HARRA MEETING MINUTES

Notes form HARRA meetings

Recorded by Will Dubinsky

Monday, July 15, 2002

Meeting was called to order at 6:01 pm.

Members present: John Phillips, GiGi Wark, Annie Hadow, Bill Dubinsky, Roger Boak, Ralph Collins, Jeremy Mills, Terry Garrett, Randy Carlson, John Reich, and Tom McBrayer.

Members not present: Ram Tekumalla, Cindy Sosa, Michele Fredenberg-Arriaga

Reading of the minutes
The minutes of the May and June meetings were approved and accepted.

Report of the President
John Phillips reported on Joe Sellers accident and his progress to date. He mentioned that if people had time that Joe could use their help in getting around.

Reports of Directors and committees:

Treasurer - Jeremy Mills
1. The Kid's Run sponsorship check from Memorial Hermann was received early this month. Membership renewals were also fairly brisk near the end of the month, especially on-line.

Club dues for the 2002-2003 HARRA year were invoiced and due by 6.30.02. Payments were received for all but 4 of the clubs -- those clubs will receive a second invoice in the next week.

All runners tax checks for the Spring 2002 series have been received.

Current account balances:
Whitney Checking: $18,588.97
Whitney Trail Fund: $29,782.82
Paine Webber MM: $10,645.33

2. The look of the webpage will be modified over the next few months. Any ideas/suggestions for appearance and content should be directed to Jeremy. Part of this would coincide with the updated design of Footprints, in an effort to better link the two and streamline the content process.

Another change that will occur in the near future is the inclusion of pictures on the website. If anyone has pictures that they would like to appear on the website, please forward them to Jeremy.

Power in Motion - Ralph Collins
Ralph reported that the new series will start September 4th. They expect about 250 runners to sign up this year.

The Kid's Run - Ram Tekumalla
1. We have received the check from Memorial Hermann, as Jeremy reported. We will soon meet with Memorial Hermann reps to specify their role for the run. We are also working on publicity and sponsorships from others (HEB, Randalls). More updates as we go along.

2. GiGi noted that the Al Lawrence Running Club would help support the Kid's Run.

V.P of Road Race Management - Randy Carlson
1. The new AED has been purchased, however there has been a bit of a snag in establishing contact with the Police Department regarding the deployment of the unit.

2. The mile markers (continuing saga ) are be on their way.

3. Randy and GiGi will work on some ways to publicize both the AED and the placement of the mile markers in Memorial Park. These are two important accomplishments by HARRA and should be brought to the attention of the running community.

4. Two groups have approached HARRA about making their races part of the fall series. After considerable discussion, the consensus was for Randy to get back to the groups and offer help with information on how to get sponsors and how to set up and manage the races. However, since these are new events it was felt that they would not be considered to be in the fall series until they were more fully established.

V.P. Of Clubs - Roger Boak
1. There was a discussion of the introduction of new races into the HARRA series (fall or spring). The consensus was that this should be a matter to be discussed with a fuller representation of the clubs. Are there enough races, do we need more, or should there be some other changes?

2. There is not too much to report during the summer months.

3. Roger was out on Ho Chi Minh trail and it looked as if the biker's work party had been rained out since there was no apparent changes. He will report on any further efforts.

Membership Committee - Annie Hadow
Membership activity has been good. We have 534 current members (July 1 forward). We ended the membership year with 1920.

In the coming weeks, reminders will be mailed out to last year's members who have not renewed. There will be a sign up drive at the August 10th Houston Fit Meeting. GiGi, John and Bill volunteered to help with the sign up. Other than that, the next big sign up drive will occur at the Marathon Sign Up Party in September.

Printing Xpress offered the following printing quotes:

  • Membership Applications:(we are almost out): $179 for 1000/ $ 265ish for 2000.
  • New Member Postcards: (we are almost out): $65 for 1000
  • Membership Reminder Cards (to be sent to '01-'02 members who have not renewed: $70 for 1500
  • Postcards with a perforated member card inside, since John mentioned the idea at the last meeting. This would run roughly $200 for 1500 cards + $30 for the initial artwork.

    These expenditures were approved by unanimous vote.

    There was also a discussion about the necessity of informing new members of their membership. Jeremy will set up an automated response for those signing up via the internet, and Annie and Jeremy will discuss other methods of notification.

    V.P. of Communications - GiGi Wark
    Talked to April Murphy about designing the cover of Footprints.

    1. Assigned Assistant editors for the following:
    Michele Fredenburg-ArriagaClub Reports and Meet our Members
    Cindy Sosa
    Bill DubinskyMedical articles
    Linda HurdTrail Running/Ultra Marathons
    Debbie KemplerTri Athlons/Cycling

    2. Spoke with Jeremy via email about taking over the billing for Footprints and about publishing Footprints on the web site.

    3. Next issue should be out first of August. My first issue will be the Oct/Nov issue and I hope to get that out the first of October. Deadlines are August 20.

    4. Looked into the processing of Footprints and it goes like this:
    a. ImageSet needs at least 2 weeks to put the newsletter together with the articles and pictures, 2 days for proofing and then 2 days to put on film.
    b. Printing X-Press 1-5 day turn over depending on their schedule, but Tad tries to cater to our needs
    c. Quest Mark 3-5 day turn over for putting on mailing labels and putting in the inserts and setting up for mailing.
    d. Sugarland Post Office/Service: This is the hold up. Our newsletter is 3rd rate bulk mail and has the lowest priority. Thus it can take anywhere from 10-15 days to get out of that office and then add a couple of days to go through other post offices. We have an account set up with them and it is quite costly to set up a new account and other post offices will treat it the same. The officer in charge did tell me that I could call him to remind them and add a little pressure.

    Students Run Houston - John Reich
    1. Things are coming along for the fall-winter season. The students will run the Jingle Bell Run and the CONOCO 10K and have several training runs.

    2. Walk Houston, a pedestrian advocacy, group has contacted John and he will attend their meeting to explore areas of common interests.

    Houston Marathon - Steve Karpas

    Steve presented a very interesting report on the current activities of the marathon committee and their goals for the future. Last year the Kid's run on Saturday before the marathon had about 6,000 participants and was one of the largest events of this type in the country. They partnered with Texas Children's Hospital and directed the kids through a 4 month program preparing for the race and providing nutritional advice. In all they reached out to 77 schools in 17 different school districts. A very impressive effort.

    The goal of the new marathon committee is to develop the marathon weekend into a "Weekend of Fitness" that would involve athletes and non-athletes from throughout the metropolitan area. Currently there is the Kid's Run, a 4 mile run, the half marathon (El Paso Energy) and the hp marathon.

    One area where the marathon committee would like to improve participation is with the high school level participants. Steve is getting together with John Reich to see if they can develop a mechanism to incorporate SRH into their programs.

    The "Kick-off Party" will be held September 9th near the Picnic area at Memorial Park.

    New Business
    1. Jeremy presented an update on the Rice parking situation. There will be 1,800 free parking spaces on campus for visitors, located in two areas. The bigger area is the west stadium lot -- this is the big lot next to the stadium, with an entrance off of Greenbriar. The second (smaller) area is between the stadium and the campus police station, right along University. Enter at Entrance 8 (Stockton), then turn left and the parking is along the left.

    Visitor parking elsewhere on campus will be consolidated into four pay lots. An area of the stadium lot near the Shepherd School will be 75 cents per hour. The other three lots, near the center of campus, will be $1.50 per hour. Those lots are North Lot (where most runners currently park, close to Valhalla), Founder's Court (near Allen Center/Lovett Hall) and the new Central Campus Garage (near the Student Center). The gates for the close-in lots are scheduled to be in place by 9.1.02. The stadium lot gates will be installed by 1.1.03.

    2. Visitors and club representatives were introduced. Ramona Zamudio and Greg Felts of the Tornados gave the date of the Cross country run as September 28th. Pat Nelson of the Memorial Park Running Club introduced their new president, Roy Lira. Chris Rampacek represented the Team PTI Running Club.

    Old Business
    Try and gather the club logos for Footprints.

    The meeting was adjourned at 7:21.