Montgomery County Road Runners Club

Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting

Meeting of March 3, 2005

Called to order: 7:05

Present: Jean Arthur, Christina Kichula, Gary Resnick, Bill Riggs, Craig Roodenburg, Jim Rich, Janet Newburgh, Marty Horan

Invited Guests: Christina Caravoulias

Minutes Prepared By: Gary Resnick, Secretary

1. Review Agenda

a) No new items

2. Review MCRRC Calendar

a) Greenway Trails Marathon - March 5

b) Frozen Slopes - March 13

c) Super Sligo - March 19

d) Piece of Cake - March 26

3. Minutes of the Previous Meeting

a) Make minor revisions correcting names in the minutes

b) Motion to accept minutes, Jean moved, Bill seconded, unanimous

4. Business between Meetings

a) On February 17, 2004, Jean presented to the Board for their approval, as per the club By-Laws, the following people to serve on the 2005 Nominating Committee:

i) Christina Caravoulias

ii) Lyman Jordan

iii) Ritchie Weiss

iv) Kimberly Price

v) Bob Price

vi) John Sissala

b) Jean also nominated John Sissala as chair of the Nominating Committee.

c) The By-Laws state that every year the president must name a committee of at least two people and the chair person to form the Nominating Committee. According to the By-Laws, ìthe Nominating Committee shall prepare a list of candidates for the positions to be elected at the Annual Business Meeting.î

d) Board members noted that while the Nominating Committee presented its list of candidates to the President as required, the Board had not been presented with nor asked to give approval of the members of the Nominating Committee. Thus, Jean asked Board members for their vote on approving the individuals selected for the Nominating Committee.

e) MOTION: To approve the above members of the Nominating Committee. The vote, taken via email, was 6 in favor and 3 against. The motion passes.

5. Business Involving Invited Guest

a) Election – nominating committee slate & discuss election process (Christina Caravoulias)

i) Christina Caravoulias is attending the meeting, acting for John Sissala, Chair of the Nominating Committee, who is out of town

ii) Jean will post the slate to the club members

iii) Christina will discuss the election process at the annual meeting

iv) By-Laws state there has to be a quorum of 12 members

v) It was not clear whether the Nominating Committee is in charge of running the election, but Christina said that the chair of the Nominating Committee, John Sissala, will make a statement and hand out biographical sketches of all nominees for each position

vi) No new nominations can come from the floor at the meeting because there is a club By-Law stating that all potential candidates must notify the President no later than 14 days before the meeting (used to be 7 days).

vii) The slate plus other candidates who notified the President that they plan to run will be listed on MCRUN and the web site

viii) A formal ballot will be prepared with all of the candidates names, in alphabetical order, and members will be instructed to select five of six candidates for the Member-At-Large slots (there are five on the slate plus one candidate – Bill Riggs – who notified the President that he plans to run)

ix) There will be an opportunity for candidates to speak if they want to

x) Someone not on the Nominating Committee or the Board will count the ballots and the winners will be announced

6. Treasurer's Report

a) The total cash in MCRRC accounts, as of February 28 (not including Marathon in the Parks, Pikeís Peek, and HYR accounts) was the following:

i) Checking $8,375.79

ii) Savings $29,102.12

iii) Savings – Clubhouse $3,450.87

iv) Legg Mason $31,175.46

v) Merrill Lynch $15.75 (as of January 31, 2005)

b) TOTAL Bank Accounts $72,119.99

c) Marathon in the Parks Bank Accounts: (as of February 28, 2005)

i) Checking $13,205.03

ii) Savings  $ 2,861.15
d) TOTAL Bank Accounts  $16,066.18

e) Pikes Peek Bank Accounts (as of March 1, 2005)

i)  Checking  $ 31,156.43
ii) Savings  $2,062.26

f) TOTAL Bank Accounts $33,218.69

g) HYR Bank Account (as of January 4, 2005)

i)  Checking  $7,747.69
h) TOTAL Bank Accounts   $7,747.69

i) January Financial Information:

i) The January financial statements indicate a net loss of $8,826.25. Significant income was received from:

… Membership dues $2,710.00

… RMS $839.46

j) Significant expenses included:

… Payroll $1,224.87

… Team Programs $1,782.94 (Awards, e.g., clothing & entry fee for Club Challenge)

… Recognition Programs $2,942.84

… Awards Party $4,363.97

k) Budget Items:

i) Membership dues down this month (~$2,000 below budget)

ii) Awards Party ~$900.00 over budget for 2005 to date. Mical Honigfort will prepare complete report.

l) Old Action Items:

i) CDs purchased with $20,000. Four $5000 CDs. One 3 mo, one 6 mo, one 9 mo, and one 1 yr (CD laddering). As the CDs come due, a 1 yr CD will be purchased, so that the CDs will continue rolling with one due every 3 months. The other $11000 is in an interest earning account at 1.5%. – Complete

ii) Prepare for end of year reconciliation and upcoming tax filings.

iii) Forms signed for Legg-Mason. – Complete

iv) Transfer $2,344.84from checking to Clubhouse saving from Holiday Party Auction. – Complete

v) Transfer $10,000 plus cone money into Legg Mason account. 

7. Apportionment / Committee Reports

8. Unfinished Business:

a) Volunteer Notification System – update & discussion

i) Janet described the new web-based system designed by Pam Clark that allows a centralized registration system and database, and notifies race directors whenever someone volunteers

ii) Question arose as to whether race directors can query system, suggestion instead was to have one coordinator to query the system

iii) Two emails go out, the volunteer and the race director, so race director immediately knows who wants to volunteer

b) Most Improved Runner Award – additional info from Ron Ely

i) Email sent by Ron Ely: I'm assuming you want an "objective" way of measuring it. It would be possible just to do it subjectively, have people be nominated and write a justification why someone deserves it and have the awards committee decide.   But I can see that some might criticize it as being arbitrary.  A more objective way I was thinking of would be: a) to be eligible, someone must have been a member for 2 full calendar years and have run at least 4 of *the same* club races in two consecutive years. You could base it on major non-club races as well although that might make it more complex.  It would be up to the person doing the nominating to state *which* races they thought justified the award. b) someone must first be nominated c) The races would be ranked as a % improvement in race time.  (ie if  someone ran 60 minutes at pikes peak one year and 45 minutes the next, that  would be a 60/45 = 1.3333, or a 33.3% improvement. ).  The sum of the best four improvement percentages is the person's total score. d) the award goes to the highest score in each category.  Categories might be M/F under 40, 40-59, 60+ (based on age in the second year).  If there are no eligible nominees in a category there would be no award.  I sort of assumed that nominations and requiring multiple race times would help weed out aberrations due to injury etc.  However if you wanted to  limit it to participants in one of the club's training programs in order to promote those programs that seems like it would be fair game.  In that case you might want to put the coach of each training program in charge of selecting or nominating the "most improved" participant in their own program and just give one award per program, and just base the results on the target race(s) for that program.

ii) the Board saw this plan as overly complicated and also that percentage improvements are not uniform across running times or ability levels

iii) suggestion is that a committee be formed made of the coaches from training programs

iv) Board should not have to come up with the criteria but only "bless" whatever the committee approves

v) the Board agreed that there should be subjective criteria, discussed among the head coaches and some other key people

vi) also perhaps stipulate a volunteer component

vii) Action Item: Jean will follow-up with Ron Ely

c) Review Action Items from February 3, 2005 board meeting

i) Equipment Needs (Janet ): Jean talked with Lyman Jordan about selection of a sound system, Lyman is working on it, Jean is working on the time machine but will wait until the sound system is purchased

ii) MCRRC position on removal of Bikepath from ICC plan; the County Council voted to keep the bike path, a letter will be sent to the State, it is up to the State but the County Council will ask the State to keep the bike path; complete

iii) Runner Safety Awareness (Janet): Janet described work on a new runner matching program (see New Business), spear-headed by Pat Taylor. Jodi Finkelstein is working with Christina Caravoulias on a Runner Safety column for the Rundown.

iv) Leadership Development (Bill): Race director's clinic is scheduled for Sat. April 30

v) Marathon in the Parks cancellation was noted in the Post and the Times, with low-key marathon replacing it for 2005

vi) Brochure (Jean): Jean sent an email saying that the new brochures are in the shed

vii) Request for auctioning club membership (Jean): Jean has taken care of them following Board approval last meeting

9. New Business

a) Illuminite Sales (Jim)

i) Illuminite Jackets, which were race director's gifts, Jim wants to know if the Board wants to pursue a deal directly with Illuminite

ii) Board agreed that we want to stay with R&J, and Marty noted that R&J do not have any agreement with Illuminite, so the Board should only consider working with R&J

iii) Question arose about the success of the club clothing program, and it was agreed we should wait until a full season has passed in order to evaluate how it has done

b) Partner Matching System

i) Janet handed out an email summarizing the system, which was developed by Pat Taylor and Jodi Finkelstein.

ii) The county will be divided geographically for purposes the program, possibly aligning the divisions with the County Police barracks to have a more targeted means of notification of incidents in a certain area.

iii) The program will be advertised through the clubs communication lines.

iv) Interested parties will provide their information to the program coordinators or volunteers (Name, email, phone, zip code, gender, typical training pace, typical running time of day, etc. -- details TBD).

v) The parties involved will be sent the current list of participants and corresponding information for their particular "district" (see #1 above, a geographic area defined by County Police barracks). This is where the program hands the responsibility to the participants.

vi) Participants then call or email the other participants that meet their criteria to set up logistics. As for implementing the logistics of this program, we're thinking that all the participants in a given area would subscribe to a Yahoo group that is specific to that area. This would meet several needs:

… Communication between participants in their own area

… Communication between program coordinators and participants concerning safety issues or incidents

… Provide a community atmosphere for each area group

… Provide a means for distribution of updated participant lists when new participants join the program.

… Provide easy and simple control (to the group administrator) over distribution of the list

… Minimize or eliminate MCRRC website maintenance and work required of volunteer webmaster.

vii) Pat Taylor and Jodi Finkelstein are currently investigating some of the details, such as whether the ìYahoo groupsî service has a calendar feature for users to maintain their own schedule of group runs. Jodi Finkelstein volunteered to coordinate logistics for the eastern portion of the county, while Pat Taylor would do the same for the western side.

viii) The system is still being set up and some of these issues/choices have not yet been resolved. The group will continue to refine their ideas and Janet will report back to the Board next month. Comments from the Board and club members are always welcome.

c) RRCA Convention & Payment to RRCA Rep

i) Proposal to raise payment from $200 to $225-$250. (Jean)

ii) Jean passed around the announcement about the convention, May 12-15, we did not send anyone last year in the past we have done it on case by case basis as far as sending anyone

iii) Jean suggested we raise the amount to give RRCA rep, because this helps the Womenís Distance Festival as well as the MD Grand Prix race series, it covers awards and party following WDF

iv) We should also consider trying to get Rockville 10K as a key race for the race series

v) Motion: Board to give RRCA state rep $250 this year instead of $200, Janet moved, Bill seconded, unanimous

d) Leader of Beginning Womenís Program. (Jean)

i) Sethiya Renwick was leading the program but finds she cannot continue in this capacity.

ii) In the interim Valerie Grasso has agreed to lead the beginning women's program, while Janet and the Board will look for someone for the following year

iii) Action Item: Janet will try to find a more longer-term replacement to lead this program

e) Link on MCRRC website to MD Grand Prix Series. (Jean)

i) This was discussed at the President's meeting after the RRCA Challenge race with a suggestion to put a link on the website to the other races in the series because a lot of people don't know about the Grand Prix series or the races involved (one race put on by each club in MD RRCA)

ii) One additional suggestion during Board discussion was to feature the most current or upcoming race from the Series, but this will take some work and perhaps it may put too much of a burden on our web mistress or someone else

iii) Board agreed to add a link to the MD Grand Prix series on the club web site

f) Advertising other races on MCRRC website. (Jean)

i) Suggestion was to have a calendar of races on the web site

ii) The main issue is that there are other sources of calendars for local races, although their quality may not be high

iii) The Board noted it is not something that will help the club per se, unless we wanted to draw a wider audience to the web site; it might be something to consider in the future, as a public service, but calendars are very difficult to maintain and ensure accuracy, so this would take a lot of work, we would need a champion if we were to do this idea

g) RRCA Challenge Scoring (Bill)

i) Bill raised the issue of how the RRCA Challenge race was scored, and the gender bias with few women being included in the scoring, this year it was only four women who scored from each club, vs. 17 men

ii) Action Item: Jean will talk to RRCA National Executive Director

h) Bylaw change (Jean)

i) Last yearís board approved a change to the By-Laws allowing the Race Director and Treasurer of the Halloween Young Run, Pike's Peak, Marathon In The Parks to sign checks for certain large races

ii) However, the change was not voted on by club membership.

iii) This By-Law change will be introduced at the upcoming annual meeting for club to vote on it

i) Celebrate Rural Montgomery – discuss proposed partnership. (Jean)

i) Jean sent out an email from Andrea Arnold of ìRural Montgomery County Awarenessî for the club to help promote the Rural Montgomery County Awareness, 21st Century Celebration this year

ii) The club would pass out brochures at races while the Rural Montgomery County group will also advertise club races and the club may include the group's logo in the specific race ads

iii) Little Bennett, Comus Cross-county and Riley's rumble are three races within the Montgomery County agricultural reserve

iv) The Board agreed that this would be a good partnership for the club and to help this group.

j) Water Main Replacement along Beach Drive (Jim)

i) Jim attended a meeting regarding the replacement of water main along Beach Drive and the Rock Creek Trail

ii) The water main will link water from PG county to the Potomac River

iii) During construction there will be considerable disruption to the trail, with the amount of time depending on whether they use a tunnel or an open-cut, but Beach Drive itself may also be affected for considerable periods of time, from Grosvenor to Stony Brook.

iv) Jim felt that the disruption would be temporary and not greatly affect the Trail

10. Announcements

a) Bill said that in the RRCA Challenge the womenís team finished second and the men's team finished third, but attendance was down even with good weather, but we still had 108 club members run the race

b) Craig announced club members took 3rd place in men's master's relay at the GW Marathon Relay

c) Cathy Guerrieri as the Sunshine Fund coordinator will send something from the club to Ruth Pierce who is ill

11. Closure

a) Review Action Items

i) Most Improved Runner Award: Jean to contact Ron Ely regarding Board's suggestions about Most Improved Runner award

ii) Beginning Women's running program coordinator: Janet will try to find a more longer-term replacement to lead this program

iii) Scoring of the RRCA Challenge Race: Jean will talk to RRCA Executive Director about the gender bias in the current scoring system for this race

b) Motions Passed

i) Nominating Committee: the Board approves the Presidentís selection of members to serve on this yearís Nominating Committee, passed 6 in favor, 3 against

ii) Increasing payment to RRCA State Representative: Board agreed to increase the payment to the RRCA state representative to $250 this year instead of $200, passed unanimously

c) Review Plans for Next Meeting April 7, 2005, at 6:30 pm at 100 Maryland Ave, 5th Floor conference room.  

Meeting Adjourned:  8:53 pm

Gary Resnick Secretary, Montgomery County Road Runners Club