President’s Greeting for OutRyders 2025-26 Season

Welcome Back OUTRYDERS! Normally, your dedicated board members have a more leisurely late Spring and Summer and not much goes on behind the OutRyders scenes…but not THIS year!

• How about a newly revamped, user-friendly website? CHECK!
• Wouldn’t an OutRyders App be so much easier than Slack? CHECK! (Coming soon!)
• Want to plan your season early and sign up sooner? How about September to join and order ALL trips? CHECK!
• Wanna go to Tremblant and have a better dining experience and après where we can all celebrate TOGETHER? DONE!
• Shall I go on? You hopefully get the sense that we have been busy trying to make the 2025-26 OutRyders season the best yet!

But don’t worry, your favorite trips are returning: Tremblant, Sunday River Pride Weekend, Sugarbush Pride Weekend, and Killington. And we added a late season JAY PEAK weekend! We also planned a major trip out west to Steamboat. Make sure you lock in your spot NOW as we only have room for 26 people. Plus, we have lots of other double- and single-day trips too! Kick off the season with a Stratton weekend in December. Cannon/Loon in January. Mount Snow Pride Day in Feb, Magic/Okemo on tap for early March, plus dates for a Wa-Wa-chusett night and hopefully a X-C weekend or at least day trip still in planning!

Many of you said the membership levels were confusing. We listened. We have streamlined the levels for you this year. But please remember, we need your membership fees to make this a great club. We only cover our costs on trips, and we must pay all these mountains and hotels $1,000’s up front to secure great deals for you, so PLEASE sign up at the highest level that you are comfortable with. And for the truly passionate, we have removed the Platinum level. That is replaced with a DONATE HERE button. Please give a little extra if you can. Website upgrades and a new App are not free, and basic membership covers exactly that: the basics. Your generosity is much appreciated.

Finally, JOIN!! JOIN SOON!! Again, we have listened to you and worked hard to open the season sign-ups early. Will we still have an OPENING PARTY? How about TWO OPENING PARTIES? NYC at The Dickens on Friday, November 7 and Boston the following Friday, November 14^th at Club Café. And don’t forget about Snowbound Expo on Nov 14-16^th!

OK, just one last thing. We are under assault from the very people that were elected and institutions that were created to protect us. But we are a STRONG COMMUNITY! We take every letter of LGBTQIA+ very seriously. We unwaveringly are DEI and damn proud of it! We also take our Code of Conduct seriously. Please make sure to read it. With all the unsafe spaces out there, OutRyders will ALWAYS be a warm and friendly environment that you can feel totally yourself in.

Welcome back all you past members and the new folks reading this…you are in for a lifechanging experience! Let’s get this skiing and riding season started!

Your Prez, Marty