Meeting Minutes, 12/10/07

Board of Directors in attendance: Lance Molinari, Spencer Ericksen, Shawn Pearson, Pete Rissler, Justin Thomas, Darin Olde

Other members in attendance: Shawn O'Meara, Dave Larsen

Next Club Meeting: 1/14/08, Walden's Coffee, 6:00 p.m.

Topics of this Meeting:

Cycling Advocacy I: Lance would like all Reno bike clubs to pitch in and produce a Public Service Announcement TV commercial along the lines of the "Give 'em a Break" spots for road construction, with the goal of making drivers aware that cyclists are on the road and to cut us some slack; list statistics on the number of cyclists injured and killed, etc., and play on TV 2 or 3 times a month throughout the year. Maybe the club could get help from Paige Galeoto or Pat Hambright on getting started? Lance will check into this and report back at the next meeting.

Cycling Advocacy II: Longer term, the goal is to get more kids in the community out riding bikes, ala Portland where they spend a week in PE classes teaching kids how to safely ride bikes. The more people riding bikes, the more aware drivers are, and the better it is for everybody.

Cycling Advocacy III: Pete and Terry McAfee took helmet cam video of local bike lanes to present to the Nevada state bicycle group, showing the benefits and issues (e.g. how close traffic passes).

Cycling Advocacy IV: The Reno Transportation Commission (RTC) is forming a cycling advisory committee to get input from cyclists on issues important to us. The Board wanted to have RW representation on this committee. Spencer sent out the application forms on the listserve, and Jeff Angermann, Christine Anderson, and Lance Molinari all said they were applying. Thanks for stepping up!

Officer Elections: The mailing to club members did not produce any objections to the proposed Board Members for 2008, so the new board is approved. Election of 2008 officers (arm twisting, round 2) then commenced, with the following results:

President: Spencer Ericksen

Vice President: Darin Olde

Secretary/Treasurer: Justin Thomas

Boardie: Lance Molinari

Boardie: Shawn Pearson

Boardie: Randy Reigel

Boardie: Pete Rissler

Treasurer's Report: Current checking balance $2211.28; current money market balance $30163.50. The latest clothing order invoices have been paid. The biggest upcoming expense is member race reimbursements in January and Twilight Race insurance in February.

UNR Race Partnership: Not much new to report. Still pursuing Truckee race venues with Paco, maybe Northstar. Race date will probably be August 9 (day before Mt. Rose TT).

Hillclimb TT Permits: Shawn P. will start working permits. We need to assemble groups to put on each event (and TeamRW should provide workforce for at least one of the races).

District TT: Mike Damon will handle the coordination for this event again. However, we do need another promoter to organize the TTT the day before, maybe Rich Paul?

Nevada Cup: The date for the Peavine Challenge is set. The club needs to ask Scot Ferguson if he will run the XC race again. As for the downhill, the Board decided to end RW promotion of these events. Now that Northstar is putting on downhill races, the demand for downhill events at the Peavine Challenge has diminished. In addition, promoting downhill races really isn't a core competency of the club anymore. Shawn O'Meara will contact Randy Robison and ask him is he wants to run a downhill race at the Peavine challenge (course setup, registration, planning), with RW helping with permitting and officiating. If no downhiller steps forward to take over the race, it will be dropped.

Twilight Series: Need to light a fire under Rich Paul, get him to the January meeting. The Board wants to get an early start on race planning for next year. The goal is to have Twilight race dates and venues nailed down by the February meeting, so that the 2008 race flier can be sent out in early March. Pete committed to getting this done for the MTB and SYCL events. Spencer will contact Rich.

Cyclocross: Shawn O. said that promoting this series was harder than he had anticipated. Due to the severe permitting headaches, he says there won't be a Northstar event next year. The last event of this season is Dec. 15 at Hidden Valley (the last chance for members to satisfy their club service requirement for race reimbursement). The series this year has seen an average of 50 riders per race, but very little draw from over the hill. Results and series standings are on the club website. For next year, the entry fee will be $20 instead of $15 (to try to make the series financially solvent). Entry for Juniors will be $10. Prizes for this year will be low-key, since the series is in the red.

Webmaster: Pete reports that renowheelmen.com is up and running. Pete also has a yahoo search engine capability running. He aims to have a new website design up by Jan. 1 for new stuff. Legacy (old and inactive) stuff will be kept as-is, though it will be searchable. Pete says there won't be a wholesale re-design of the site unless he gets some graphic design help. Can anybody out there lend a hand?

Clothing: Nothing to report.

TeamRW: Had an organizing meeting on December 3. Good turnout and discussion of lessons learned from the '07 season. Open TeamRW training ride meets at 9 a.m. on Saturdays at Walden's. All are welcome.

Sponsorships: Justin has lined up some sponsorship deals for members and asked for Board input on what qualifications should be put on members that want the deals. For the future, the Board discussed having tiers of qualification for deals (Tier 1, 2, 3), with better deals for those members with higher commitment to the club. For now, though, the general deals (components, nutrition, etc.) will be available to all current club members. Members wishing to purchase bikes through the special club deals will need Board approval. Justin will send out an email summarizing the available deals.

Club Shop Policy: The Board is considering changing the club shop policy to have shops pre-purchase blocks of tickets (money up front). They can then sell or distribute these tickets however they want. The club no longer asks for anything from club shops (money or gift certificates), and thus more shops have expressed interest in selling our tickets. This is a good thing, but we want to minimize the effort required by the club shop liason (i.e. Rich Paul) to stock and account for tickets. This topic will be discussed further at the next meeting.

Respectfully submitted,

Spencer Ericksen

RW President, soon-to-be ex-RW Secretary/Treasurer