CRCA Board Meeting-Minutes
Date: September 23, 2014, 7:15 pm
Location: Office of Matthew Vandivort
In attendance: Jayson Jacobs (president), Ken Edwards, Roger Parmelee, Josh Sakofsky, Ann Marie Miller, Robert Duncker, Lucia Deng, Ashley Doane (by phone), Joe Grgic, Liz Marcello, David Carr and Matthew Vandivort (invited member-participant and host).
1) End of year survey – will be drafted by David Carr and run by the board for review and revisions.
2) End of the year party – Jayson Jacobs is taking the lead on this, talking with Andrew Crooks at NYCVelo about possible dates and running them by the board. He will also find out whether the trophy’s can be shipped directly to NYC Velo and let Liz Marcello know what he says. Ashley will follow up with Rapha about organizing and staffing the party.
3) Archiving – Liz Marcello reported that a group that she and John Tomlinson organized spent a long day on Saturday, September 20 working through and organizing the material recently delivered to her apartment. It is now in low-cost storage on Riverside drive for the Fall while she and John send letters to NYC institutions about housing the CRCA archives. MANY THANKS to John Tomlinson, Liz Marcello and the others who put time in on this project!
4) Race dates for 2015 – Liz Marcello has put a formal request into the parks for seventeen dates. She is waiting to follow up further until some more distance has occurred from the fatal accident last week of a cyclist and a pedestrian.
5) Discussion of safety in the park – The board discussed further the accident in the park and our ongoing efforts to insure safety for all users in the park. We will continue to coordinate with Transportation Alternatives and other partners on these issues.
6) CRCA Development – Matthew Vandivort reported on discussions with David Greenburg on future leadership of the CRCA development Foundation with potential for Matthew to take a larger role in the Foundation. In addition, Matthew is working on a new concept for mentoring the team involving a series of coaches and elite riders leading rides for the juniors. The board thanked Matthew for the update and his work on this important side of CRCA.
7) Kit design 2015 — The board voted to terminate the alternative CRCA bar logo as an option for CRCA races in 2015. CRCA subteams will need to have the older circular logo on the shoulder of their kits, following guidelines posted on the www.crca.net website. Teams who are not ordering new kit for 2015 can request to the director of teams (teams[at]crca.net) if they have 2014 kit using the bar CRCA logo that was in compliance with the 2014 guidelines.
Lucia will draft a letter to team managers on this issue, and Roger will supply her with an updated version of the circular logo. Ashley will then send the drafted letter to the team managers asap.
8) The board discussed questions about working with a potential named sponsor. Ken Edwards will clarify this potential sponsor’s wishes and he, working with Jayson, develop a proposal, in consultation with the board.
9) Review of scenarios for the 2015 budget and membership fee – Ken Edwards and Matthew Vandivort presented a spreadsheet outlining some different scenarios for adapting our membership and
race fee structure to better reflect costs, with the goal of also lowering the all in cost of CRCA membership. The challenge with the current financial structure was that club race expenses are fixed from race to race, no matter how many racers show up – Ken and Matt presented options to better match “fixed” revenues with these fixed costs. In the end the board voted to lower the 2015 club race fee to $5 per race (from $15 per race in 2014) with the “dino membership” renamed “season pass” and the price of the season pass reduced to $40 (from $100 in 2014). As an added benefit for 2015, season pass holders will also be eligible to sign a single waiver for the entire club racing season. Reflecting the significantly lower club race fee, membership fees will increase $5 in the baseline scenario (to $60 for early registration) or $15 if the club hires a professional results company to work the 2015 club race season. In all scenarios the combined cost of CRCA membership and race fees will decrease for anyone who races more than once, improving the value of CRCA membership while also hopefully increasing race participation.
10) Discussion of extent of open racing and staffing—The main stresses on open racing seem related to the out-of-park races, which will be less in 2015 due to the club only running two or three open races in 2015: Bear, Orchard and possibly Grants (depending on approvals). If the results piece is resolved better and another board position (publicity) fully takes over sponsorship, Joe Grgic argued that the main stress on the director of open race position is logistics. The board discussed various options, from adding a board position to using a service like taskrabbit. The discussion concluded with a resolution to start first with recruiting an in-club volunteer position, similar to the director of motos, with the club member in that position serving as the point person for coordinating teams’ contributions to logistics, other volunteers and/or services.
11) Rule clarification on whether a member can race on the day when his or her suspension being lifted (through a sub marshaling).
Responding to a lack of clarity in the existing team cup rules (part 8), the board voted that a suspended member of the team makes the team ineligible for team cup points for both the day the team member missed and the date of their makeup date.
Items not treated in the meeting, postponed for later interaction:
12) Organizing for the 2015 elections of the Board