 The 2025 Ride Flyer by Mimi Stocker WelcomeGreetings, It’s November and the big things keep rolling in for OOFD. As you can see, we have our 2025 Overnight Dates and flyer ready. We are about to start a big fundraising campaign with a matching donor already lined up. And we officially have brought Glenn on to full-time Executive Director! Read on for more details on all of this as well as heaps of gratitude for our 3 Star New Volunteers of 2024 and all of the cool stuff we’ve been up to this month.  The OOFD Board of Directors holed up in an Airbnb in Fox Lake, IL for a weekend of big discussions, planning, and dreaming on the OOFD front Big NewsWe thought the big news might slow down as our season slowed down, but that is not the case. As you can see, we have our 2025 dates set and are officially announcing them here to y’all in our newsletter. The even BIGGER NEWS, is that the OOFD Board of Directors finalized the 2025 budget and voted unanimously to bring our part-time Executive Director on to full-time as of November 5th! We set this as a main goal back in 2021 when we started our current 5 year plan as we wanted to move towards being a more sustainable organization. So our Co-Founder, Glenn Schneider, will be able to leave his other part-time job (that he's been at for 7+ years) and focus solely on OOFD which will be providing him with some health care coverage and paid time off. This is a huge step for OOFD and a very long term goal that we set and have accomplished!  A family overnight rider checking out a patch of mushrooms in Ridge Park, Beverly before riding out to Camp Sullivan Photo by Elliot Giving Tuesday and End of the Year DonationsAs we take these big steps to bring on a full-time Executive Director, we are working to level-up and make us a sustainable org that will be around for many years to come. As we do that, we are learning to fundraise. We only accept donations if you believe in adventure and think that getting a diversity of folks out into nature on bikes, learning about local history and nature is a good thing. And this year, we have a generous donor that will match the first $4000 that is donated between today and December 31.  2025 Bike Camping DatesCheck it out! We have our 2025 Adult and Family Overnight dates set. And we even have some amazing art for our 2025 ride flyer already thanks to OOFD volunteer and artist, Mimi Stocker. So while we do still have one more ride this year, Decemberg on December 7-8 (sold out yesterday), above are the 2025 dates to start putting on your calendar. Notice we have a new "Roll to the River: Kankakee State Park" for our Adult Overnights as well as a Camp Dan Beard overnight planned for our Family Program. We are planning to open registration for the rides on Eventbrite in early December so stay tuned.  Volunteer Gratitude - 3 Star New Voluteers of 2024Every year the Volunteer Committee of the OOFD Board chooses Three Star New Volunteers. We had 27 new guides during 2024 (the most ever!) and that class included heaps of most excellent new additions to our volunteer crew. After discussing a number of awesome new guides, the committee wanted to highlight the contributions three folks in particular made to the org. Caitriona, Max, and Mike. Caitriona Pagni simply shows up and helps. We count 5 adult overnights including both big ones (SWMI and Valhalla), a Family overnight, an Adaptive Day Ride, an Adult Day Ride, and a Where the Wild Things Grow ride. That is 5 of our 6 programs! And she brings such a welcoming spirit along with her deadpan humor. She stepped in huge to lead guide on Flock Off the Block. Her spirit of adventure and volunteerism is truly a wonder to behold. Mike Lee has stepped in at crucial points in this season in so many different ways. We count 6 Adult Overnights, 1 WTWTG ride, 3 Adult Day Rides, and a couple of tabling events too. For a few of those events, he happily jumped in to fill a spot that was open including a huge one as lead guide for the Central Starting point for Flock Off the Block. His genuine curiosity and desire to help with our data improvement project and putting his super high level skills to work for OOFD is so next level. His desire to develop himself and the org at the same time is an inspiration. Max Anderson came out to the Monthly Hang last March and was like, “I want to give back to OOFD this year by volunteering.” And he wasn't joking. We count 3 Adult Overnights, 2 Family Overnights, 1 Adaptive Overnight, 1 WTWTG Ride, 2 Adult Day Rides, and 5 of the 6 Adaptive Day rides! He really has become a cornerstone of our Adaptive Program in one short summer. His welcoming attitude and spirit of support and helpfulness fits so well across all of our programs but especially with the Adaptive Program. One of the biggest unknowns when we started our current 5 Year Plan back in 2021 was will we have the volunteers to make all of these rides/growth happen. And this year especially answered that question with a resounding yes. When we are able to bring such stellar folks into the org, it is one of the main indicators that we are on the right track. Heaps of gratitude to all of our stellar volunteer guides and cheers to all the adventures that they've helped make happen for so many people this year.  Thank you to OOFD volunteer Jose Terrazas for again making such an awesome patch for our guides. Volunteer Appreciation Party RecapWe had such a great time at the Volunteer Appreciation Party on Thursday at Sketchbook Brewery in Skokie. Had about 40 folks, our volunteers and some of their plus ones, out for some beverages, food from Pita Inn, lots of gratitude, and even a little karaoke. We had 58 volunteers guide this year and 27 of them were new in 2024! And goodness, these are some of the kindest, coolest folks you could ever dream to go on a bike adventure with. Huge shout out to all of the OOFD guide crew from 2024! And to Jose Terrazas for designing that rad guide patch for the 4th year in a row.  Glenn and KEEN Chicago's Executive Director, Laura Fillenwarth, led a 50 minute breakout group discussion at the Chicago Wilderness Alliance's Congress last Friday about Adaptive Access to Nature. What We've Done in November OOFD Board of Directors Annual Retreat - November 2-4 Every year, the board gets together for a weekend of reflection, high level planning, and recentering on our mission/vision/values. This year we went up to Fox Lake for some big conversations and lots of fun. Monthly Hang at Exchequer - November 5 A smaller but solid turn out to the last hang of the year. Got to enjoy some of the great grub at this gem of a bar downtown and wax poetic on an epic year of bike camping. And we even had a couple printouts of that fresh new 2025 Ride Flyer and did the reveal of the ride line up. Volunteer Appreciation Party - November 14 See above, but we rocked out at Sketchbook Brewery with 40 or so of our volunteers and celebrated the heck out of all the work we did together this year to get tons of folks out on bike adventures. Chicago Wilderness Alliance Session - November 15 We applied to and got a 50 minute session at arguably one of the biggest local nature focused conferences of the year, the CWA Congress, which only happens every other year. This year’s theme was all about partnerships, and so of course, we presented alongside our stellar partner KEEN Chicago and their ED Laura Fillenwarth. Our presentation was called “Adaptive Access to Adventures in Nature” in which we talked about how our adaptive program, specifically our partnership with KEEN Chicago, helped us to be more radically inclusive. Laura also taught some things about how the orgs in attendance can consider increasing their accessibility to nature spaces as well. Tabling at Patagonia Fulton Market - November 17 We set up at Patagonia Fulton Market to get folks hyped about OOFD, and even got to tag on to a Regenerative Coffee Talk with VietFive founder, Tuan Huynh.  Camp Sullivan Family Overnight Campsite Photo by Hope Williams How about that. A November newsletter for a bike non-profit, and it's loaded with exciting news, announcements, and gratitude. So coming up, what should you do:
To close, here’s a lovely quote from Drew Langham who wrote The Home Place (a former OOFD book club selection). “My good is Aldo Leopold’s good: an ethic of inclusion, promoting the wholeness of nature and treating the land and the wild things that live on it as fellow citizens to be respected and nurtured.” Take care y’all, and as always, thanks so much for reading these and for supporting OOFD, its mission, and its people as much as you do. Glenn and the whole OOFD crew  A pic of the Decemberg 2023 crew rolling into to the end at Graceland Cemetery. This year's Decemberg sold-out yesterday with 40 folks set to ride it.
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A Bike Camping + Nature Community for Chicago and the Lake Michigan Area
Founded in 2015. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
www.oofd.org
Founded in 2015. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
www.oofd.org