SAM Strategic Plan
July 1, 2007 – June 30, 2008
This Strategic Plan describes SAM’s priority goals and projects for fiscal year 2008. The Board of Directors and Executive Director prepared this plan during a June 2007 planning retreat. This plan replaces the prior year’s plan.
Although SAM’s mission doesn’t change, the organization’s goals and projects vary from year to year, as do the major issues of concern. The SAM board began this planning process in 1995 and has found it very valuable in providing an opportunity, once a year, to discuss issues and programs and define and prioritize goals and projects. The process includes adoption of an annual budget for the next fiscal year that begins on July 1 for both SAM and SAM’s Conservation Education Fund (SAM CEF).
The board reviews the plan periodically throughout the year to evaluate progress and retains the flexibility to make changes during the year as new issues, opportunities and challenges occur. SAM’s staff uses the plan to prioritize their work and keeps the board informed of progress made on priority projects.
SAM’s Strategic Plan is based on the following assumptions:
1) SAM members want information and influence. They want opportunities to influence and impact the outdoor issues they care about – and they want to know what is going on. SAM members should be aware that we represent them at all important hearings and meetings on outdoor issues, and that one of SAM’s most important jobs is to serve as a source of new ideas and initiatives that benefit wildlife and the sportsmen of Maine. SAM News is our public face, principle product, and most importantly, a source of news and information for our members. Other media, including SAM’s website and our TV show Wildfire, and other sportsmen’s publications, are also valuable in getting SAM’s messages to all sportsmen and the general public.
2) SAM must carefully prioritize its work. SAM is widely regarded as one of the most important and powerful special interest groups in Maine. As such, every outdoor project and issue demands our presence and participation. We receive far more requests for assistance and representation than we can fulfill. We can’t do everything. It is critically important that we focus on the most important projects and issues – especially those of statewide significance and impact. We must also concentrate on the things that can be achieved – rather than waste valuable time on issues that can’t be won. The board carefully evaluates demand on time and resources before committing to new projects, and seeks volunteers to represent the organization when staff is unavailable. We are blessed with some extraordinary volunteers. Nevertheless, members must understand that SAM is not usually able to intervene on issues of local significance (rule changes on a single body of water, for example) or to assist directly with an individual’s problem (a problem with a state agency, for example).
3) SAM’s members are the strength of the organization. To be successful, SAM must have strong grassroots support from its members. We count on our members to be informed and active in our cause.
4) SAM must work cooperatively with other key groups and leaders. Liaisons with other groups (sportsmen, environmental, industry, landowners) and good relationships with outdoor and political leaders (at state agencies and the legislature, for example) are important if we are to achieve our goals. SAM must continue to maintain good working relationships with other groups representing sportsmen. SAM’s Sportsmen’s Congress is an important event that brings these leaders and groups together annually for a day’s discussion of major issues coming to the forefront in the next year. SAM’s political action committee, SAM PAC, also plays a vital role in building relationships with and helping elect leaders who support our cause.
5) We are the conservationists. This is SAM’s slogan and drives our agenda. SAM members are primarily interested in hunting, fishing and firearms issues although from time to time other issues rise to importance in our Strategic Plan.
Each year new projects are added to this plan, while some projects are completed and others deleted or diminished in importance. All of the projects in this plan are considered important and progress on each is measured and evaluated as the year progresses. Recognizing the importance of building a strong grassroots organization that includes better utilization of volunteers, SAM will focus on this task as its only top priority project.
Grassroots Organization
SAM has launched a project to empower its members and strengthen its grassroots organization. The Board of Directors made this the organization’s top priority for the next twelve months.
We’re losing the battle to animal rights groups and others who have focused on building strong grassroots lobbying organizations. We’re going to work hard this year to convince every SAM member to participate in our Rapid Response Team, and we’re taking the steps necessary to make the RRT effective.
Among those steps is a new data base that will provide SAM members with the names and contact information for their legislators and Fish and Wildlife Advisory Council members. We will also be redesigning SAM’s website to make it more effective as a primary tool to distribute information to our members and other sportsmen.
While we’re proud of the credibility and influence of SAM, nothing is as effective as contacts from constituents, in both the law-making and rule-making process. We’re going to ask every SAM member to develop a relationship with their legislators and council members who make the laws and rules that govern hunting, fishing and trapping, and to be ready to contact those people when important issues are being debated.
Animal rights groups have stepped up their activity not only at the legislature, but also in the courts and in the public arena. They are able to flood Maine newspapers with their letters. SAM must work harder to build, inform and activate the network of grassroots sportsmen needed to win this escalating battle.
SAM intends to expand and improve the amount of information it provides to members, and set up new ways to help members be effective in making their voices heard on the issues of importance to them.
The board of directors focused a substantial amount of time at their annual planning retreat in June on this initiative, discussing the various steps the organization will build and maintain an effective grassroots organization.
SAM can’t do it all from Augusta. But we can make sure SAM’s members are well informed and know how to make their individual voices heard on the issues that are compelling to them. Our goal is to empower SAM’s members by informing, motivating, and activating them.
Volunteers
SAM will begin to offer its members many more opportunities to volunteer and get involved in the working groups, committees and events that are important to our cause every year.
From local committees that are creating new recreational plans for public lands in their areas, to statewide task forces, there are many opportunities for SAM members to represent our organization. Our task will be to make sure SAM members know about these opportunities. Each issue of SAM News will present an “Opportunities” section. This section will provide information about current proposals for new rules and laws, along with an explanation of how SAM members can contact the appropriate people to voice their opinions. When SAM has an established position on a proposal, members will also be informed of that.
Each month this “Opportunities” section of SAM News will also profile two or three projects that offer a chance for SAM members to represent our organization or themselves. Many of these will involve public planning processes and state agency working groups.
In addition to providing more information about these opportunities in SAM News, SAM will be making significant improvements to its website, so that members who use the internet can receive information more quickly and act on that information in a more timely manner.
Things move quickly these days, and the mail is both too slow and too expensive to serve as our primary means of communicating with SAM’s members. We’ve been making an effort to collect the email addresses of SAM members and those people will be the ones who will serve in the first strike unit of our Rapid Response Team, simply because we can reach them quickly.
Office Manager Kelly Cochara will play an important role in the grassroots organization, as the person in charge of SAM’s data base. Some of Cochara’s other projects were put into lower priority categories in the new strategic plan so that she could devote more time to the grassroots initiative.
The board adjusted many projects and tasks to lower priority status because we know that without this grassroots organization, we’ll only fall further behind our opponents in the battle to save our heritage. We will ask every SAM member to step up to the plate this year, and get personally involved in this battle. It is no longer enough to send in your dues and hope that SAM’s staff and board can get the job done.
High Priority
These will be the primary focus of the staff, board, and volunteers. Most of our time and resources will be devoted to these projects.
Legislature
The 2008 session of the Maine Legislature is the shorter three month session, open to “emergency” legislation only.
Whenever the legislature is in session, our work there is a high priority and major focus. Because the laws enacted by the legislature govern so much of what we do in the outdoors, we believe SAM must continue to devote significant time and effort to the lobbying function.
SAM has also been aggressive over the last decade in bringing our own ideas and agenda to the legislature, where we have enjoyed great success.
Pineau Policy Associates (Ed and Cate Pineau) of Manchester will continue to lobby for SAM, with and at the direction of SAM’s executive director who will serve as SAM’s primary lobbyist.
This year, as SAM’s top priority, we will build a grassroots organization that will greatly enhance our effectiveness at the legislature.
The executive director is responsible for all of SAM’s bills and testimony and spends most of his time with the Joint Standing Committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The Pineaus screen all bills for SAM, prepare weekly tracking reports on all bills of interest to SAM, attend hearings and work sessions, and work the House and Senate as bills are debated and voted on by the full legislature. They have been particularly effective in working with the House and Senate leadership on behalf of SAM.
SAM’s Board of Directors establishes SAM’s position on all legislation and devotes a substantial portion of each meeting during the legislative session to discussion of legislative bills and issues. The Board and staff create our legislative agenda prior to the session, and SAM members get an opportunity to express their opinions on agenda issues in the annual membership survey. Results of that survey are provided to legislators and printed in SAM News.
Wildfire
SAM’s weekly television talk show, focused on conservation and sporting issues, is hosted by George Smith and Harry Vanderweide and produced by URSUS Productions in Waterville. It appears on commercial and cable stations statewide including TV 13 in Portland and TV 7 in Bangor as well as the Time Warner cable network in central Maine.
The show affords SAM an opportunity to reach a large audience with information about SAM projects and important outdoor issues, and to create and foster an image appropriate to Maine’s leading sportsmen’s organization.
When URSUS finished taping shows for the current season, over 375 Wildfire shows had been produced.
State of Maine Sportsman’s Show
The State of Maine Sportsman’s Show in Augusta, cosponsored by SAM and The Maine Sportsman magazine, is both a major fundraiser and a rallying point for SAM and the sportsmen of Maine. In fact, it is SAM’s single largest fundraiser each year.
Edye Cronk manages the show for SAM and works throughout the year with Harry Vanderweide, who manages the show for The Maine Sportsman.
Fundraising
The Board has adopted ambitious budgets for SAM and SAM CEF. Raising money is a never-ending task and always a high priority. SAM will use a variety of methods from raffles to the annual President’s appeal to corporate partnerships to raise the $450,000 annual combined budgets of SAM and SAM CEF for the next fiscal year. In addition, SAM continues to raise money towards its long-range goal of paying down the mortgage on the new conference center. In the next fiscal year, we hope to raise $200,000 toward that goal.
SAM News.
SAM News remains very popular with the membership. Ninety nine percent of SAM’s members in our 2007 survey rated the News great (33%) or good (60%). We have committed extensive time and effort to constant improvements in the News. This year we will publish six bi-monthly issues, mailed to all members, outdoor organizations and leaders, and legislators. The board decided to reduce the number of issues in order to make each issue as informative and cost-effective as possible. An exceptional amount of information will be provided in each issue, along with a listing of opportunities that members may act upon in order to help SAM be more effective. These will be divided into action items and volunteer opportunities. A significant amount of the executive director’s time is devoted to writing SAM News. Harry Vanderweide lays out the paper with help from the executive director and Kelly Cochara.
Website
This year we are making a major commitment to SAM’s website (www.samcef.org), which has been a low priority and somewhat neglected in the past. We intend to significantly upgrade the site and establish it as the go-to place for sportsmen who wish to be informed and active in our cause. Kelly Cochara, SAM’s office manager, serves as our site’s webmaster with responsibility for maintaining the site. The website includes a special section for SAM’s Outdoor Kids program.
Maine Sportsmen’s Conference Center
The Maine Sportsmen’s Conference Center is a spectacular 4,000 square foot facility that has brought the community of sportsmen together at SAM’s Augusta headquarters location. This year we’ll focus on utilizing and managing the conference center to its fullest capacity, while we continue to raise money to reduce the mortgage. Edye Cronk serves as the center’s manager and George Smith as the primary fundraiser.
SAM’s allies and friends are now using the conference center for their meetings, and SAM is hosting many events there for the state’s most important officials and activists. We are very proud of this center and all that is signifies for SAM and the sportsmen of our state.
We have raised $500,000 in donations and pledges toward the total cost of $800,000 for this state-of-the-art facility. Over the next three years we hope to raise the remaining funds so that SAM can be mortgage free.
The Maine Sportsmen’s Conference Center demonstrates that the sportsmen of Maine are a powerful and unified force, and provides all Maine sportsmen with a sense of pride in their outdoor organizations and heritage. It gives SAM and our allies a terrific facility as we work together to secure our heritage and future.
Maine Deer/Coyote Task Force
In early May, DIF&W Commissioner Dan Martin convened a task force to address the ongoing decline of deer populations in northern and eastern Maine. Gerry Lavigne, retired DIF&W deer biologist who now serves as chair of SAM’s Deer Task Force, was appointed to Commissioner Martin’s task force to represent SAM.
The DIFW task force was convened in response to a legislative resolve (LD 823) titled “Resolve: to Create an Effective Deer Habitat and Coyote Control Program.” LD 823 was sponsored by SAM and it reflects one of the key recommendations of SAM’s own deer task force.
LD 823, which was enacted by the 123rd Maine Legislature this summer, requires Commissioner Martin to: “establish a working group to review existing programs and efforts related to creating, enhancing and maintaining critical deer habitat in the State and reducing predation of deer by coyotes.”
“In reviewing the programs and efforts, the working group shall look for ways to improve and increase wintering habitat for deer and for ways to increase the survival of deer on a year-round basis. The working group shall also establish methods of controlling coyote populations and set goals to manage the coyote populations.”
The resolve requires the Commissioner to report the findings and recommendations of this working group to the legislative committee by December 30, 2007.
The Northern and Eastern Maine Deer Task Force is comprised of ten people representing various organizations. Included in the group are three IFW Wildlife Biologists: Regional Wildlife Biologist Rich Hoppe of Ashland, Regional Wildlife Supervisor Gene Dumont, and Lee Kantar, Department Deer Biologist. Among the people and organizations who also are part of the task force are Chairman Matt Libby of the Maine Professional Guides Association and owner of Libby’s Camps; Don Dudley of the Maine Trappers Association; Brian Smith of the Maine Bowhunters Association; Gerry Lavigne of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine; Sally Stockwell of Maine Audubon; Pat Strauch of the Maine Forest Products Council; and Tom Doak of Small Woodlot Owners Association of Maine (SWOAM).
Public Access Task Force
Concerned about growing conflicts with other users of public lands, SAM focused its 2007 legislative agenda on issues of public access and use of public lands. Right now, sportsmen are blessed with good access and use of both parks and public lands managed by the Departments of Conservation and Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, but disagreements over the Allagash Waterway and the ugly battle over the Katahdin Lake purchase for Baxter Park, as well as concerns over the establishment of ecological reserves and a drive to designate “wilderness” or create a national park in the north woods, led SAM to take these issues to the legislature.
Governor John Baldacci stepped up quickly with a positive response to SAM’s legislation. By executive order, the Governor created the Task Force Regarding the Management of Public Lands and Publicly-Held Easements in Maine. Karin Tilberg of the Governor’s staff and SAM’s executive director worked closely on the language of the order and the potential membership of the task force.
SAM was very pleased when Governor Baldacci named Paul Jacques to chair his Task Force Regarding the Management of Public Lands and Publicly-Held Easements in Maine. Jacques is the Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, has extensive knowledge of access issues, and is a skilled group leader.
Also named by the Governor to the Task Force were Al Cowperthwaite, North Maine Woods, Jon Fitzgerald, Western Mountains Foundation, Walter Graff, Appalachian Mountain Club, Mac Hunter, University of Maine Department of Wildlife Ecology, Al Hutchinson, Forest Society of Maine, Bruce Kidman, The Nature Conservancy, Jon Lund, The Maine Sportsman publisher, Marcia McKeague, Katahdin Timberlands Group, Bob Meyers, Maine Snowmobile Association, Dan Mitchell, ATV Maine, John Rust, Maine Professional Guides Association, Greg Shute, Chewonki Foundation/Maine Sierra Club, Sally Stockwell, Maine Audubon Society, Karen Woodsum, Maine Sierra Club, Ray Wotton, small landowner, Pat McGowan, Commissioner of the Department of Conservation, Tim Glidden, Land for Maine’s Future Program, Senators Kevin Raye and Bruce Bryant, and Representatives Thomas Watson, Don Marean, and Jackie Lundeen, and SAM’s executive director.
The task force is expected to address growing concerns – especially from people in northern Maine – that their access to and uses of public lands are being reduced. First, the task force will get the facts by creating a baseline inventory of the existing management and recreational uses and types of access on public lands. Then it will find out what we can do and where we can do it. And finally, the group will try to identify strategies and resources necessary to reduce conflicts and competition between recreational users of public lands.
Trapping Lawsuit
A lawsuit by a California animal rights group is proceeding in federal court in Bangor. With the help of attorneys representing the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, SAM, the Maine Trappers Association and the Maine Professional Guides Association – as well as USSA - were accepted by the Judge as interveners in the suit on the side of the state of Maine, whose Attorney General is defending the Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in the proceeding.
Over the past few months, the two sides attempted to reach agreement on most of the facts in the case, hoping to eliminate the costly process of taking depositions from witnesses. Unfortunately agreement on the facts has been impossible.
In June, both sides began taking depositions from witnesses. SAM filed a “declaration of facts” in early July. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment on July 13. Initial responses to those motions are due in early August, with final replies later in the month.
The court will then review the summary judgment motions and decide whether to enter a summary judgment or hold a trial sometime in the fall.
The Department of Inland and Wildlife recently submitted a request to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for an incidental take permit, which would allow trapping to continue even if an occasional Lynx was captured. That permit, if granted, would allow trapping to continue with the approval of federal officials and protect trappers from the occasional taking of a Lynx. The request did not include snaring.
Plum Creek’s Moosehead Concept Plan
The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine has filed a petition with the Land Use Regulation Commission seeking intervener status for the Moosehead Lake Concept Plan presented by Plum Creek.
Plum Creek’s conservation and development plan has become the most talked about issue in the north country, if not all of Maine, and it has many important implications for sportsmen. The plan has turned into a major debate about the future of the entire north woods, and SAM’s board of directors decided the organization had to be at the table when this critical issue is debated before LURC.
LURC is the planning board for the unorganized territories and the governing authority that will either approve or deny Plum Creek’s plan. Many other groups are also seeking intervenor status.
Intervenor status will allow SAM to not only testify at all hearings on the plan, but also to question other witnesses and to participate in all conferences and meetings about the plan. Public hearings are scheduled for November, but there are many preliminary steps prior to that time, including pre-hearing conferences and preparation and filing of testimony.
Sportsmen are the first to be impacted by development, losing wildlife habitat, access to both land and water, and opportunities to hunt and fish. We also serve in the front lines of the land conservation movement, having been involved in all of the state’s major conservation projects, leading the advocacy for programs like Land for Maine’s Future, and actively engaged in programs like Forest Legacy and the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund.
Every aspect of the Plum Creek plan is important to us. Sportsmen have a lot at stake in this project (it could be argued that we have the most to lose and gain) and we want to be at the table as the discussion proceeds at the Land Use Regulation Commission.
SAM has been supportive of Plum Creek’s effort to bring predictability to the area, and appreciative of the company’s interest in addressing the concerns of sportsmen for our future in the Moosehead Region. SAM’s Board of Directors and staff have played a role in encouraging the positive changes that have brought the latest version to LURC.
Our specific interests in this project include: 1) the impact of proposed development on hunting, fishing and trapping, and valuable wildlife habitat including deer wintering and fish spawning areas; and 2) the impact of proposed conservation on traditional uses.
SAM has concerns about both the development and the conservation aspects of this plan. We will offer testimony and question witnesses to clarify all of the various outcomes and impacts of this project in an area of the state that has been so important to our outdoor heritage. We will focus on the needs and uses of all sportsmen.
Priority
To be done as staff time allows or volunteers step forward
Sportsmen’s Congress
On the first Friday in January, we will host SAM’s thirteenth annual Sportsmen’s Congress at our Maine Sportsmen’s Conference Center. The Congress was created to bring together outdoor leaders and media for a daylong presentation and discussion of issues that are expected to dominate the sportsmen’s agenda in the coming year. The Congress is now a by-invitation-only event.
Over the years the Sportsmen’s Congress has turned into a very significant event. We now have exceptional participation by the state’s outdoor and political leaders and lots of media coverage. From Governors and legislators to leaders of fish and game clubs, this is the single time each year we get together to discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead.
We will continue to use the event to continue building and strengthening SAM’s alliances and coalition of state sportsmen’s organizations. We work to make the program informative and the event effective in bringing us together for a common agenda.
Membership Recruitment and Retention – and the Data Base
At the July 2006 planning retreat, SAM’s Board of Directors spent a significant amount of time discussing membership recruitment and retention. This included discussion and adoption of a written proposal prepared by the executive director with significant changes in this program.
Retention of members remains a high priority. We will continue to stress multi-year and life memberships to build long-term stability and limit reliance on annual dues renewals. Seventy three percent of SAM’s members are multi-year or life members. This has been a major factor in SAM’s stability.
SAM retained 91 percent of its members last year, a rate of retention that national experts say puts our organization in the “Hall of Fame.”
In 2001, the Board endorsed a list of “Fundraising Principles”, one of which was to limit membership dues to 25 percent or less of our total revenue. Historically, SAM was almost totally dependent on membership dues, but with an aggressive effort over the last decade, we have been able to cultivate new revenue sources. This is a major accomplishment that adds stability to SAM’s financial base.
Only 18.7 percent of SAM’s total revenue came from dues last year, an indication of the success of the organization’s strategy over the last decade to attract a diversity of sources of funding in order to reduce its reliance on membership dues. That strategy has been an unqualified success. Most membership organizations get 50 percent of more of their funding from dues.
Office Manager Kelly Cochara has been designated as SAM’s Membership Director, with responsibility for the membership data base and member services. The board renewed specific goals of renewing 65 percent of SAM’s annual memberships and retaining 85 percent of all SAM memberships.
Customer service to SAM members will become a higher priority. The Executive Director has a priority list that governs his response to inquiries and requests, with SAM members being the highest priority. Nonmembers who ask for SAM’s help generally cannot be accommodated, simply because of the small size of our staff. However, we don’t want to ignore sportsmen who have not yet joined SAM, and we do use their inquiries to encourage them to join the organization.
In summary, the new membership retention and recruitment plan is designed to grow the membership, increase stability with more multi-year and life memberships, maintain a high retention rate, and improve response to letters, emails, and phone calls from SAM members.
Another element of this high priority project will be enhancement of SAM’s membership data base. We’ll be adding more information about each member, including the State Representative and Senator and Fish and Wildlife Advisory Council Member who represents each resident member – as part of our top priority grassroots initiative.
Fishing Initiative Committee
This is a permanent standing committee in SAM’s bylaws and consists of an exceptional group of avid anglers who have worked well together to initiate proposals and projects to improve fishery resources and expand fishing opportunities in Maine.
SAM’s board has adopted an official policy governing the activities and organization of the Fishing Initiative Committee, and officially named committee members. FIC members are: George Smith, Chair, Tom Carter, SAM board representative, Vaughn Anthony, Harry Vanderweide, Ed Courtenay, Steve Brooke, Larry Fiori, Dennis Smith, Greg Ponte, Gary Corson, and Hal Porter.
The committee will continue to pursue an ambitious agenda of projects and issues this year. Other SAM members will be invited to participate in FIC’s projects, according to their interests.
SAM PAC
2008 is a major election year and SAM’s political action committee – governed by SAM’s Board of Directors – is very active in state and federal candidate elections. Years ago the Board established a process it follows for all candidate endorsements. All candidates receive a detailed SAM PAC Questionnaire following the June primary election and must return the questionnaire to be considered for endorsement. Each candidate receives a grade based on his or her responses to the questions. Incumbents are also evaluated on their records, and those who have done a good job for sportsmen are always favored with an endorsement. Candidates for major offices are also interviewed by the board. A significant ingredient of SAM’s power and influence is the relationship we are able to build with political leaders through SAM PAC.
Kennebec River Initiative
SAM brought this project to the Department of Conservation to create a partnership which raised $65,000 for the first year of the project. This year we’ll need to identify new funding and goals that take us beyond Phase One.
The broad objective of the initiative is to secure the future of the Kennebec River as one of the state’s most important scenic, ecological, fisheries, wildlife, recreational, cultural and economic assets, and is so doing, to foster economic growth in the river communities. This project also serves as a prototype for similar efforts on other Maine rivers.
The project’s goals include: 1) enhance the fishery; 2) provide increased access to the river for all uses; 3) identify undeveloped shorelands with significant public values; 4) work with landowners on a voluntary basis to secure protection of these lands; 5) increase public awareness and understanding of the history, culture and other values of the river; and 6) foster opportunities for economic investment and growth in the cities and towns along the river.
The project is directed by a five-person management team including SAM’s executive director. The Kennebec and Somerset Soil and Water Conservation District was hired to staff the project.
The first year of the project focused on building grassroots “River Segment Committees” to advise and support the project, creating the necessary informational data base including mapping, building on and supporting existing private and public efforts with similar objectives on the river, expanding funding sources, identifying access needs and expanding access, and improving the fishery (including an effort to simplify the complex fishing rules that now govern the Kennebec).
Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund
SAM’s President, Edye Cronk, was nominated by the governor and confirmed by the Senate last year for a four-year term on the MOHF Board. This position was previously held for ten years by SAM’s executive director, George Smith. Smith was term limited off the MOHF board.
SAM’s continuing representation on this board gives us an excellent opportunity to participate in this program that has distributed over $13 million to wildlife conservation and outdoor recreation projects since its inception. SAM first proposed this program in partnership with the Maine Audubon Society and successfully lobbied it to enactment by the Maine Legislature. Funds are provided by an instant lottery game.
Forest Legacy Project.
This federally funded project provides significant sums of money to purchase conservation easements on forestland to keep the land commercially viable, undeveloped, and accessible for public recreation. SAM Board member Bob Engelhardt represents SAM on the Department of Conservation’s Forest Legacy Advisory Committee, which advises DOC staff on all legacy projects and issues and establishes the state’s list of priority projects. Legacy money has been used in Maine to fund projects around Pierce Pond, Nicatous Lake, the Pingree lands, West Branch of the Penobscot, the Katahdin Forest and other areas.
Landowner Thank You Program
SAM’s web-based Landowner Thank You Program facilitates thank you notes and gifts from sportsmen to the private landowners who allow hunting on their land.
An exciting new partnership with Bangor Savings Bank, which is now the sponsor of our Landowner Thank You Program, will allow us to substantially increase participation in this program which is available to all sportsmen.
The agreement will include stepped up promotion of the landowner thank you program through television ads on SAM’s TV show Wildfire, in SAM News and other sportsmen’s publications, and on the websites of both SAM and the bank. Bangor Savings and SAM will work together to produce all of these advertisements.
SAM recognizes a great need to focus more attention on landowner relations issues related to public access to land and water and we are delighted that the support of Bangor Savings will allow us to expand our effort on this critical issue.
Bangor Savings will provide a special “Maine Tracks” music CD as a featured gift for the landowner thank you program, and will feature the program – along with a showcase of private landowners and small woodlot owners - in an upcoming issue of Bangor Magazine which will be distributed at SAM events.
In fact, a variety of promotional efforts will be made by BSB, in cooperation with SAM, to publicize the landowner thank you program.
The bank’s financial support will also allow SAM to design a new section on our website to serve the landowner thank your program and provide on-going information to SAM members and others as the program expands and progresses. That website section will be linked to and promoted by Bangor Savings.
Landowner Relations Conference
With the help of a grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, a landowner relations program conference will be held this fall in SAM’s conference center. Our partners in this project are the Maine Professional Guides Association, Maine Trappers Association, Maine Bowhunters Association, Maine Forest Products Council, and Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine.
We hope to use the conference to build consensus on the elements of a successful Maine landowner relations program, and build on the alliance that was forged over the last year by the partners in this project and other members of the Natural Resources Network.
Outdoor Kids Magazine and Website
SAM created this kids’ magazine and website with an initial grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund. After many years of sponsoring TRACKs magazine (published by a Michigan sportsmen’s organization) for elementary school children, with donations from fish and game clubs, we decided to try a new approach: a Maine-based emailable newsletter for children about conservation and outdoor recreation. The website features Maine-based stories on everything from wildlife species to how-to information.
Kelly Cochara has been directing this project with help from an editorial board. This year we will look to volunteers, from the editorial board and elsewhere, to take on the leadership of this project.
The Outdoor Kids newsletter is emailed to teachers, SAM families, and others who ask to be put on a distribution list, and also available on our website in the Outdoor Kids section.
Cochara has organized three excellent annual writing and photography contests, and this program continues to be a centerpiece of our Outdoor Kids program, with high levels of participation.
SAM won a second grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund to add new features to the website, continue to build the email list, train young writers and photographers in a special workshop, and identify new sources of on-going funding for the project. This project was completed this past year.
SAM’s Conservation Education Fund
SAM CEF – a fund that accepts tax-deductible donations – remains a priority with an annual budget this year of $65,000. Much of that money comes from the contributions of our corporate partners and from two auctions in which we offer merchandise donated by LL Bean and other retailers and guns confiscated by state law enforcement agencies. Eighty percent of the money raised at the auction by the gun sales is returned to the law enforcement agencies.
SAM CEF sponsors, supports, and provides funding to special conservation and education projects throughout the year, chosen generally on a case-by-case basis by the SAM Board, depending on availability of funds.
SAM CEF’s budget also supports many in-house SAM projects that qualify for funding by this non-profit arm of SAM, including the work of our Fishing Initiative Committee, our service on state task forces, and the annual Sportsman’s Congress.
Deer Task Force
Ably led by retired DIF&W deer biologist Gerry Lavigne, SAM’s Deer Task Force far exceeded our expectations, meeting throughout the winter and spring of 2005 – 2006 to discuss a series of critically important issues and create recommendations.
Although the group – serving as our Pickering Commission - reviewed all hunting laws, rules and publications and prepared recommendations to simplify and clarify the laws and rules and improve the publications, all but one of the group’s meetings was devoted to its work as the Deer Task Force. Because the issues concerning deer management and hunting were most in need of attention, the group focused on those issues.
All of the recommendations requiring action by the legislature were submitted as bills for the 2007 session with mixed results. These and other recommendations will continue to be pursued in cooperation with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
A copy of the Task Force’s final report and recommendations, minutes and other reports from the Task Force’s meetings – including a lengthy briefing paper that Lavigne prepared for legislators - are available on SAM’s website at www.samcef.org under “Pickering Commission.”
Fish and Game Club Conference
SAM is taking steps to use our new conference center to provide programming and services to all of Maine’s fish and game clubs and other sportsmen’s groups. Several fish and game clubs stepped up to make contributions to SAM’s building fund in response to the challenge of the Presque Isle Fish and Game Club, and we are grateful to all.
We are working with Don Palmer, President of the Rangeley Region Guides’ & Sportsmen’s Association, to create a way for fish and game clubs to communicate, share information, learn from each other, and participate more fully in SAM’s work.
SAM’s newly elected board member, Doug Alexander, a longtime leader of the Phippsburg Sportsmen’s Association, will work with Palmer on this project.
We will begin by sponsoring a full day at the conference center for all of Maine’s clubs during which club leaders can share information about club activities, goals, and programs.
A letter from SAM to fish and game, ATV, and snowmobile clubs informed club leaders that the first conference will offer information about the most successful programs – including fundraising and membership recruitment – that Maine fish and game clubs are doing. And conference participants will help us establish a communication system that links all clubs. Palmer is especially interested in setting up a method so sportsmen can see all of the newsletters published by Maine fish and game clubs.
Where Can I Hunt
SAM is building a section in its new website, with help of a grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, featuring information to answer the question, “Where can I hunt in Maine?” The site will direct members to the information they need, including maps and any special rules. Some information will be on SAM’s website, while additional information will be available through links.
We will begin with information about hunting opportunities on public lands – using information compiled by the Governor’s Access Task Force – and eventually we hope to add land trusts, municipal lands, and even private lands (in cooperation with private landowners). Also, we’ll list all the lands governed by conservation easements that guarantee the right to hunt.
Disabled Hunters Committee
SAM President Edye Cronk serves on a committee at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife that reviews and acts on applications from disabled hunters for the use of special adaptive equipment and crossbows. Several hundred applications are reviewed each year, and most are approved.
Low Priority
Important projects but SAM will be unable to work on these this year unless volunteers step forward or more staff time becomes available.
Department of Transportation’s Water Access Committee – Jim Gorman
Landowners and Sportsmen Relations Advisory Board – Needs Volunteer Representative
SAM Land Trust – Needs Volunteer Leadership
SAM’s Wilderness Travel – Edye Cronk
Hunting Heritage Program – partnership with DIF&W
Non-SAM Events
Sportsmen’s/Forest Landowners Alliance
Project Safe Neighborhoods – Needs Volunteer Representative
Special Information
Endowment Fund
Four years ago at an annual meeting, SAM’s members enacted a Board recommendation that capped the Life Members Fund at the $250,000 level and directed new life member dues and the Fund’s income into a new Endowment fund. In 2005 the SAM Board adopted the following policy governing the Life Members Fund: The annual income equal to three percent of the total Fund value will remain in the Life Members Fund and any remaining annual income will be directed to the Endowment Fund.
The Board also created a policy and investment strategy for the new Endowment Fund. The Endowment Fund shall be invested with 70 percent in stocks and 30 percent in bonds. The Endowment Fund, both principle and income, may be utilized at the discretion of SAM’s Board of Directors. Only expenditures of $5000 or more may be eligible for Endowment funding, and the Fund will generally be available for projects and programs that are not part of the ordinary budgets and programs of SAM, SAM CEF, or SAM PAC.
The Board offered a few examples of projects that might receive Endowment funding: land purchases by SAM’s Land Trust, political action, procurement of traditional hunting, fishing, trapping and other recreational opportunities on private land, capital improvements, and building/equipment emergencies at SAM’s Augusta headquarters.
The Maine Conservation School remains a major cornerstone benefactor of the new Endowment Fund. In addition to SAM’s annual scholarship aid, requests from MCS for funding for special projects and programs are solicited and considered on a regular basis by the SAM Board. Over the past two years, SAM’s Endowment Fund has provided $10,000 to MCS to construct trap shooting stations and the Bryant Pond facility.
The Board has also committed $50,000 from the Endowment Fund to the construction of the Maine Sportsmen’s Conference Center.