Club Meeting Minutes
Sun, October 1, 2017

(approved Nov 5, 2017)

Present:  Brenda Groskinsky, Gene Wee, Dee Boeck, John Huchingson, Don and Lori Cackler, Molly Wood, and Karen Hyde.

Brenda called the meeting to order.

We reviewed the minutes from the September meeting.  Gene moved to accept the minutes; Dee seconded, and all agreed.

Gene gave the treasurer’s report.  This month the club received $902.00 in T-day race entry fees.  The end of September balance was $16,025.00.  A full treasurer’s report can be seen on the runLawrence website in the “About Us” section.

Dee gave the T-day race update.  She has been in touch with VanGogh about the awards and will be visiting the Woodlawn PTO on Wednesday, 10/4 to make sure that they’re still planning to secure the Fun Run volunteers.  Joe, the Woodlawn custodian, will be at the school on Wednesday night before the race but will not be there on Thanksgiving morning.  Gene and Dee are still gathering data about shirt sizes and will place the order once more people have signed up for the race.  So far 78 people have signed up.  Gene will need someone to help him load the boxes of shirts into a vehicle to transport them to Ad Astra for packet pick-up and then to transport them to Woodlawn.  Gene will also need someone to help him set up barriers the morning of the race at 5:00 am.  Gene noted that we will not have a police presence at the race and therefore will need two bicyclists to lead the runners.  We will have an ambulance and EMTs on site.

We discussed how to best distribute the shirts at packet pick-up the day before and the morning of the race.  The group decided that since there are 9 different sizes of shirts, we should have 18 boxes in order to be able to group separately the shirts for pre-registered participants.  We emphasized the need to ensure that preregistered participants receive the size of shirt that they requested.

Dee reminded the group that in past years the club has given a check for $200.00 to support the RRCA Kids Run the Nation program.  We neglected to send a check after the 2016 T-day race, so she moved that we send the check now.  Don seconded the motion, and all agreed.

Brenda passed around some materials about the Lawrence Loop.

Brenda briefly talked about the club’s objectives that are stated on the road map document (see a copy in the “About Us” section on the website).  In particular, she discussed objective #2 which pertains to reaching out to the club’s partners and/or potential partners.  She asked members to think about how we could better work together with our partners and hopes to have more discussion about this objective at the December meeting.

In addition, Brenda mentioned that during our strategic planning exercises members expressed a desire that the club host training sessions and/or guest speakers on topics of interest to runners.  For our first training session, Brenda, who has training and accolades in martial arts, offered to teach a short term self-defense class.  The group thought that a session might be arranged for January, possibly at the Ad Astra store.

Brenda informed us that the RRCA National Convention in Washington, D.C. will be April 5-8.  Brenda is the Kansas state representative, so RRCA will pay her registration and hotel expenses (travel expenses?).  In past years the club has paid the travel expenses, hotel and registration expenses for one or more board members to attend.  She encouraged board members (or future board members) to consider going.  On a related note, Dee mentioned that we should consider sponsoring more active club members to go through the RRCA coaches training.

On another RRCA related topic, Dee has applied for our T-day race to be the RRCA 5K State Championship for 2018.  Brenda followed up with a brief discussion about the ongoing debate within RRCA about whether out of state runners should be allowed to be named the champions in RRCA sponsored state championships. 

Molly has been reaching out to Denise Johnson to invite her to attend a club meeting in November or December.   We want to ensure that the club and USD497 have clear expectations of each other this year concerning how ‘donation’ checks will be distributed and what involvement, if any, Denise or any other USD497 representative will have in planning a marathon club season-ending celebration and/or check distribution ceremony.

The next club meeting will be November 5th at 4:30 at the Lawrence Public Library.

Molly moved to adjourn; Dee seconded, and all agreed.

Submitted by Karen Hyde