Getting Involved
a work in progress.....
A long, long time ago, one of our JORBA crew decided to finally get involved when there was a threat of closure at a local park that he loved. He had no idea that volunteers were the only people maintaining the trails, and assumed that park personnel did the work. After spending some time helping the trail maintenance group he realized that his participation was having a positive effect on the park. 10 years have now past, he is the crew leader, their group has gained the respect of the land manager, and there is no longer a threat of closure.
You can have a similar effect; all you have to do is reach out to us. We are always looking for more friendly, like minded, eager to assist people to make positive changes throughout the state. You don't necessarily have to participate in trail maintenance to do that. We are looking for leaders, writers, researchers and folks with varying talents to help us further the sport of mountain biking in New Jersey. Below you will find a list of our activities and volunteer requests, maybe something in there will spark your interest...we hope so.
Trail Maintenance
Can you spend 3-4 hours, on one or more weekends per season, helping us build and maintain trails? If so, then please consult our activities Calendar and consider volunteering at a park near to you. We usually have something going on every weekend.
Ultimately, if every mountain biker in NJ volunteers 1-2 times per season, NJ will be in great shape. Instead we usually see the same faces every month and they give so much. If you are able, please try to participate in trail work at your local park; we want to see some new faces!
Bike Fest Volunteers
Would you like to give back and volunteer at the event? We can't make this event happen without a small army of dedicated volunteers! We can't pay you but we can guarantee you a fun time and a really cool orange T-shirt!
If you would like to volunteer, please send an e-mail to our Festival Director at: jorbafestvolunteer-at-embarqmail.com
Grant Writing
We need people to keep on top of Grant sources by scanning the internet for Grant opportunities for bicycle or trail related projects. Our main source of Grant money is the Recreational Trails Program (RTP), but we do need additional grant sources for bike park projects, trail marking, equipment, infrastructure, etc. If interested please contact: development-at-jorba.org
Legal Counsel
Are you a lawyer practicing in NJ with a little bit of free time and wish to help us advocate responsible mountain biking ? If so, we need occasional help with some legal issues related to the Recreational Use Statute, waiver reviews, etc. You can tackle one question for us, or as many as your schedule permits. For the most part the legal counsel would be doing simple research or giving us legal advice, not the drudgery of filing paperwork. If interested please contact: development-at-jorba.org
Newsletter Committee
Bob Birmingham does the layout of "the Dirt", our Newsletter but he needs help gathering content, generating ideas for content and creating articles for the Dirt. Ultimately we would like this to be a committee of 3 or more "beat reporters" collaborating together on content and layout. If interested please contact: development-at-jorba.org
Press Relations
We need people that can generate a press release, maintain a press contact list and send out press releases to regional and local papers as needs arise. This is an urgent need since we are terrible at getting press coverage for all the good things we do within NJ. We have a single volunteer at this time, Lisa Fortunato, but we can use a few more folks with experience in this area. If interested please contact: development-at-jorba.org
Website Committee
We need one or more folks to help maintain the forums, maintain the wiki as well as keeping the content up to date and fresh. For example, the forums will need to be moderated and tweaked, forums added, permissions changed every once in a while. The wiki site is in need of more content, especially content related to the chapters and their activities in their park(s). In addition, all the park related pages need to have content updated, such as GPS tracks (which can be links from other GPS sites such as Motion Based, Placebike, etc). the Directions links need to be updated, perhaps with links to MTBNJ. Suggested loops sections can be linked to mtbNJ and mtbr's trail reviews section, or have locals enter their own reviews, etc.