March kicks off the 2017 STRA trials season in a big way!  A lot of riders have made great strides in their skills and this season gives them the opportunity to show case those skills.  We expect our class champions to move to the next level and it will be interesting to see how they progress.

Aside from the conclusion of the Chattanooga Trials Club (CTC) Winter Series, in which a large number of STRA members participate, Carolina Virginia Observed Trails Club (CVOTC) and Florida Trials Association (FTA) day events, March starts with Trials Training Days at the Trials Training Center in Sequatchie, TN.  This is a wonderful teaching/learning environment for all levels of trials riders.  Charlie Roberts and crew do an outstanding job hosting this event and a number of STRA riders will participate or instruct.  The very next weekend (March 11 – 12) the STRA Championship Series begins in Ocala, Florida. “Fun in the Sun” is hosted by the Florida Trials Association under the direction of Alexander Niederer.  A week later we have an event in Blairsville, GA at Trackrock (March 18 – 19) with Frank Alexander serving as the Trials Master.  Please see the Schedule section of this website for more details about these events.

Our goal of online membership application / renewal and event pre-registration has not gone as quickly as hoped but we continue to make progress.  Unfortunately, we will miss the Florida deadline and if we miss the Trackrock deadline, it will be implemented shortly thereafter.

The Facebook change was important to create a communication friendly form.   Despite the change from a “Buy and Sell” to a “Club Group,” posting items for sale is strongly encouraged as it helps everyone in the trials community.  The only difference is that posted items will not permanently stay at the top of the page but will scroll along with other posts as new items are added.

In closing, I hope that you are excited about this competition season and feel like STRA is here to support your participation.

Douglas

STRA members,

After a slow start, we have started making changes to this website!  Changes thus far include:

• Updating the contact information for all club officers with links to their emails
• Posting of 2017 riding rules with updates from 2016 noted
• Adding a description to each class level
• Posting the 2017 schedule
• Adding links to the schedules of regional clubs that support STRA
• Archiving the championship results from 2014 to present

Our next round of changes on the website will focus on on-line registration and payment options for both STRA membership and event sign-up.  After that is completed, during the season our ambition is to post individual event results along with ongoing standings in the championship series for each class.

On a related note, the goal of the STRA Facebook page continues to be to facilitate near-real-time communication and drive readers to this site for additional or detailed information which is more static in nature.  We have additional work to do to make the Facebook page less about items for sale and more about communication.

If you have ideas or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me,

Douglas

This is Douglas. We are off to a slow start getting this information out to you from last week’s business meeting. The plan is to have all information like the schedule available to members on the STRA website, which will be updated as soon as we get all the appropriate administrative privileges. Our plan is to use the website as the primary source for posting ongoing information such as schedule, completion standings, rules, etc.

The STRA Facebook page will remain as a means for direct member to member interaction. We would like to move away from it being dominated by buy and sell items to a club communication page. Recognizing the need for the club members to have a way to advertise relevant sale items, this change will not be made until we can establish a means to accomplish both via the Facebook page.