GULF WINDS TRACK CLUB MINUTES

Present: Board members for quorum: Emma Spencer, Katie Sherron, Mike Burns, Mark Priddy, Felton Wright, David Yon, Eric Godin, Judy Alexander, Zach Scharlepp, Bill Lott, Annie Bowman, Tom Perkins, Jane Skalski, Paul Guyas, Herb Wills. Others: Maggie Beshara, Tracy Godin, Maria Matheu, Ron Harrison, Bill Hillison, Jackie McDaniel, Mary Jean Yon, Kristin Halley, Jim Halley, Ely Rosario and Peg Griffin,

Vice President Mike Burns standing in for the President called the meeting to order at 7:32 p.m. Quorum was established.

The Board reviewed the January minutes. Motion to approve was made, seconded and passed.

New Business:

Jackie McDaniel – 15K/30K race wrap up. Revenue generated from the race was $5444.55, expenses were $3995.35 ending with a net profit of $1449.20. A request was made to donate $500 to Last Hope Rescue and the remaining $949.20 will go to the Club operating account. Motion to approve was made, seconded and passed.

Bill Hillison – Bowlegs Run for Scholarship race wrap up. Bill gave a very nice description on the history of the race that provides education scholarships for older students, noting the unusual handling of the race in that proceeds historically are not split with GWTC. Total revenues this year were $3876, with expenses totaling $1761, leaving a balance of $2115. From the net proceeds, $1840 will be for scholarship funds. Bill offered the remaining balance of $275 to cover actual expenses incurred by GWTC (primarily chips and bibs used for timing the race). It was instead suggested that the $275 go to the Faculty and Friends Club of FSU for scholarship funds. A motion to approve the $275 in kind donation was made, seconded and passed.

Bill Hillison – Annual chip timing report. Four years ago, GWTC set up a committee to move the club over to chip timing. Since then the Club has purchased timing equipment with a total investment worth $81,512. Net revenues for timing non-GWTC races have equated to $42,229. Non-GWTC races are charged a rate of $2 per runner (bib costs, each bib is 67.2 cents and includes two chips) and a $100 rental fee to have GWTC timing at their races. GWTC times all of its own races except for Springtime, however spring of 2016 will mark the first year that it will be timed by GWTC. The investment in chip timing and expertise has enabled GWTC to time its own races, including having times for both start and finish lines, and to provide a service to the community by timing non-GWTC races. Additionally, being able to time larger races such as Turkey Trot has enabled GWTC to reduce costs of that race by approximately $15,000. Bill Hillison, Bill Lott and Peg Griffin were thanked for their service as they continue to research new innovations related to timing.

Felton Wright– A meeting with the City of Tallahassee was planned for Friday 12th February, 2016 to discuss the Cross Country (SMIRF) Summer Running Program. They plan to have two programs, one in the North of the City and one in the South. Rodger Schmidt from CCR will run these programs. The program will need some advertising efforts. The budget for this program has previously been approved. GWTC will fund the program again and reimburse the City for hourly wages, background checks and drug tests for the coaches and staff overseeing the program. (GWTC has a partial credit for testing of previous participants.) The program is scheduled to start May 31st 2016 at 7:30-9:30 am and continue through mid-July.

Eric Godin (Ely Rosario was also there) –Tallahassee Marathon update. The race directors are still running the numbers which will take a few more weeks to collect but it was estimated that they are ahead on the collection of sponsorship and predict at least a $5000 profit. Suggested that profits be split between Jimbo Fishers Kids First charity and GWTC. The Police reported they were happy with the race. The race had a record number of registrants, total of 292 for marathon (224 finished) and 1094 for the half marathon (869 finished). Eric announced he would step down as one of the race directors.

Mark Priddy – Proposed budget for Flask 6k/12k presented. Total expected net proceeds to be $519 to be equally split between Chenoweth Fund and GWTC. An increase in cost compared to 2015 costs are due to needing two EMTs from Wakulla County at $120 per hour each, an increase in costs for t-shirts (60 cent increase per shirt from 2015), post-race food costs, and also increasing the number of port-a-lets to seven. Mark has reduced awards as previous years trophies have not been collected. Motion to approve was made, seconded and passed.

Mark Priddy – Request to open up 2nd quarter membership two weeks early. Membership dues are prorated and amounts are reflected based on which quarter you sign up, for example, full membership dues are paid if you sign up in the 1st quarter (Jan/Feb/March), in the 2nd quarter (April/May/June) you receive a reduction of $3.75/$5.00 and so on. Rationale for opening up 2nd quarter membership early on March 15th instead of April 1st is to encourage new membership potentially generated from the Palace Saloon 5K race. Palace is promoting different t-shirts depending on if you are a GWTC member or not. The proposal is to promote membership at the prorated 2nd quarter rate on the Palace Saloon race registration forms and the website. At the same time last year membership included approximately 15 new family memberships ($300) and this proposal has the potential to increase memberships. Motion to approve was made, seconded and passed.

Old Business:
David Yon – Club bylaw update. Following the circulation of the draft of the bylaws to the Board and to the rest of the GWTC members through social media and on the GWTC website for comments, it was recommended by the Bylaws committee to approve changes and finalize. Among the changes made after comment were: “In consultation with the President” was added to the secretary’s authority to schedule meetings. There were also a few minor changes and grammatical errors corrected, including changing “management committee” to the “Board” and instituting a 30 day notice period instead of 60 days. A couple of comments were received by the Board related to term limits for Board members, however, it the committee was not supportive of the proposal and, in any event, did not think this was the right time to include such a change. The bylaw changes go into effect immediately except those pertaining to roles of officers and directors and their election. Those changes related to the election process will go into effect for the election process for terms beginning January 1, 2017, and will be fully effective as of January 1, 2017. A motion to approve and finalize the bylaws was made, seconded and passed.

Committee Reports:

Treasurer’s Report – Katie Sherron
Summary amounts for accounts are, $28,585.73 in the Operations account, $8,802.14 for Events 1 accounts, $10,626.53 for Events Two account, $7,856.27 for Triathlon account, $85,000.00 for Investment and Reserve account and $12,556.74 for the Chenoweth Fund. Total Assets for January 2016 were $153,427.41. The Treasurer stated there was a cash flow problem related to having to pay out expenses for Spring Time, Palace and the marathon as we wait for marathon sponsorship money to come in. One of the main expenses to be paid from the marathon is $16,000 for the Police, of which the Treasurer has to pay each officer individually. Request was made to move $25,000 from the Investments and Reserve account in order to pay these expenses. There is still around $18,000 left in marathon sponsorships to be collected. Ely Rosario provided one sponsorship check for $250 at the meeting and another $5000 was promised for that week by Eric Godin. A motion to temporarily transfer the money was passed, seconded and approved.

Membership Report – Mark Priddy
The trifolds have been produced and should be distributed to promote membership. 1203 members have renewed or joined to date for the 2016 year, an increase of 43 from last month. The Tri Club has 205 have renews to date, an increase of 29 since last month. Maggie Beshara informed the Board that there had been a few requests to sign up for membership at the Tallahassee Marathon. She was authorized to take those memberships (and race registrations) at full member rate using the Square device to take payment (transaction fee of 2.75%).

Race Director Coordinator Report – Charlie Yates
No report.

Newsletter Report – Emma Spencer for Fred Deckert
Nothing new to report.

Clothing Coordinator Report – Maggie Beshara
Maggie worked the marathon expo and made approximately $700 in sales. She plans to have a sale or discount on the winter clothing as the weather warms up and in the coming month she plans to start on the order for the spring/summer collection as well as ordering more car seats and head sweats visors. At the next race she plans to collect emails to let people know when sales are occurring. Next big event that merchandise will be available will likely be Springtime 5K/10K. Bill Lott suggested that perhaps at the marathon expo next year that they get merchandise that was marathon specific rather than just GWTC specific, this suggestion was met with approval.

Equipment Report – Bill Lott & Vicky Droze
Bill bought the wireless key pad and two receivers that he was approved for at last month’s meeting. One of the chronomix is broken but Bill is fixing it, likely the battery. Vicky Droze reports that there are 6 races one weekend (13-14th Feb) and all of the equipment will be out for use.

Website Committee Report – David Yon
Nothing new to report. Although David did direct people to view the start of the marathon on YouTube and also to the race report written by Jocelyn Chan on the GWTC website.

Chenoweth Fund Report – David Yon
GWTC received a nice thank you note from Coach Jacobs. Other than that, nothing new to report.

Triathlete Report – Ron Harrison
Ron stated that the newsletter went out to the 206 members of the Tri club today 10th Feb. In it was an announcement to reorder for Gulf Winds Triathletes, Louis Garneau tri and bike kits. Orders to be taken online with a deadline of Tuesday, 2/16/2016. The hope is to get orders before Red Hills Triathlon, April 8. Additional announcements for race discounts for 8 of the 12 events on the 2016 Grand Prix schedule are included in the newsletter and members should contact Ron via email for the codes.
The newsletter also has an update on the USAT National Club Challenge results for January, naming the top three men and women in the bike portion. February’s focus is the run. Triathlete Spotlight on junior triathletes, Bonnie (14) and Bernadette (11) Burns. An announcement for March Speakers/Topic, “Ultraman Athlete Q&A: Lessons for EVERY Athlete”, with Jon Nash and Marci Gray and an announcement for the 2016 Swap Meet.
The next Tri Club Meeting will be Monday, February 15, 2016 at Momo’s Pizza in Killearn, on Market St. Social at 6:30 pm and speaker at 7:00 pm. The speaker is Roger Schmidt, 2015 Gulf Winds Track Club Male Runner of the Year and G.A.I.T. (Gait Analysis and Injury Technician) Manager at CCR. The topic: “Gears… Not Just for the Bike. Exploring your Running Pace Capacity and Aerobic Capability.”
The Gulf Winds Triathletes also had a water stop at mile 12 of the Tallahassee Marathon, Sunday, February 7. There was great turnout and enthusiastic support from our members, for the Tallahassee Marathon. Tri club members did ask some questions about how the “Best Water Stop” competition will be handled since courses for half and full were different? For example, a larger number of runners participated in the half and did not go by our water stop, so we don’t expect any votes from those doing the half. Ely Rossario said that only those who ran the full marathon were eligible to vote for water stops.

Lecture Series Report –Paul Guyas
Paul is looking into times, dates, venues that work best. There will be a movie night at Smashburger on Friday February 26th. Paul is also working to set up a demonstration on Garmin products with CCR at a later date. Other leads are being researched.

Training Report – Tracy Godin
The marathon training group concluded with the marathon and had a great response and people were very happy with it. Previously discussed plans to have the next GWTC Goes Long running group have the Tails and Trails half marathon as a target race are not going to be possible as there is a grand prix race on the same day. Tracy is looking into alternatives. The Springtime training group started Feb 1 and having people sign up online through Eventbrite has made the process more streamline compared to having people fill in paper waiver forms. Tracy is going to promote GWTC membership signup at these specific training groups.
Jim and Kristin Halley are going to take over the Trailblazers training group and they plan to have the Pot Luck Bash as their target race for training with an 8 week training schedule starting Thursday April 21, 2016. Additionally, two of the Trail Series races will also fall within this 8 week period and the plan is to continue Trailblazers training for an unofficial 6 more weeks until the final Trail Series race.

Social Report –Zach Scharlepp
Zach had nothing new to report, he is researching potential social events for the future. David Yon made the suggestion of having a GWTC social event “Discovering why the Cleveland in the Cleveland-Caldwell Award. Everyone agreed and plans will be forthcoming.

Trail Coordinator Report – Kristin and Jim Halley for Bobby York
Kristin and Jim Halley will be taking over the Summer Trail Series from Bobby York and they have scheduled the four races to occur from Mid-May until the end of July. They plan to balance the courses between the two sides of the City and are planning some course recon trips in the near future. Registration will open April 1st, 2016. Other details are still being planned, including number of runner limits and unusual awards.
The hosts were thanked, Mary-Jean Yon thanked everyone for coming and at 9:03 p.m. a motion to adjourn was made, seconded and approved.