Mike Gilchrist
01-18-2001, 07:26 PM
Hey_Yall was up visiting our website and pointed out to me that I had not formally introduced myself or the group I am associated with.
My name is Mike Gilchrist and I am helping bring the influence of the RFA into the Northwest in the form of a Washington State Chapter.
Now I know allot of you are from Oregon so a Washington State chapter does not "do anything for you." But I will mention that Oregon does have a RFA State Chairman with contact info listed below.
Janice Green
Phone: 541-459-9343
Fax: 530-231-6352 Email: jlgreen@rosenet.net
I have not met Janice, but I know from the website that she is associated with the group "Oregonians for Fish and Fishing", which I also am not familiar with.
The Washington State Co-Chair, and one of our board of directors, is also somewhat local to many of you as he lives in Naselle, WA. His contact info is:
Phil Leshowitz
Phone: 360-484-7278
Phil is presently not online (we are going to have to fix that) but welcomes phone calls from people interested in RFA. Jim is native of New Jersey and has retired out in this area. He is also personal friends with the executive director of RFA, Jim Donofrio, and is the most knowledgeable of the national efforts. As I am writing this he is out on a hunting trip and wont be back until next week if anyone wants to call him.
The other executive board members are:
Bruce Person, Bonnie Lake, WA
Bruce@gamefishin.com
Webmaster, Gamefishin.com
Robert Crocker, Chehalis, WA, rc@toledotel.com
Political Activist extraordinaire
Jim Culver, Bain Bridge Island, WA
bpjculver@bainbridgeisland.net
Also,
President Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group
For some background, RFA is a national grass roots political activists group of over 75,000 members fighting for the rights of sportsfishers. We are not a fishing club or an environmental group. There are enough of those to go around. We are down in the trenches making sure politicians know that there are allot of anglers out there, and we all vote.
We are non-profit, but not like most of the organizations you are familiar with. Our non-profit status is 501(C)(4). This has some advantages and disadvantages. I am not an expert in this area but being (C)(4) (-Vs- (C)(3)) allows us to both have full time lobbyists and endorse political candidates. This is important. The commercial fishing industry spends the money to have over 30 lobbyists working for them in Washington DC. Recreational interest have 3 lobbyists, RFA has 2 of them.
For those of you who are not totally familiar with grass roots. It just means that we count on allot of our members to be willing to write their politicians and become somewhat politically active for the good of the fish and the good of your sport. But RFA makes this easy with post card campaigns and other mass mailing campaigns so you won't have to spend all your time writing letters. Bruce will soon be working on a web-based letter writer so you can send off correspondence with only a few clicks.
The reason we need this group in the Northwest is that we simply can not accomplish everything we need to with only local efforts. As you can plainly see with the spring Chinook allocation issue, the National Marine Fisheries Service has their hands in our fisheries all over the northwest. The Pacific fisheries Management Council has been involved as well. We need an organization that has both national and local influence and credibility. When we develop a large membership base in the northwest that is exactly what we will be.
Another problem has been that local sportfishing organizations have all been somewhat deviled because they have been forced to take a position on those "hot issues" that tend to divide us anglers. You will find none of that with RFA. We don't care if you use a sled or walk the bank, eat wild steelhead or release wild steelhead, etc...
You are and angler, you are the primary user of the resource, you deserve the majority allocation of the resource, and you vote.
I hope at least I have peaked your interest. Please take a minute to look at both the local and national websites at www.gamefishin.com/members/rfa (http://www.gamefishin.com/members/rfa) and www.savefish.com (http://www.savefish.com)
If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me or post on the board. I will check back regularly.
Mike Gilchrist, Federal Way, WA
thinker@gamefishin.every1.net
PS If anyone plans on visiting the Seattle boat show on Saturday, Bruce and I will Both be there. We will have RFA flyers and quarterly newsletters (about the size of a Washington state voters pamphlet)to hand out to anyone interested. The shows came up too quick this year to secure booths, but we will be wearing RFA T-shirts so we can be picked out. Follow the link for an idea of what the T-shirts will say.
http://www.gamefishin.com/members/RFA/pics/tshirt.gif
My name is Mike Gilchrist and I am helping bring the influence of the RFA into the Northwest in the form of a Washington State Chapter.
Now I know allot of you are from Oregon so a Washington State chapter does not "do anything for you." But I will mention that Oregon does have a RFA State Chairman with contact info listed below.
Janice Green
Phone: 541-459-9343
Fax: 530-231-6352 Email: jlgreen@rosenet.net
I have not met Janice, but I know from the website that she is associated with the group "Oregonians for Fish and Fishing", which I also am not familiar with.
The Washington State Co-Chair, and one of our board of directors, is also somewhat local to many of you as he lives in Naselle, WA. His contact info is:
Phil Leshowitz
Phone: 360-484-7278
Phil is presently not online (we are going to have to fix that) but welcomes phone calls from people interested in RFA. Jim is native of New Jersey and has retired out in this area. He is also personal friends with the executive director of RFA, Jim Donofrio, and is the most knowledgeable of the national efforts. As I am writing this he is out on a hunting trip and wont be back until next week if anyone wants to call him.
The other executive board members are:
Bruce Person, Bonnie Lake, WA
Bruce@gamefishin.com
Webmaster, Gamefishin.com
Robert Crocker, Chehalis, WA, rc@toledotel.com
Political Activist extraordinaire
Jim Culver, Bain Bridge Island, WA
bpjculver@bainbridgeisland.net
Also,
President Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group
For some background, RFA is a national grass roots political activists group of over 75,000 members fighting for the rights of sportsfishers. We are not a fishing club or an environmental group. There are enough of those to go around. We are down in the trenches making sure politicians know that there are allot of anglers out there, and we all vote.
We are non-profit, but not like most of the organizations you are familiar with. Our non-profit status is 501(C)(4). This has some advantages and disadvantages. I am not an expert in this area but being (C)(4) (-Vs- (C)(3)) allows us to both have full time lobbyists and endorse political candidates. This is important. The commercial fishing industry spends the money to have over 30 lobbyists working for them in Washington DC. Recreational interest have 3 lobbyists, RFA has 2 of them.
For those of you who are not totally familiar with grass roots. It just means that we count on allot of our members to be willing to write their politicians and become somewhat politically active for the good of the fish and the good of your sport. But RFA makes this easy with post card campaigns and other mass mailing campaigns so you won't have to spend all your time writing letters. Bruce will soon be working on a web-based letter writer so you can send off correspondence with only a few clicks.
The reason we need this group in the Northwest is that we simply can not accomplish everything we need to with only local efforts. As you can plainly see with the spring Chinook allocation issue, the National Marine Fisheries Service has their hands in our fisheries all over the northwest. The Pacific fisheries Management Council has been involved as well. We need an organization that has both national and local influence and credibility. When we develop a large membership base in the northwest that is exactly what we will be.
Another problem has been that local sportfishing organizations have all been somewhat deviled because they have been forced to take a position on those "hot issues" that tend to divide us anglers. You will find none of that with RFA. We don't care if you use a sled or walk the bank, eat wild steelhead or release wild steelhead, etc...
You are and angler, you are the primary user of the resource, you deserve the majority allocation of the resource, and you vote.
I hope at least I have peaked your interest. Please take a minute to look at both the local and national websites at www.gamefishin.com/members/rfa (http://www.gamefishin.com/members/rfa) and www.savefish.com (http://www.savefish.com)
If you have questions, feel free to e-mail me or post on the board. I will check back regularly.
Mike Gilchrist, Federal Way, WA
thinker@gamefishin.every1.net
PS If anyone plans on visiting the Seattle boat show on Saturday, Bruce and I will Both be there. We will have RFA flyers and quarterly newsletters (about the size of a Washington state voters pamphlet)to hand out to anyone interested. The shows came up too quick this year to secure booths, but we will be wearing RFA T-shirts so we can be picked out. Follow the link for an idea of what the T-shirts will say.
http://www.gamefishin.com/members/RFA/pics/tshirt.gif