By Ben Allen
Effective July 1, Chautauqua and Elk County Extension Offices joined forces to become the Rolling Prairie Extension District. Prior to that date, work had begun on combining different areas of the 4-H programs of both counties. One of those areas was the shooting sports program.

This past March, Shane Signor, Brad Monday, Dave Kelly, Jason Black and Vicki Kelly all attended a three day training to become certified instructors. Instructions can now be given in shotgun, archery, pistol and rifle. Donations of money and equipment have been received and organizational and safety meetings are being held.

The Rolling Prairie Shooting Sports would like to invite interested youth to come and enjoy the program.

They would also like to thank the many donors who have helped get the program up and running: Howard State Bank, Bank of Sedan, Bank of Moline, Bank of Cedar Vale, Kimarjo’s, Caney Valley Electric, Short Stop in Cedar Vale, Diamond Bar D Ranch, Cedar Vale Lions Club, and H&H Hunting.

If you would like to support the Shooting Sports Program or have interested youth ages 7-19, call 725-5890 or 374-2174 for more information.

I have set this poll up so that you have only 1 vote.. BUT…..you have the option of changing your vote until the ending date – which will be  Monday August 4th.

At this time.. I will give the results of this poll and all the ideas, and relevant suggestions to the members of the Howard City Council.

Please feel free to continue to  voice your opinions whatever they may be on this subject. PLEASE keep this thread on topic.

VOTE AND READ THE DISCUSSIONS HERE!

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kansas’s 425,000 hunters and anglers are among the most prominent and influential of all demographic groups, spending more than $607 million a year on hunting and fishing, according to a new report.

The new report, “Hunting and Fishing: Bright Stars of the American Economy ~ A force as big as all outdoors,” spotlights the immense impact hunters and anglers have on the economy at the national and state level.

In Kansas, spending by hunters and anglers directly supports 11,400 jobs, which puts $300 million worth of paychecks into pockets of working residents around the state. Of course, government coffers also benefit — spending by sportsmen in pursuit of these outdoor activities generates $61 million in state and local taxes. These latest figures demonstrate that season after season hunters and anglers are driving the economy from big businesses to rural towns, through booms and recessions.

“Because sportsmen enjoy hunting or fishing alone or in small groups, they are overlooked as a constituency and as a substantial economic force,” stated Jeff Crane, president of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation. “When you compare spending by hunters and anglers to other sectors, their impact on the state’s economy becomes more tangible.”

• Sportsmen support more jobs in Kansas than Scanlon’s and Kansas State University combined (11,400 jobs vs. 9,030).
• Annual spending by Kansas sportsmen is more than the revenues of Alexander Open Systems, Crossland Construction and Enturia – the state’s fastest growing companies ($607 million vs. $603 million).
• Annual spending by Kansas sportsmen is more than the cash receipts for soybeans, one of the state’s top agricultural commodities ($607 million vs. $550 million).
• Kansas sportsmen outnumber the population of Wichita, the state’s largest city (425,000 vs. 355,000).
• Sportsmen in Kansas could fill Kansas Speedway five times (425,000 vs. 82,000).
• The economic stimulus of hunting and fishing equates to an astounding $1.6 million a day being pumped into the state’s economy.

“Spending by sportsmen benefits not only the manufacturers of hunting and fishing related products, but everything from local mom and pop businesses to wildlife conservation,” noted Doug Painter, president of National Shooting Sports Foundation. “And because most hunting and fishing takes place in rural areas, much of the spending benefits less affluent parts of the state.”

On the national level, 34 million sportsmen age 16 and older spent more than $76 billion in 2006, supporting 1.6 million jobs. If a single corporation grossed as much as hunters and anglers spend, it would be among America’s 20 largest, ahead of Target, Costco and AT&T. And if all hunters and anglers had voted during the last presidential election, they would have equaled 31 percent of all votes cast. If all hunters and anglers living in Kansas voted, they would have equaled 55 percent of all votes cast in the state.

These statistics are impressive and, if anything, they underestimate the impact of sportsmen since they do not take into account the millions of hunters and anglers under 16 years of age or people who were not able to get out and hunt or fish in 2006. When sportsmen’s spending is thought of in business terms and compared to other sectors of the economy, it is quite remarkable. From small rural towns scattered across our country’s landscape to the bottom-line of Fortune 500 companies located in major cities, if you take away hunting and fishing you take away the equivalent of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

“It is a fairly simple equation – hunters and anglers mean jobs in states and local communities that have made the effort to maintain their hunting and fishing opportunities,” said Crane. “The economic impacts that sportsmen have on state economies should be a wake-up call to state governments to welcome and encourage hunting and fishing in their state.”

The report, “Hunting and Fishing: Bright Stars of the American Economy ~ A force as big as all outdoors,” was produced by the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation with support from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, National Marine Manufacturers Association, National Shooting Sports Foundation and SCI – First For Hunters. The report uses the results from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation and statistics provided by the American Sportfishing Association and Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

The report: “Hunting and Fishing: Bright Stars of the American Economy ~ A force as big as all outdoors” along with STATE FACTS are available on the Web at
www.sportsmenslink.org and www.nssf.org

For more information or questions contact: Melinda Gable 202-302-4794 or at Melinda@sportsmenslink.org

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About CSF
CSF is the most respected and trusted hunting and fishing organization in the political arena. With support from every major hunting and fishing organization, CSF is the leader in promoting sportsmen’s issues with elected officials. CSF works directly with the bi-partisan, bi-cameral Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus in the U.S. Congress, as well as affiliated state sportsmen’s caucuses in state legislatures around the country.

About NSSF
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the shooting, hunting and firearms industry whose purpose is to provide trusted leadership in addressing industry challenges. NSSF concentrates efforts on measurably advancing participation in and understanding of hunting and the shooting sports; reaffirming and strengthening their members’ commitment to the safe and responsible use of their products; and promoting a political climate supportive of America’s traditional firearms rights.

I will just cover some of the methods in this blog post and if time allows, I will follow up later with some more details.

Here is a tip from PC World:

Converting your old analog VHS and 8mm videotapes to digital and then burning them onto playable DVD discs–is a great way to start. DVDs don’t degrade a little every time you play them like analog tapes do. And DVD is just a lot more convenient than VHS.

Before you can start copying all of that footage onto digital media, you need some way to capture all of the video in your PC. I’m assuming you already have an IEEE 1394 port (also called FireWire or i.Link) on your PC. Many new computers come with an IEEE 1394 port, but if yours doesn’t have one you can buy an easy-to-install IEEE 1394 add-in card for around $70.

The IEEE 1394 port will help you transfer video from any Mini-DV or Digital8 camcorder to your PC and store it on the hard disk. Your old camcorder or VCR doesn’t have an IEEE 1394 connection. So what do you do?

Take a look at your new digital camcorder. Many have analog inputs. If yours does, it’s a snap to transfer the video. Just pop an analog tape into your VCR and connect its outputs to the digital camcorder’s analog inputs. Next, plug the camcorder into the PC’s IEEE 1394 port.

When you’re ready to capture, set the camcorder to playback mode and press the Play button on the VCR. The video will go from the VCR to the camcorder, where it’ll pass through the IEEE 1394 cable into the PC. If you start your video capture software and begin recording, you can capture the entire tape in digital format on your PC’s hard disk.

If your movies are in 8mm or Hi8 format, you have a simpler option: Today’s Digital8 camcorders can play those older formats just fine. That means you don’t have to rig a Rube Goldberg-style plumbing system from your VCR to your camcorder to your PC. Instead, just put your old Hi8 tape in the camcorder, press Play, and capture the video in digital format on your PC.

Finally, now that the video is on your PC, all you need is some DVD production software to finish the job. DVD software can help you break the video into chapters, add menus at the beginning of the disc, and write the whole video to a recordable DVD using your PC’s DVD-R drive.

To date, the only consumer drives capable of writing to the widely compatible DVD-R write-once format have been DVD-RW and the latest-generation DVD-RAM models. Soon, however, second-generation DVD+RW drives will offer the capability to write to DVD+R write-once discs. Industry experts suggest that movies on both DVD-R and DVD+R discs should be compatible with about 85 percent of home DVD players. Movies put on DVD-RW and DVD+RW rewritable discs, on the other hand, tend to work with only about half the home DVD players out there. Of course, compatibility is less likely with older DVD players.

Some good DVD production packages include Pinnacle Systems’ Pinnacle Express (about $34), Sonic Solutions’ MyDVD ($79), and Ulead’s DVD MovieFactory (about $44).

Personally, I have a Sony Camcorder that does not use tape of any kind. It has a hard drive like the one you have in your computer. When I convert VHS tapes to digital, I simply connect the camcorder to VHS player and record it directly. Then I simply copy the movie files in the camcorder to the computer through a USB cable.

As soon as you have your movie files on the computer or on a DVD, you have the option of edit the footage into small video clips and upload it on youTube, etc.

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Whether you are representing the city, the county, a local organization, church or just yourself, you have at your hand a most effective and inexpensive tool to get the word out. All it takes, is the time to write a post, article or blog. You can do it all on this very web site using the posting features on the forum, or if you are given access to the article/blog manager, the ‘write post feature’ for our front page.

The Forum

As a registered member on the forum, you are able to post announcements on our Announcement board . Our forum help section can guide you through the whole process from registering, reply to posts and how to post new topics or announcements.

Highlight the announcement on the front page

On December 1, we changed the layout of the site and installed wordpress, a popular software used by bloggers and news organizations. This makes it possible to retrieve important posts from the forum and also to add/post article on the front page.

Bloggers

Do you like to write about special events or simply like to share your thoughts as a blogger? Here’s the definition from Wikipedia: Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

All this is now available on the Elk County site and all you need is access to the wordpress section.

Examples of use

• Howard City Office: A representative can post news and announcements on the forum or be given access to the wordpress manager. We can have a category on the front page called News from the Howard City Office and all posts will be archived in that category.
• Are you in charge of a committee planning and organizing an upcoming event? The same routine applies. Keep us informed through the forum or through a special news category on the front page.

Some final words

This medium is not only an online community builder. It can be used as a platform to build a better community or communities in Elk County. It is here to be used and hey, this is the best part……. it’s free!

If you have any questions, let us know and we will do our best to answer them and to help you out.

Kjell & Teresa