KAMO – May, 2023 Newsletter – 3 pages
For comments related to this document, contact Mike

President?s Remarks – Hello to all KAMO members and friends,
This is KAMO President Mark Walters with my monthly update. Kids And Mentors Outdoors has experienced a substantial growth in the last 60 days and Mike Brown has asked me to have all chapter Secretaries contact him that have not contacted him in a while. The idea is to make sure the directory is accurate and to give chapters an opportunity to get their Gmail accounts going. The best dates would be June 12th – August 15th. Please speak about this at your monthly meeting and show Mike the respect of a call.
About a month ago I was on Dan Small’s syndicated outdoor radio show that is on 22 radio stations here in Wisconsin. Much of our conversation was on KAMO and I have to tell you, our organization is extremely respected state wide.
I have helped start an all ages outdoor club in Necedah through our school district and our growth is phenomenal. We started out by having 3 fires at my house with atv rides pulling a trailer. We do Tuesday night hikes and last night we started and completed the building of a beach at Old Mill Park right in Necedah.I do posts on FB about every 2 weeks on a local page and that has been an incredible way to bring attention. Every chapter could do this same angle. We are having a fishing event on June 14th and a long day hike up north in late June.
A simple fire and hot dogs open to the public, play some music for the background and welcome everyone that shows up. Do it on a weeknight so you are not tying up your mentors weekends and get it done. Maybe even at a park that has swimming and fishing. It is a can’t fail system.
With that being said, I am heading out to go bluegill fishing and camping up by Cumberland and as always, thanks for all that you do for KAMO.
Mark
Summer is an opportunity – Kids are often more available in the summer. Can you get them out on the range in preparation for the upcoming hunting seasons? Parents state that this is one of their favorite things to join in on as well. Can you have an evening bonfire/ campfire gathering periodically in the summer? How about a simple hike or fishing outing? There is the possibility of joining the Baraboo chapter on their June camping trip at Juneau Park on June 23rd – 25th.
Summer would also be a good time to groom up your chapter?s Gmail account. Scott Linssen of La Crosse is the profile form guru and is not quite as busy in the summer (he?s a highschool teacher). If you let me know, I can pass along his contact info to you so you can arrange to contact him to let him help you or you can call me as stated above.
I recently walked a chapter secretary through several things via phone and that person told me at the end that I was helpful and patient. Your Gmail account should contain tax exempt/insurance/ forms, your chapter?s copy of a kid and mentor profile form (to send to new people), kid and mentor profile responses (spreadsheet with response information), bylaws, policies, thank you letter template (thank folks who donate equipment or funds), directory, upcoming activity letter, archive of past events – event type, duration, number of participants, total hours (useful when applying for funding or recalling what year the chapter did what).
This may sound like a lot, but one phone call can go a long way toward feeling good about what you are doing.
Remember, we also agreed at the convention that there would be an August planning meeting for the MacKenzie hunt.
Directory – The directory often gets overlooked when people change their emails, phone numbers, and when chapters add or lose people. Therefore, over time, we may lack accurate accounting of who is in our group, who communication should be sent to, who is due for a background check, etc. To put the gravity of this in perspective, the number of mentors in KAMO seems to have grown by 20% since the March, 2023 convention after factoring in attrition.There are currently 112 mentors. Please ask to have your directory section emailed to your chapter so you can review it at your next meeting if you have not done this recently.
Chapter Reports
Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter held our May meeting on Monday May 8th at Rivers Edge. Rich brought along a guest all the way from Los Angeles (formally from Horicon, WI). Loure Goebel could be the guest who traveled the farthest to attend our meeting! Rich & Loure took the Amtrak for the 39 hour ride from L.A. to Wisconsin. She asked several questions and entertained us with some of her kid friendly jokes. ?What did the Hippie call his wife? Misses Hippie (Mississippi).?We talked about our upcoming campout June 23?25th at Juneau County park on Castle Rock Lake and this year we will be joined by at least 2 mentors & 1 kid from the Dodge County Conservation Chapter of KAMO. It looks like some grilled food, dutch oven cobbler and homemade ice cream will be part of the menu.
We have continued to sell raffle tickets for our guns/YETI cooler fundraiser with the drawing to be held at our next meeting on June 12th. We have made little progress on our idea for KAMO engraved fishing lures, but Jon will check in this. The next meeting will take place June 12th at Upham Woods Educational Center in Wisconsin Dells. We hope to work with Upham Woods in the future and have discussed some possible events.

Thanks,
Greg

Coulee – Our chapter met in Mike?s backyard in early May. Adam and Jessica Winn are a young couple new to the group, so this was an introduction for them. We looked over the equipment inventory stored at Mike?s residence, discussed what needs to happen for the river cleanup, which was rescheduled from May to June, and other outings.
Mentor Kati ran a fossil hunt at Norskedalen in May and 10 kids and 4 adults participated.
Phone calls were made to most of the parents from our contact list to gauge their interest in an upcoming river clean-up and to get a feel for their child?s summer availability. This periodic parent phone contact is often necessary for people you haven?t heard from in a while.
Mike took a family to the Fred Funk Landing for some fishing – a father and his three daughters.. The three young girls had such a good time that they wanted to ?go fishing every day?. This landing is named in honor of the late conservationist Fred Funk, who was the father of one of our mentors, Fritz. It?s more than just a landing – it is a premier spot to gather for events – complete with porta potty, benches, lots of shoreline space.
Four mentors are preparing to take KAMO members on the river cleanup, where they will focus on sections of the extensive portions of the river targeted during that event.
Dodge County Conservation – Dodge County Conservation KAMO. The month of May was pretty slow. We had a few families participate in the Glacial trail hike. Fun was had by all. We Partnered with Pheasants forever in a Sporting clays shoot at Milford Hills Hunt Club. 35-40 shooter’s enjoy a day of fun and activities. Lots happening in the next few months. Watch are Facebook page for details. Looking forward to the combined Chapter Campout at Castle Rock campgrounds at the end of June. We have a few new mentors joining our chapter as well. Welcome Megan and Nicole. Get a kid outside and watch how it changes them.
Jim
Meadow Valley – We had 8 members attend the meeting,
The New Lisbon fishing club is looking for a leader/advisor for the club. Aaron will contact the school to discuss how KAMO can help find a leader.
Dominick attended the meeting asking for help on his project scheduled for Saturday May 20th.
We discussed the lack of applicants for our KAMO scholarship the past few years. It was decided the scholarship committee should get together and discuss the guidelines/parameters to see if we can improve on the number of kids applying.
We discussed the LTH Bear program and decided Dylan and Chase would be the KAMO representatives for this hunt. Each is to complete an LTH form. Dan B. will contact the DNR to find out the status of our applications.
Bob

Northwoods – Hello from the Northwoods Chapter,
Well it’s finally bug season up here! We have our summer fishing event planned for July 8th at Lake Emily in Florence. Our aluminum can donations are doing great from local businesses with several trailer loads to be turned in, unfortunately only .31 cents a pound but our storage unit is full. We still have plans to meet at Sagola Sportsman club for shotgun ammo purchase and possible event opportunities. Our mentors are a stable group with several new ideas like maybe adding a river tubing event. Keep doing good things.
Johnny Johnson from Florence, Wi.