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RUNNERS' CLUB OF GREATER CINCINNATI BOARD MEETING MINUTES
January 29, 2006
(at Bob Roncker's Running Spot)

Members Present: Tom Glasscock, Todd Hofacre, Jeff Hummel, Nick Kleiner, Mike Moyer, Peter Wayte Out of town were Ed Hunter, and Kate and Carl Rich.

Website: The Board would like to congratulate webmaster Marty Hovey. The Runners' Club Website was recognized by the RRCA as one of the top three websites for large running clubs.

Newsletter: Tom Glasscock may have a possible replacement for the club newsletter. More will be discussed in the next meeting.

Heart Mini-Marathon (March 26, 2006):
1. Bag stuffing dates for the Runners Club are Wednesday, February 22, 2006 from 6:00PM-9:00PM and Monday, March 6, 2006 from 6:00 PM-9:00 PM. Volunteers will be needed to stuff bags for Heart-Mini Marathon. Bag Stuffing will take place at American Heart Association office on Vernon Place.
2. Mike contacted the Westin and reserved two adjoining rooms for the Heart-Mini-Marathon. It will be up to the hotel manager whether we can get an actual suite and will not find out until the week before.
3. Volunteers are needed for the booth for the mini-marathon. The board would like a better spot than last year's original location in the back hall as it was difficult for club members to find and not high traffic.
4. A couple volunteers will be needed to hand out water for the 5k and 15k runs.

Social Events:

Next Club Happy Hour: Wednesday, February 1, 2006, 6:30 p.m., at Fleet Feet Sports. Runners will adjourn to Baxter's for refreshments afterward. It was requested that a board member be present for the run. Todd volunteered barring a last second conflict and Mike, Jeff, and Tom will attempt to be there.

Memorial Day Race:
1. Nick will contact Lunken about reserving a shelter. 2. Mike brought up the idea of involving a charity in the race. The club would charge a small fee to handle the race as more club members could run the race rather than volunteer. The charity could take over some of the administrative tasks like advertising and race sponsorship. Possible charities discussed included the Freestore Foodbank and the Children's Home. More details will be discussed at the next board meeting.

Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon (May 7, 2006, Cincinnati): Water Stop was briefly discussed. The board is looking for a new waterstop theme this year. Club members at the Cincinnati Heart Minimarathon Hospitality Suite will be given a volunteer registration form and asked to fill it out for them, a family member or friend that will not be running in the marathon but that would enjoy watching from an exciting location.

Valentine's Labor of Love 2 Mile (February 12, 2006): Volunteers will be needed for this race. The board all agreed and selected logo imprinted gloves as awards to use for this race.

Membership: The following items were discussed to improve membership.
1. Offer more group runs - One of the issues is having someone dedicated to do group runs. Peter offered to do one a second Sunday of the Month in Sharon Woods. We need other volunteers to get other runs started. One suggestion was to move the board meetings to a weeknight to add one more run and free up weekend time to board members.
2. Assign someone to each event to take volunteer names and create a central point for storing these names.
3. Offer people that participate in some number of events (maybe minimum 1 meeting & 1 volunteer event) a discount (maybe $5) on membership the following year.
Discussions on 2 and 3 were lumped into one discussion. Issues that came up were keeping records and keeping track of members who volunteered was going to be an absolute nightmare. Todd mentioned that other running clubs like the Huntsville Track Club use the concept of club coupons that can be redeemed on membership and road races to encourage volunteers. The club coupon would discount membership, the memorial day race at least $5 for one coupon. The board enthusiastically liked the idea as it would eliminate the need to vigorously track volunteers and offers a simple way to offer club members something back for their efforts. A couple of items need to be worked out like online redemption of volunteer coupons and redemption of coupons (a tier system or maybe a limit on how many can be redeemed at one time).
4. Offer Board members something additional - What to offer board members was discussed like free membership and needs to be discussed further at the next meeting. Club coupons did not adequately resolve this issue.
5. Limit FREE food and drinks to Club members at Happy Hour Runs (though this can be difficult to enforce) - was not touched and will be taken up at the next meeting.
6. Include a regular suggestion to join the Club in the e-newsletter - Mike will start doing this in the next e-newsletter.

Board Meetings: It was discussed about moving the board meetings to a weeknight. Several board members believed that an entire day was lost due to the meeting on a Sunday. Starting in April, the board meeting will be on a Thursday Night at 7:00 PM. The tentative date for the April meeting will be Thursday April 6, 2006 at 7:00 PM. A new location may need to be found as Roncker's closes at 7:00 PM.

Next Board Meeting: The next board meeting will be Sunday March 5, 2006 at 11:30 AM. Location details need to be confirmed. The March meeting was done at the Dubliner Restaurant in conjunction with the Run to Dubliner Race. However, the Dubliner closed in January. Mike Moyer will contact Mike Smith for further information.

Respectfully submitted,
Todd Hofacre, Secretary pro tem