CRCA Board Minutes: 2015/29/7

CRCA Board Meeting Minutes

March 31, 2015 at 7:00 PM

300 E. 85th St.

 

Present: Liz Marcello (president), Tomi Ketcham, Alexis Kraft, Lisa Vandivort, Lucia Deng, Ann Marie Miller, Randy Locklair, Matthew Vandivort, and Joe Grgic. Absent: David Carr.

 

Items Discussed and Voted: 

  1. Sub-team rules for 2016

Kit Logo: Beginning in 2016, all sub-team kits must have the circular CRCA logo on the sleeve (just below the shoulder). Following the 2015 grace period, the “CENTURY” logo is no longer acceptable. Alexis will send around the updated logo to all sub-team captains.

Sub-team field limits: The board discussed possible changes to sub-team field limits for 2016 (increase for Men’s A? Separate caps on M3 and M12?) but no formal proposal was made. Discussion postponed to later in the year.

  1. Coaching Program

Cyclocross: CRCA will offer CX skills sessions this fall.  Sessions will be free to CRCA members and open to non-CRCA members for $10/session (plus the cost of a one-day license if necessary).

Roster: No immediate changes to the coaching roster, although the Board agrees we should expand coaching staff. This will be up to the 2016 VP of Rider Development and the 2016 BOD.

  1. Closing out Open Racing

Transitioning to 2016: Joe has created a number of documents to help with the tasks involved with Open Racing.

Trailer: Trailer is near full capacity and is difficult to navigate.  Alexis will take the lead on cleaning out the trailer with the help of race staff and/or a sub-team. Excess waivers will be moved to the Club’s storage unit on Riverside Drive (where the archives are stored).

  1. Digital presence and web

Randy will not be returning as Membership Director for 2016 (congrats on the new babe!), but would like to work with the 2016 BOD to streamline some of the Club’s few key activities using the internets – including managing members, generating/posting rosters, etc.

  1. Financials

Update circulated from Ken prior to the meeting. Someone please append to minutes!

  1. Year End Party

Alexis will work with Rapha to host the party at Rapha. The date is set for Thursday, October 8th.

Trophy order will be placed by Kathryn Murtagh in exchange for marshal credit and Liz will work with her to facilitate order.

  1. Town Hall-style meeting:

Though we had discussed doing this in late 2014, it seems that there would likely be little interest. We should instead focus on appropriate questions for the Fall 2015 member poll.

  1. 8Fall Member Poll (DC is open to doing this again or can train his replacement)

 

David will take the lead on this in collecting key items/topics from the current board to include in the poll.

 

  1. Future of the Board of Directors

2016: Several members will not be returning to the 2016 BOD but agreed to recruit replacements to run for their positions.

Restructuring of Board: Although we are not in a position to restructure the board because it would require significant revisions to the bylaws (which is a legal matter), the board agreed that we should take on more volunteers, particularly for directing our many open races. These can be volunteers that are compensated with the same perks of being on the board (free membership, no marshal duty, etc.), but with less responsibility than being on the Board. Liz/Matt/Ken will look into what this structure might look like and begin looking for volunteers to fill key roles.

Open racing: Ken has also agreed to look into the cost of outsourcing key components open racing to a company to ease the burden on the volunteer Board. We will re-group on this in a month’s time.

Advertising open positions: Lucia (with Liz’s help) will write an article for CRCA.net on volunteering for the club and being on the board.  We can use this opportunity to describe the responsibilities of each board position and also the responsibilities of volunteer race directors. This will hopefully pique some interest in running for the Board.

Elections: To be held in late October/early November, following the end of season party. We will need to recruit an independent elections committee to handle this.

 

Lou Maltese Women's Elite Race Report

11540826_10155716097285570_6143815838271896744_n We recently caught up with Lou Maltese Elite Women's Race winner, Camie Kornely of Breakaway Courier. Here's how the race played out from one of NYC's most talented sprinters.

Registration Table

I was a little freaked about getting up at 3:30am! My body doesn't respond well to things like that (but whose does, right?). I got to the park at 4:30am sharp and met up with my teammates to rock the registration table for the next hour - getting the CRCA Team Duty done! Suddenly, time was short and I ran to the bathroom (no really, I literally ran). I ran back while finishing dressing as they were calling everyone to the line.... and realized our only talk of a strategy was, "Hey, remember that one race?  We should try to do that again."

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Then the whistle blew and we started fast.  I looked down as I gasped for air to see we were doing 24 mph and we hadn't even passed the museum yet! Then came the attacks.

Anna Zivarts and Cheryl Clark were really putting out power out front, but every team had someone jumping off the front: Radical, Craft, Rockstar, CityMD.... We were clocking sub 15 minute laps! I was thankful to have my teammate, Jodie Hein, who was all over it.  She'd stay at the front and get on moves. If I started drifting back she'd slip in front of me and bring me back up and she worked so hard to keep us in touch with any potential break.

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Going into the last lap we were all together and we were full gas as we passed engineers gate straight through to the finish. My legs were tired and it took a lot to get up the hill the last time with teams drilling it on the front (with an average speed of about 24mph over the 41 miles, this may have been the fastest women's race I've done in Central Park).
As we rolled over the west side lumps at about 27mph I saw Jodie near the front and knew she was waiting for me. I dug in and caught on to her wheel. She pulled me up to the front five as we descended to the flat straight where I moved onto Caryl Gale's wheel. Just before the chicane we were swarmed on the left and as Anna slid up on my right I got on her wheel. Then, as we cleared that first bend of the chicane where it opens up on the right...I took off.  It was so early, but Caryl had the direct line with Aimee Layton on her wheel so if I was gonna pass that train I had to go!
I picked a lightish gear and spun until my legs burned so much I was surely casting off smoke instead of sweat and managed to cross the line first.
Thanks to all for the cheers and to my Breakaway Courier teammates and sponsors for their amazing support!

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Thanks for the great race report, Camie! Up next, in our Open Racing Calendar is the Mengoni Grand Prix. Register now!
Full race results can be found here.
Full photo gallery below thanks to CRCA member and awesome photographer, Kevin Hatt!