Greetings from your President

If you missed the Fall Tour, you missed another great one. The weather was nearly perfect and we had a day of good fellowship and information sharing. We would like to thank Randy and Brian Korthase for organizing the tour this year and showing us their operations. We also need to thank Chuck and Lori Stanek, Tim Matters, Leta Luchenbill and Wagbo Peace Center for opening up the Sugar House and operations to nearly 100 of us. We had an excellent lunch at Community Reformed Church in Charlevoix. Once again, a big "Hats Off" and "Thank You" to Craig and Sandy Arnold for all the registration duties.

In October seventeen MMSA members and seven folks From Indiana traveled by charter bus to the NAMSC and IMSI meeting in North Conroy New Hampshire. There were meetings of both organizations, one day of tours and an afternoon trip to Mt. Washington. At Mt. Washington we rode the Cog Railway to the top. Well, almost to the top, we did not make it due to the cold weather and wind. The temperature was 16 degrees and the wind was blowing about 40 miles per hour. There were also technical sessions, vendor displays and as always lots of great food and fellowship. We can be very proud that our George Fogle was elected into the American Maple Museum Hall of Fame. Roy Hutchison, the editor of the Maple Digest, was also elected. The induction ceremony will be next May at the Museum in Crogin, New York.

Debbie Thomas is all ready looking into travel arrangements for next year's meeting. The NAMSC/IMSI meeting will be held in Truro, Nova Scotia October 22nd through October 25th, 2003.

The 43rd Annual meeting of the Michigan Maple Syrup Association is scheduled for Saturday, January 18th, 2003 at the Doherty Hotel in Clare. The format for the meeting will be the same. We have George Cook from the University of Vermont with us for the day. George will be presenting a excellent program on "Safety in the Sugar Bush". We will have our breakout sessions in the afternoon. We are working on some new topics for this year; Russ Kidd will be giving you more details in his letter. We may be asking some of you to help out with this part of our meeting.

The Doherty Hotel has not yet started their conference center addition. We did meet with them and they will make some changes in the setup in order to give us more space.

Steve Youdes will be in charge of the maple syrup, cream and candy contest. Copies of the rules will be available at the meeting. Bring your best products for judging by our panel of "experts".

Robert and Mary Gibbs have been selected as our honored members this year. They have been faithful members for many years. Bob was on the board at one time and they are always helping out wherever they can.

Each year we elect three people to the Board of Directors. This year there are at least two current directors who will not be seeking re-election. Tim Boonstra is the chairman of the nominating committee; he will be contacting a few of you asking you to be a candidate for a board position. Please give this your serious consideration. This is your opportunity to serve our fine organization.

Have a very Blessed Christmas and Happy New Year.

We hope to see you all in Clare on January 18, 2003.

Larry Haigh
President, Michigan Maple Syrup Association