At our last AREC Board Meeting of 2001 (12/19/01), we discussed the future of the club and our plans for the upcoming year. We decided that we wanted to continue as a club, and therefore would be electing ‘new’ board members for the upcoming year. During the month of January, there will be a ballot available to all runners which will select our board.
One of the major concerns to most present was the alarming decline of the amount of Wednesday runners. This summer we had as many as 35 each week, and we notice that few new runners return and many of our long-time runners have disappeared completely. One idea is to hand out an information sheet to new runners. This sheet will have a map of the course, run times and locations, information about membership, and perhaps a short article about running. We will also have a one-time sign-in sheet. This will be used only for maintaining a phone list, and also will allow us to contact the runners to ask why they never came back.
Another concern was that the membership fee was too high, especially given the relatively few benefits (note: those of you who did not receive a T-shirt, we are still working on it, I swear!), and the poor economy. We opted to reduce the annual fee to $15/year, and that would support the club through advertising (The Competitor and business cards), pay for paper and ink on the newsletter (and new intro-sheet), and our pre-marathon events. Team shirts would be available to members at the rate of $5/shirt (i.e. at cost), and slightly higher to non-members. At press time, we were looking into the benefit of remaining a member with Road Runners Club of America (one major benefit is insurance against liability).
One further concern was whether to continue the ‘last Wednesday at Coachs’ monthly event, because lately most people had preferred to remain at Limerick’s (because we appreciate what they do for us - water and the room). The decision was to end the Coachs’ association, with the exception for quarterly board meetings, because the room at Limerick’s was too noisy and too cramped. Naturally, people are encouraged to plan their own events after the run (and if anyone wants to make a ‘last Wednesday’ monthly dinner plan with me, I am game!).
Also, AREC also meets on Sundays at 8am for a 4-8 mile loop (betcha didn’t know that!) at Bayshore and Ocean. Water is set out nearly every Sunday, but only about 3-5 people show up. Members are encouraged to show up and promote the run (after all, a lot of people like to run on weekends), especially once daylight saving time begins (and that other group starts meeting on Thursdays again).
Finally, it was brought to my attention that some people would prefer the newsletter e-mailed to them rather than to pick it up at the run. The advantage to that would be that you could print up as many copies as you wanted (if you wrote an article), and, at least on your computer, it would be in color! I will still have a number of copies available at the runs, but if you would like it e-mailed to you, please sign up with me after the run.
If you weren’t able to attend the meeting or have further concerns, please talk to Todd Rose or myself before, during or after the run, and we will address it at a future meeting.
Good Club News
If you check out the website, upcoming races, results, and pictures are still there, but there is one new page - THE RACE REVIEW page. When you complete a race, please go ahead and tell us what you thought of the race. We will compile the results and in the coming years, people can log on and see what runners thought of the races.