Letter from the President

Hello everyone! 

My name is Brad White. In the fall of last year our former chapter president made a call out to the members to help set the direction for our chapter, which had been struggling for the last few years. We had an encouraging turnout at a meeting in the Perrysburg Way Library and the overwhelming consensus was that we wanted to keep the chapter alive and build something that was relevant and meaningful to our members.

As a result, elections were held and a new slate of officers and board members were put in place. We also identified some willing volunteers to chair some of more important committees, including conservation, youth education, veterans services, and women and diversity initiative.

We have been very busy over the course of the last year. We have instituted monthly meetings (September through April) on the third Thursday of the month at Charlie's Tavern in Maumee. These meetings are open to the public. Bring a fishing buddy or someone who is interested in conservation of cold water fisheries. We have a fund raising banquet planned for Saturday, November 3, at Rockwell Springs Trout Club in Castalia which will include dinner, door prizes, a speaker, silent auction, and bag raffles. We will send out an announcement with a registration form in the next week or so.

We have also booked the Fly Fishing Film Tour (F3T) for Saturday, March 2, 2019 at the Maumee Indoor Theater. Many thanks to Waterford Bank for being a Platinum Sponsor for this event. Tickets will go on sale later in the year.

We have begun to work with a local Boy Scout troop to help the scouts get their Fly Fishing Merit Badge, are in the planning stages of a veterans event to likely be held at Merickel-Farley Trout Club next spring, participated in the Outdoor Expo at SideCut MetroPark this year and will do so again next year, and had a both at Cabela's for their Fly Fishing Weekend last spring!

We also have one school signed up for TU's Trout-in-Classroom program. This is a great program where students get to raise trout from eggs in their classroom and release them into a DNR approved water. If you affiliated with a school and are interested, let us know.

I've probably left something out, but you get the idea. We've been busy! As I mentioned before, we would love to hear from you, our members, as to any suggestions or ideas. We also welcome you to get involved and volunteer to help at our events or assist us in a leadership role. If we wish to become and stay relevant, we will need to continue to recruit new leaders and get them involved.

We are currently holding board meetings every second Thursday of the month at 7:00 PM at Charlie's in Maumee. All members are welcome to attend and we encourage you to do so.

Finally, one of our more important jobs is to maintain communications with our membership. In an effort to do this, we have created a Facebook page (Fallen Timbers Chapter of Trout Unlimited) and a web site (www.fttu.org). We hope to keep both of these sites current with information about upcoming events, interesting related information, and news about our club. Have a look. Let us know what you think.

Tight lines and I hope to see you on the water!
Brad White