From the President
Good morning Fairfield OHC members. It’s been a while sense I scribed a newsletter but here it goes. For sure this has been a different kind of summer. Not all summer, but the heat in July and August sure took the fun out of a lot of activities.
Our club was able to hold or participate in several really nice camp outs and rides throughout summer. Some notable locations were at Dillon, AEP, Mohican, EastFork, and Hocking.
AEP was the central regional ride where 30 plus campers from 8 or 9 county chapters participated in the ride. Craig Santee, our regional Rep and his side kick Charlene organized the event. One word sums up the weekend, fun!
We had 2 chances to camp at Mohican. One was an invitation from Licking Co. OHC to join them for a weekend. And a second opportunity was to participate in the chili cook off state ride hosted by Ashland Co. OHC. Always a good time at Mohican. Chad Sanders, Mohican Forest Manager does a great job maintaining the trail and the scenery is awesome. Just a side note, your’s truly brought home the trophy for First Place Winning Chili. Maybe someday  I’ll make a pot of it for one of our rides.
We had an almost perfect weekend weather wise at East Fork State Park in late September. We were joined by Clermont OHC. The trails were a little dusty, but it was better than deep mud. Sue Keller did mention she learned the meaning of ( eat my dust ). Clermont’s chapter President  Tim Sheppard was a perfect host and provided some great fried chicken for our Saturday community meal. After dinner we got to witness Tim’s grand daughter go on her first trail ride with grandpa Tim. The smile on her face said it won’t be her last.
Our last successful ride was at Hocking for our club pre Halloween camp out. This was easily the largest turn out from our club for a ride this year. I counted 21 trailers in camp and I think 34 hungry members for the Saturday community meal. In addition to the great trails and food, we were entertained by Alivia Seymour on Friday evening. She is the grand daughter of Bill and Kim Smith. She sang a wide range of country songs from a wide range of female county artist. She is just getting started on this new adventure but all would agree, she knocked it out of the park.
Now to a couple events that did not go well. Our annual Labor Day State ride was cancelled because of 97, 98 degree temperatures. Just too hot to risk horses and people being overcome with the heat. In an attempt to host a replacement ride, we tried again the last weekend in September. Hurricane Helene had different plans and that weekend was also scrapped. Always next year.
In addition to the organized rides I know several made trips out of state and camped at several locations all over Ohio. Feel free to post your travels on our Facebook page. I personally made a trip to Malabar Farms just a couple weekends ago. Nice little camp ground, and a dozen or so miles of trails. Well worth the trip to drive up on top of Mt Geez to view the valley and surrounding hills that make up the Malabar property. I forgot to mention, the trees were real close to full fall color. Beautiful!
Your club has two major events coming up very soon. First is the election of officers at our November monthly meeting. That meeting is scheduled for November 10th at 7 pm at the West Fair Ave. Lancaster Pizza Cottage. All offices are up for election, but one in particular, Vice President will need a new officer. Our.current VP, Tanna Rhodes has indicated she is not available for reelection. We also will need someone to take over writing the Corral article. Hoping for a big turn out.
Second is our club’s Christmas party which is scheduled for Sunday, December 1st. As has been the case the last two years, it will be held at the Eagle’s Lodge on East Main Street in Lancaster. Dinner time is 6 pm, with the doors open at 5 for a social hour. There will be an open bar for those that choose to participate. Dinner arrangements go like this. The club will provide the main entrees of ham and fried chicken. Those attending need to bring a side dish or desert to complete the meal. At the end of the meal, we will have a gift exchange for those that wish to participate. A limit of $20 was established at the last meeting. As in the past the gifts are randomly handed out and after some fun and games, you get to open what you end up holding. It all good fun.
Come our January club meeting we will put together a ride schedule for next year. Be giving that some thought and come to the meeting with your suggestions.
Winter is not far away. So far this fall we are being blessed with some beautiful riding weather. I hope everyone is taking full advantage of it.
See you in a couple weeks.
Chris Streitenberger
