May, 2024 Newsletter
KAMO May, 2024 Newsletter – 3 pages
For comments related to this document, contact Mike
President?s message – This is KAMO President Mark Walters with my monthly update on
our super cool organization.In early May the Meadow Valley Chapter of KAMO held a campfire and picnic at a park in New Lisbon, I brought my golden retriever pups, we had a fire, yard games and good food.This event was well attended and I feel that having 3 fires likes this a year “and you can do it the night of your meeting” can really help bring attention to your chapter. I know that Mike Brown over to Coulee has been having some fires and has told me of very positive results as well.
Bob Brodeur of the Lake Wisconsin Chapter had our raffle tickets printed for our KAMO state wide raffle and those tickets for our September 9th drawing are currently being delivered or already have been.
I took a young hunter turkey hunting and we had an incredible experience with him harvesting a very large tom on what was a 3 day, “deer/turkey camp” type of a trip. In July I am taking Carsyn and Conner – “brother and sister” – on a fishing trip where we will camp on the Mississippi river on a sandbar. Carsyn and Conner are now well into their 3rd year of doing fun things in the outdoors with me and I am always excited for our upcoming adventures.
In my opinion KAMO is on an excellent roll and I want to thank each and everyone of you for that.
Mark
KAMO Outing Footage – Youtube – This was filmed with a drone on a cranberry flowage in 2018. This sets the standard for an advertising piece and a feel good about being in the organization. You should be able to copy this link, paste it in your browser, then sit back and be impressed.
Statewide Raffle – There 1500 tickets printed. 500 books of 3. All the tickets have been distributed. That means if you run out and want to sell more, you would have to contact another chapter.
When a chapter?s tickets are sold, a chapter should send one check to Jim Rydmark. The filled out tickets should be sent all at once to Baraboo for the drawing.
If you need an address for sending tickets/ checks, please contact me (Mike).
Bob B. will be contacting chapters mid way through to check for progress.
Golf shirts – Your golf shirts should have arrived. The envelopes inside were to make the payment more efficient. The shirts were purchased out of state funds. Those funds need to be replaced by chapters who ordered shirts. If the shirts work out, we can get more in the future. So far, I?ve heard good things about them.
Hunter Ed – In south western Wisconsin, we have been making hunter education instructor certification classes available and easy. This has resulted in an increase in the number of certified hunter education instructors, something that was needed. Some of these newly certified people are staff working in schools and they are starting to offer classes during the summer to their students. There is a substantial demand for the classes and they fill up quickly. A trailer has now been sent to the La Crosse area and is stored on private property under the care of one of the instructors. This trailer will be shared in the region and eliminate the need for a given instructor to store the equipment in their home/ garage and transport it in their personal vehicle..
Ways to get more kids in groups:
Find out who some of the parents of homeschooled kids/ groups are. These parents often network with one another, two dozen families or more and may have a Facebook page.. They can be eager for free outdoor activities just to take kids to, already set up.
The Boy Scouts/ Girl Scout leaders work with groups of kids who also know one another and they seem eager to work with KAMO.
Ways to get more mentors:
Have a gathering every spring around a campfire. Run an informal meeting and challenge every mentor to invite one person.
Organizations such as senior centers, the V.A., corporations that promote volunteerism claim that they encourage their members to become more active, involved, and social in the community and are looking for ways for their members to become more active.. Make local organizations aware of your chapter?s activity schedules.
Lake-link.com – The KAMO blog on Lakelink has been viewed 608,000 x since it was put there. That?s an average of 168 views per day. That?s enough traffic for Lake Link to justify running ads on it. TEMU, VRBO, Hummingbird, and Chevrolet are there currently. Please join me in adding your chapter?s activities on it. Don?t let the word ?blog? scare you off. It is really easy. In hopes of boosting viewership further, many pictures have been added there recently..
Background checks – Keep in mind that the 5 year background checks are still ongoing. Is your chapter?s directory page accurate? The directory is being used to guide this process. When the invitation to complete a form arrives in a mentor?s email box, the form needs to be completed quickly. If you haven?t received an invitation, yours is probably already good to go.
Joe Hunt or other Learn to Hunt/ Fish activity – Do you have people in your chapter who are newer? Remember, they?ll need to complete the DNR?s background check to be a Joe Hunt or other LTH hunt/ LTF mentor. Don?t wait until November to deal with this. The checks can take several weeks to process. Need the form? Let me send you one electronically.
Chapter Reports –
Baraboo – The Baraboo River Chapter of KAMO held our monthly meeting on Monday May 13th at the Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center. Our club reported a total of 102 hours of getting Kids Outdoors in the past month. This included fishing and the youth turkey hunt. We finalized the dates of December 6?8th for the Joe Hunt at the Mackenzie Center and Rick reported back that we are now able to hunt on the property during those dates. We will be hosting the annual Joe Hunt planning meeting on Monday September 9th at the Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center starting at 7pm. We are inviting all KAMO Chapters to join, especially if they have youth attending or if they have never been to this event prior. We will also be holding the drawing for the StateWide Cash Raffle at this September meeting. Planning for our camping trip June 28th?30th at Castle Rock Lake is underway. The Dodge County Conservation Chapter will again be joining us for the fun weekend. There are 5 total sites reserved and few of them have electric hookups. Our next meeting will be Monday June 10th at the Newport Park Pavilion by Rivers Edge.
Thanks,
Greg
Coulee – The Coulee Chapter held a meeting at the Lake Neshonac Campground on the evening of May 6th. Several people outside the group came in to listen to what we had planned.
The number of new people interested in volunteering has been encouraging this year.
One mentor, Kati, who recently got certified in Forest Bathing, gave a presentation on that topic during the campfire session. This forest bathing is a very interesting and effective way to get the most from time outdoors. We passed around pictures of past activities, took a break for pizza, discussed how KAMO operates, and invited our guests to help us on some larger outings.
We had our third firepit night in Pettibone Park on Thursday, May 9th. We have scheduled two additional firepit nights – June 25th and August 6th with Big Brothers/ Big Sisters.
We are promoting our June 18th 3P and July 16th pontoon rides. We met on Tim Collins? deck , which overlooks Richmond Bay (Catgut Slough) on the evening of Wednesday, May 29th to discuss summer activities.
Dodge County Conservation – DCC KAMO. took 17 kids and 23 total participants on the Glacier Trail hike. and Lori Schultz was the leader. Everyone had a great time and the weather cooperated as well. Our chapter also received some donations of some fishing equipment along with some monetary donations as well . We will be helping with Beaver Dam Lake Associations free kids fishing day on June 1st. as well as getting ready for the Co-Chapter campout at the end of the Month. Our Co-Sponsored Kids Bow league will be starting up at the YMCA as well.VP Greg Pahl and Myself took 3 KAMO kids Salomon fishing on Lake Michigan and they had a Ball catching 17 big fish. Pictures on our Facebook page and the website as well. We always seem to have something going on.. Get a kid outside and see what happens. Summer is just starting and what better way to kick it off, Take a Kamo Kid, fishing, hiking , camping , kayaking etc,.
Respectfully submitted Jim B.
Meadow Valley – May 9th meeting was a campfire night at Riverside Park in New Lisbon Wi. The turn out was very good. We had food, puppies, s’mores, music, and door prices. We are trying to show the community what KAMO is and what we will be doing in the future. We plan on doing this again in the future.
Thanks – Jim
Northwoods – Hello from the Northwoods,
Well, we are planning our summer event for July 13th, hoping to beat out last years kid total which was wonderful! A local tavern, Tavern On Central is holding a street dance on July 6th and will be running 50/50 raffles throughout the evening with the proceeds going to KAMO!!! This is a wonderful opportunity to spread the word of who we are and what we do! We will have a meeting June 6th to get raffle tickets out to mentors and establishments. As always, enjoy the outdoors and get kids involved.
Johnny Johnson from Florence Wi.