President's Message: Moving Forward!
By Ned Baier, FGTF President
Our first in-person FGTF Board workshop, community celebration, and reception in Winter Garden last month was a big success! We left Winter Garden learning more about the tasks at hand, motivated, and refreshed. Part of the meeting was devoted to identifying and prioritizing actions, our work plan for the next 24 months through 2025. We laid out about 15 goals to be accomplished in the next two years. This is an ambitious list for an all-volunteer organization! Then we focused on the elements that needed to be taken on in the next 6-12 months.
Expand and diversify the FGTF Board. We already started this and will continue to expand our ten person Board by at least two more persons with South Florida and Jacksonville in mind.
Put our volunteers and the honorary board members to work! We look forward to optimizing all your talents. We will be transparent about our meetings, and we want you to be involved with everything we do.
Meet with and learn more about roles and potential projects with new partners. Identify marketing, education and special event opportunities with complementary organizations. We have already started learning about each other and how we can help each other with organizations such as the Florida Bicycle Association, Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation, Live Widely, Conservation Florida, and others.
Organize and sponsor a Greenways and Trails Summit. We envision this as a workshop showcasing best practices on hot topics. Specific topics might include Greenway & Trail usage and counters, management/operations, planning, design, conservation easements and the Florida wildlife corridor’s overpasses and underpasses protecting wildlife, and safety. Possible venues and dates were discussed. Everyone agreed we should steer clear of legislative activities in Tallahassee so senators and representatives and their staff can attend. The summit could also help generate income for the Foundation, which is another goal. We are looking at February 2025 for possibly a two-day meeting at a location in West Central Florida. 2025 marks the 10-year anniversary of the SUN Trails legislation so celebrating this could be a theme for the event. Many of our Board members are subject matter experts in aspects of Trail and Greenways.
Work collaboratively and positively with state agencies responsible for planning, funding, and building the state’s 4,000-mile SUN Trails program. The two primary state agencies are the Florida Department of Transportation and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (Office of Greenways & Trails). One new recent initiative is participating with the with the OGT/DEP and Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation’s “Trails collaboration team meetings discussing technical planning issues regarding SUN Trail.
Organize in-person FGTF Board workshops, community celebrations, and receptions in regions of Florida that have not had a FGTF workshop/community trail celebration. Serve areas of Florida that may be more aspirational. (2024 & 2025) Fort Myers, Bonita Springs and the East Coast come to mind as future locations.
Participate as a sponsor for the 2025 Florida Wildlife Corridor Celebration event at the State Capitol. I attended this year’s event. FGTF needs to be an official sponsor with table display recognition at meeting.
Communicate and partner with Greenways and Trails friend organizations. Dozens of organizations exist such as Friends of BERT, Friends of Pinellas Trail, Friends of the Legacy Trail and others. Keep in mind that in addition to SUN Trail, many more miles of trails and greenways are planned, funded and built by local governments.
Fund Raising. We have annual budget of almost $30,000 to pay our expenses and allocate money for our special events. We thank our sponsors and FGTF Board members and will continue to reach out for additional sponsorships.
Let me know if you want to be part of our team. With your help, we look forward to a great year ahead!
