With the GPAA-AMRA partnership for land rights in accordance to the grants of the Mining Act being on the forefront, I would like to take some of your time to share with you what has been going on behind the scenes between AMRA and the GPAA in the regards to mining claims.
As you know, GPAA President Brandon Johnson has committed for $50,000 in funding for American Mining Rights’ (AMRA) upcoming legal action. This sound, forwarding-thinking plan will affect change across the board concerning land rights. Shortly thereafter, AMRA President, Shannon Poe contacted me to discuss a plan that he considered a “Thank you GPAA” for supporting AMRA’s aggressive plan to secure prospecting and small-scale mining’s future.
As of October 8, 2018, Shannon has quitclaimed one of his personal claims to me and this will be included into the GPAA inventory as a full GPAA-AMRA Shared Claim. Shannon is in the process of quitclaiming an additional claim and filing others to the GPAA which will take a few weeks because we are working diligently on other aspects of the claim’s partnership.
Since my first conversation with Shannon, Jere Clements, the AMRA Chief Research Officer and I have been working together to locate either new areas to claim or for current AMRA claims to fill in gaps to better serve members based on geographic locations. Our goal has been to open claims in areas that we (the GPAA/AMRA) would like to open for members of both organizations to use for prospecting.
Jere has identified three areas on my behalf encompassing almost one thousand acres and has researched these areas extensively to assure that they are open for claiming and that we are able to assure ingress to our members. As Jere supplies these areas to me, I have begun further researching the areas to drill down on the historical gold values and the different types of prospecting that members will best benefit from for recovery. From there, it is boots-on-the-ground prospecting by groups of GPAA and AMRA members (which the majority are one and the same) to prospect and make decisions as a group on the viability of the claims before offering it to our members.
This is as always, slow and tedious work but with the resources of AMRA and the GPAA focused on creating these opportunities we are making quick work of locating a number of claim possibilities. I had called together a team of members to prospect two of these areas over the weekend of October 6thbut had to cancel the outing over safety concerns due to the recent flooding from Rosa which cut a very wide path through Arizona and Southern California over the last week.
We will not slowdown in this partnership. Jere and I are working to identify areas in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and Oregon that will become claims for the GPAA and have joint-use membership. This will bring new membership to both organizations and most importantly, will increase involvement of members as the momentum grows within the mining community to preserve our rights for our freedom to prospect and mine.
In Shannon Poe’s posting to the AMRA Facebook page today he states, “We need to unite, end the division in our community and join hands. Truly, honestly and sincerely join together and fight like our lives depend on it.” I could not agree more. For those of you that have heard me over the years as I carried my soap box around to talk about land rights, you have heard mesay countless times, “Nothing will ever be truly accomplished until there is one movement of tens of thousands of voices working for the common good of all.” I have practically begged land groups to come together to save and in many cases, to reverse overreach of policies and acts that hinder or forbid you and I from exercising our rights granted to us in the small-scale mining industry.
The most exciting event that I can think of in the last two decades was the recent meeting in Sacramento when the majority of land rights groups accepted the invitation to come together in a conference room to do one thing and that was to work together to “create one mission, one message of thousands of voices.” I will call this a ground-breaking event for the fact that for one day groups from around the western states put aside their own ideas and opened dialog and began working to create a plan for the betterment of all.
Unfortunately, this will all be for naught if we do not support the ultimate goal.
Kevin Hoagland
Executive Director of Development
Gold Prospectors Association of America
Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association
My personal note:
In 1931 Nicholas Murry Butler then President of Columbia University said in a speech on Charter Day, “The world is divided into three kinds of people: a very small group that makes things happen; a somewhat larger group that watches things happen; and a great multitude that never knows what has happened.”
The NRA with around five million members effects policies by just showing up whenever called upon and saying one word, “NO” to control policy. That is who we as prospectors and small-scale miners must strive to become. This is the purest form of the first group, a very small group that makes things happen.
The second group “a somewhat larger group that watches things happen” is made of what I truly believe are people that ultimately act singularly in a manner to preserve our rights but are torn by who or what to support. To many of these folks, they may see it as too many choices with each group saying conflicting things, so they simply sit on the sidelines waiting to jump in only when it seems like the right time to do so.
Lastly, there is a great multitude that never knows what has happened. And I will add “until it is too late.” These are the ones among us that may have given time, support and money but have just given up believing that there will never be any change. Or those that have been influenced to believe that nothing they do will matter, and although they curse the negative outcomes, they are too tired or unaware to offer their support and therefore, resentfully accept the outcomes that are forced upon them.
There is hope for the those in the second and third group as they become a part of the first. Choices will be lessened, outcomes will be positive and as a community we will have one mission, one message and thousands of voices.
These groups that came together in Sacramento to meet, to commit to working together as parts of a whole for the betterment of all, to put aside their own ideology and goals and to open themselves up to the idea of one mission will become the leaders in retaining and reinstating our rights.
Your job will be simple:
· Follow those that lead in retaining and reinstating rights and count every win.
· Ask the hard questions of these leaders and make sure that you understand the answer to make an informed decision.
· When called upon, answer the call - whether it is a phone call to an official or an appearance at a hearing, exercise your right to be heard.
· Make a decision to be one that makes things happen.
Highest regards,
Kevin Hoagland
MINER & CLAIM HOLDER