, among other things. Also much appreciated is the $100 donation to the Auburndale Archery Club (Auburndale is a nearby community to our home base of Marshfield). We attended the Spencer chapter of Whitetails Unlimited banquet on the 12th where we had a good discussion with the banquet organizer about KAMO and the event MC gave us a nice shout out. Brad did a one on one mentoring shed antler hunt with a friends son where they succeeded in getting wet but not in finding sheds. Discussions for possible future events include exploring partnerships with the Auburndale Archery Club, the Central Wisconsin Sportsman’s Club on their September Youth Day, working with the local Catholic school system to potentially form an “outdoors club”, and attending the June AMS bowfishing shoot on the Mississippi near LaCrosse.

Keith Merkel