I had to miss a local recreation planning meeting last night here in Wilmington, and it turns out I missed a trully passionate speech from one of Wilmington's finest and most committed business owners, Jerry Botcher of the Hungry Trout(and a trully committed supporter of BETA, no less- The Botcher family made a significant financial contribution towards the development of the Wilmington Bike Park, and has consistently been a long standing supporter of all kinds of recreational development in the community over the many years they've been here.  They deserve a big THANK YOU for all of their efforts to move the town forward in a positive direction)  From my own communications with Mr. Botcher,  I believe that he is frustrated that there is so much generalized regional promotion of tourism out there, and he believes that Wilmington often gets lost in the shuffle, even when the community has so much to offer.  This is a relevant point he makes, and it's one that is felt by many folks in Wilmington- especially when a significant recreational resource in our town gets advertised as actually being available in another neighboring community.   On that note, reclaiming the local ski hill from Lake Placid may have helped heal some old wounds, but that's not really the point.  Even if the arbitrary boundaries between our towns were different, our region would still one of the most awesome places to visit or live.  While I may have a Wilmington bias personally because it happens to be the community I call home, BETA is a regional effort by design, and seeks to assist  every community we are active in because all of our communities can(and should) benefit from our efforts.  Everyone should have awesome local trails, regardless of zip-code.  As a group, we are happy and excited to see our efforts bringing more visitors into our local communities(especially in Wilmington, where trail development can have the greatest impact tourism-wise), and we are happy to share the awesome trails we are lucky enough to have access to and support.  We look forward to continuing our efforts and maintaining our focus on developing  and maintaining the best singletrack around, whether in be in Saranac Lake, Lake Placid, or Wilmington.  So Jerry, I just wanted to say thanks for sticking up for Wilmington.  It's an awesome town, and don't let anyone tell you different.  Just for you, I'm putting "WILMINGTON ROCKS" on our homepage.  Disclaimer:  I should probably post "Lake Placid Rocks" and "Saranac Lake Rocks" too in order to satisfy our membership(and those towns certainly do rock), but the "Wilmington Rocks" is for you!  How about you?  Will you put "WILMINGTON ROCKS" on your homepage?  Jerry, I'm linking to your website here so I can check back soon to see if you did it! Do it! Do it!  Tell everyone else is the town(or anyone else who thinks Wilmington Rocks) to do it too!

Cheers,

Matt McNamara, BETA Chairman

P.S: maybe if it'd snow we could stop hemming and hawing about websites...