Happy New Year everyone and welcome back to A Running Experience Club! Attendance was understandably light the past 2 weeks due to Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve falling on Wednesdays. But now we’re back to full strength with a bunch of new club happenings to talk about for 2004.
To start, a new Board of Directors has been elected by all of you to guide us through the next 2 years. Due to lack of competition, myself, Todd Byers and Emmett Rahl will remain as the President, Vice President and Secretary, respectively. And in a close and very difficult decision, Lars Hertzog will take over the Treasurer responsibilities from Laura Chaides. That rounds out the Primary Board. And thanks to increased participation, the Secondary Board has expanded. Ed Villalobos will continue to act as Race Coordinator, while the following positions were previously unheld. Margaret Everitt and Nicole Meldrum will be your co-Social Chairpersons, Dennis Murphy has been appointed the Training Coordinator, Bob Beachler the Fundraising Chairperson and Suzanne Kairy will serve as Public Relations Liaison. Please make a point to congratulate and thank these people for volunteering their time to continue making this club the place that runners want to be every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.
Next, Nike has come to us to help support their commitment to running and we have responded! The Nike training runs kicked off this past Monday night (for the first time ever in Long Beach) at The Yard House in Shoreline Village at 6:30pm and they were an immediate success. No fewer than 9 AREC members were part of the staff putting on the run and at least 10 more members were there to run in support. This is definitely a no-lose situation for anyone involved. Nike treated all to a relaxed atmosphere with great food, excellent raffle prizes and a fun run thrown in on a beautiful course. The runs will continue for the next 3 Mondays in preparation for the Redondo Beach 5K/10K on Super Bowl Sunday. If Long Beach continues to prove successful, they will be back for 6 more weeks prior to the Nike Run Hit Wonder race in April. So come on out and bring a friend or two.
And finally, we will soon be ordering new technical fabric t-shirts for club members, so please be patient. These shirts will cost the club more to buy, but we are currently not passing the financial burden on to the members. Annual membership will remain at $25 per year individually or $40 per household. This should allow us to merely “break even” again for the year. So please don’t wait and renew your membership today! Emmett has pre-printed membership forms for you to sign. Make checks out to A.R.E.C.
SAFETY. Please continue to remember that safety is of the utmost importance. Wear light-colored clothing, reflective clothing and/or a blinking light. Watch out for cars!
I look forward to another year of exaggerated race stories, injury updates, personal bests, chicken wings and of course, the wonderful camaraderie we share. Thanks for being a part of my life!