Sue Belanger & Mike Belanger Espanola and District Snowmobile Club   

Sue: Sue was nominated by her club as Volunteer of the year for 2003. Here are some of the reasons why.

 Sue has been the Secretary /Treasurer of the Espanola and District S/C for the past 5 years. She has also been a Director of the Easter Seals Snowarama since the Espanola and District S/C took it over for the area. In 2003 this event raised over $20,000.00 for the Children of Easter Seals.

Sue looks after the entering of permits (for her husband Mike) into the OFSC Permit Tracking System, as well as looking after all accounting and secretarial duties for the club. She has attended every monthly meeting (except one) in the past 8 years, and has attended at least 6 of the past OFSC conventions and Annual General meetings.

Sue is a great person; she has been involved in organized snowmobiling for the past 14 years.

Sue is a volunteer with the local hospital for the past 12 years, and started volunteering with her children's school 20 years ago and has since become a full time teachers aid with the French School.

 Sue is an active snowmobiler; riding her 500 Yamaha every chance she has. Sue is just a very nice person, she is known in the computer world as YamaSuzie. Club President Dennis Lendrum has gone to her house on Xmas Eve only to find Sue with over 300 permits spread all over the floor, trying to find one, and then putting them in numerical order. The Espanola Club has been very progressive in building Land Base Trails around most of our local Lakes so that all sledders would have the option of a safer route. This has cost approximately $ 400,000.00 over the past 5 years; hopefully you all know what type of paper work it takes to get that type of funding.

Sue just keeps doing all the paper work that is expected, without saying a word. She has been contacted at all hours, year around, and she does whatever is requested to benefit organized snowmobiling without ever complaining. She keeps all the members informed and to the point at the monthly meetings.

Mike:

Mike has been the Vice‑President of the Club for the past 14 years. His dedication and commitment to snowmobiling has been a tremendous asset to his club and he is well respected by his fellow snowmobilers.

Mike just loves to get together with some other snowmobile friends and go out and enjoy the trails for the day.

Being a professional carpenter by trade, whenever the club needs something built out of wood, guess who we call on?

One of the Vice Presidents duties is to distribute the permits to all the locations that sell them for our club, then he has to make the rounds on a weekly basis to pick up the sold permits. Lots of hours involved here. Then he has to make sure all the sold permits permit are entered into the OFSC PTS system. To be truthful (eh Sue) we know who gets it done. Mike is just not fond of that new technology stuff (Computers) But the job gets done!!!

Mike also looks after several km’s of trails under our Adopt-A-Trail program. (Ice Markers, signs, brushing, fencing etc)

Mike is very instrumental in soliciting all the local businesses of the area for prizes, for the Easter Seals event.   

It takes several dedicated people to make a Volunteer Club work. And here are 2 very good examples of Very Dedicated People that are definitely a huge factor in making our club work so successfully.

Thanks to both of you.

Espanola and District Snowmobile Club Membership.

Thanks to Ontario Trillium Foundation for their support!