The all-volunteer CRCA Board held its first meeting of 2019 on January 17th. Minutes from that meeting, in draft form pending ratification by the full Board as part of the next meeting, follow below. If you have any questions or concerns about meeting minutes please reach out to Clay Jones, Secretary, or any CRCA Board Member.
JAN: Thursday, January 17, 2019, 6PM-9PM
In-person Meeting
In-Person Attendance: Lucia, Tara, Randy, Matt, Dan, Kevin, Clay, Sean, Tony. Via Telephone: Ken & Jeff
President
Welcome and Intros
Board voted to appoint Matt Vandivort to fill vacancy as Director of Open Racing
Distributed and explained Non-profit Board of Directors Guidance materials
Distributed and explained Board & Key Personnel Conflict of Interest Policy & Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form, which will be required of all Board Members and Key Persons
Discussed Importance of Inclusivity and creation of Anti-harassment policy
Discussed Intra-Board Communication options and feedback: slack/e-mail/trello/txt
Open Racing
In the past Open Race profits covered costs for club race, coaching etc
Past year had worry around end of year costs for substitute marshals, but just squeaked by
This year, looking at potential deficit
USAC fee increase
Potential additional $10k needed for race directors
Open Race Committee - proposal to improve operations and hopefully use Open Racing as a training ground for future CRCA Board Members
Looking to hire directors - this is the only way to make Open Racing in its current form sustainable after many additions to the calendar and more complex logistics over the past 5-10 years.
$2,000 per race estimated for non-CP races due to more complex permitting, full day schedule, etc. Non-CP race directors will need to be trained (at Grant’s Tomb?) and handle full run of the day leadership.
Smaller amount to be determined to be allocated to the Central Park races given less complexity, shorter duration, etc.
Current/possible candidates
Grant's Tomb - Liz Marcello
Orchard Beach - Alvaro Soltero and Jonathan Trevett
Bear Mt - Travis Burkel
Still need people for 3 other open CP races - will put out an open call for interested parties, with an eye toward pulling for different portions of the club
In the future, we can consider different compensation structures to insure we are not burdening the economics of the Open Races and can keep the calendar active.
Open race registration
Consider adding a few more $ to reg costs to offset fees we incur - increased USAC rider and event costs will hit CRCA by perhaps $2,000 in 2019.
Potentially just for later registrants, want to keep early registration as affordable as possible (while also accounting for the increased fixed costs of the events)
Have convo with BikeReg to negotiate fees/look at sponsorship
USAC registration can provide significant savings versus Bikereg
If that doesn’t pan out, then plan to vote on increasing fees
Club racing
Kevin engaging in pre-season convos w/transition with Julius
Finalizing vehicle master list
Need moto list & Tom Main’s vehicle info
Need to finalize contracts with Parks
Need someone to take over Boyd Cup calculations. Some options:
Tom Mains. Cost? Filtering out non-club members from open races
See if Road Results can autocalculate similar to Cross Results
Vehicle to drive cones & supplies around
Sergio done in the past, but with new job, may not be able to commit (he owns van)
Check with him first to see if he knows anyone that can replace him w/appropriate size vehicle
Reach out to Parks to see if they have vehicle we could use
Check with members if Sergio doesn’t have contact of his own
Need to ensure we can secure permits
Check if permits are tied to specific vehicle vs person
Look into leader’s jerseys
Marshal
Populating earlier races in season with fewer/closer to minimum requirements to ensure we have more for later races
1st club race full; Some of GT full
Prepare for Paulette’s absence to keep operations smooth
Consider early season communications about why Marshaling is important
Include drop off rates, etc
Rider Dev
New Member orientation 2/20 (tentative)
Working on permits
Race clinics. Usually early April & Early June
4/6 & 6/16 (Father’s Day)?
Thinking men’s in April & women’s in June
Will need some teams for team duty for these clinics
Women’s Dev Series
4/5 field
Keep as Open Race
Mim will still be helping
Yaakov coming back as sponsor
Haven’t confirmed Specialized sponsorship yet. Need to identify new contact
PR/Sponsorships
Lucarelli coming back for Club Series
Grant’s Tomb
Roka still on (part of 2 year contract)
Trying to get Rapha
Race numbers
Need to be submitted to print within 2 weeks
Jeff going to work with sponsors to confirm
Orchard Beach
Negotiating with Blue Ribbon
Bear Mountain
Working with Jameson Capital (as anchor sponsor)
Then looking at a couple others to support
Sea Sucker
Interested in sponsoring programs that help bring people into bike racing
Working on recruiting Donor Numbers
Teams
Updates made to website (team names, rosters)
Sent email to team managers for call for rosters - good response so far
Work on delegating communication through teams
NYCC agreed to do check in
Number pickup - reached out to Etsu. Waiting to hear back
Look at 2nd pickup in Brooklyn
Look into Brooklyn outreach
Membership
Number distro
Look at 2/28 for first event
1 day at Veselka, 1 in BK, 1st race, and then another pickup in Manhattan
Maybe have at Grant’s
Randy looking into ways to keep stacks of numbers in multiple locations & have numbers assigned on the spot when member picks up
Recruiting
Will put out email from Comms for last year’s members that haven’t signed up yet
Randy to write email from Membership Director to people that haven’t returned in 2+ years
Looking at cycling events/not races to spread awareness
Attend NYCC monthly meeting when they talk about CRCA
Lucia to forward opportunities she receives (e.g., GFNY)
New teams, but established outside of CRCA
Already have kits ordered for the year
Look at CRCA patches or heat transfer for their first year. CRCA would provide free
Matt to look into cost for patches
Sean to talk to the vendor Rapha used for heat transfer
Look at Bear Mt as opp to invite non-racers and drive enrollment. Food, tent, etc?
Racing Membership
Keep this year, but think about removing for next year
Small percentage of members. Hard to operationalize payments at each race
Website/backend
Randy working to future-proof in case future boards’ don’t have tech-savvy members who can jump into
Automated functions
Randy built out and previously ran, but this year plans to delegate to appropriate board member/task owner
Working on Marshal check in
Waiver upload process much better last year
Look into way to utilize waiver across race series and coaching sessions/clinics
Mailchimp integration
Randy to work on automating email lists from membership database
Randy to collect copy from automated emails & share with board members to review to ensure clarity
Proposing buying 3 ipads for club use. 1 with data connection the others can tether to
Can use for check in at races as well as other events where we may need to collect info, etc
Board voted to approve purchase
Communications
Channels
Move toward using email to communicate with members
Build group of individuals that want to hear from us
Re-evaluating reason for being in each channel and will determine best ways to reach all members
Treasurer
Moved some funds into interest-bearing accounts
CDs & Money market accts
Process of closing books on 2018
Integrating Quickbooks so will be able to provide reports and easier to handoff in the future
Secretary
In-person meetings
First 3 (Jan-March)
1x quarter after that
Feb
in-person 2nd or 3rd week
Call to check in week leading up to first race
Doodle 2-3 weeks out in advance
Agenda: Automated newsletter goes out on Thursdays. So Tuesday week before board meetings is target for final agenda
