Ladies & Gents,

We are around 30 days into our groomer match fundraiser and thought we’d share additional background and insight as to why it’s important for the club to begin to raise funds now for future equipment purchases.

Some of you may be wondering “why is the club raising money for new grooming equipment when what they have is in working order?” Unfortunately, not all the groomers we currently own are capable of traversing all of our snowmobile trails (over 160 miles).  Our long-term goal is to have a fleet of groomers that are versatile enough to take the place of each other should one break down. This would allow us to access 100% of our trails with each piece of equipment.

The equipment committee and BOD are open to the idea of procuring used equipment, as well as new, but every purchase costs money and as a non-profit, it’s activities such as this that help us to ensure we have the funds when the time comes. The club does an excellent job of maintaining and servicing its groomers to ensure that they are in the best condition possible for our volunteer operators. The routine maintenance we perform helps to extend the useful life of them to get the biggest return on our investment. Hours on a machine as well as the age both come into consideration when it becomes time to replace a groomer. We do hope to get a minimum of 15 years of service or around 4,000 hours from them. It’s at this age/time that we see machines becoming problematic and less valuable for resale. Parts also begin to become challenging to purchase as well as costly. Like your automobile, each piece of equipment has a usable service life.

We have added a collection of additional FAQs to the Fundraiser Webpage at https://minocquaforestriders.org/groomer-fundraiser/ and encourage you to visit it to learn more about how the club maintains its capital equipment.  The donations received thus far have been most appreciated and we are moving the needle upward to our $38,400 goal. But, we need your help to fully achieve this goal. Please consider making a donation today via check or by visiting our website at https://minocquaforestriders.org/groomer-fundraiser/.

Best regards,
Steve, Tom, John and Carrie
The Minocqua Forest Riders Fundraising Committee