The meeting was called to order by John Phillips at 6:24. (The delay in the start time was due to all present putting mailing labels on members post cards.)

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

Members not present: Roger Boak, Cindy Sosa, Michele Fredenberg-Arriaga

Reading of the minutes
The minutes of the July meeting was approved and accepted.

Report of the President
John stated that programs and assignments that were initiated before his tenure were nearing completion. He assumed that if any problems arose they would be brought to his attention, otherwise he assumed they were progressing according to plans.

Reports of Directors and committees:

Treasurer - Jeremy Mills
1. Membership dues received thru 8/12 are up to $13,810 for the year. This is 40% of the amount received during calendar 2001, which should correspond fairly well to the current membership number.

2. As of 8/12, three clubs have not paid their HARRA Club Dues for 2002-2003. They are Al Lawrence, Pacesetters and Terlingua. Follow-up invoices went out in mid_July with an 8/15 due date, so hopefully they will be in the latest batch or mail.

Power in Motion - Ralph Collins
Ralph Collins reported that there are currently 40 people signed up. There will be a sign up in September where he expects an good turnout. John, Bill and GiGi will attend the sign up to represent HARRA.

The Kid's Run - Ram Tekumalla
Ram reported that he was awaiting approval of the September 28th date for the Kid's run from the Parks department. Until he gets the date set he cannot begin to advertise the race. This raised some concerns as to the late date to begin promoting and advertising of the event. Ram assured the board that everything else was in place and that the race was progressing well.

V.P of Road Race Management - Randy Carlson
1. Randy reported that the AED has been turned over to the HPD and that the policemen were being trained by HPD in the use of the equipment. The unit should be deployed shortly.

2. The mile markers have been delivered to Memorial park. Details for their installation are being worked out at this time. There will be some kind of ceremony with the removal of the old markers and placement of the new ones. The mile markers are 18" x 18". In order to protect them and improve their visibility they will probably be set with a concrete border around them. The 1/2 and 1/4 mile markers are smaller, but with the same border should be readily visible.

3. There will be a meeting on September 9th with the Memorial Park Conservancy Committee to hear the plans for future development of the park. Randy will attend and report on these plans.

4. At the last meeting Randy reported that he was approached by two groups about the addition of races to the fall series. He got back to these groups and suggested that we keep an open dialogue as to the number of races in the fall series. A lively discussion arose and Terry Garret spoke in support of designing a series that would include runners in the half marathon. This is a popular distance, and Steve Karpas feels that this race will become a strength of the Marathon weekend events. The discussion revolved around the popularity of the 10K distance and logistics of tracking 1/2 marathon participants. The technocrats (Jeremy, GiGi and Bill) won out indicating that with current information technology such tracking would not be difficult. Jeremy agreed to assist Roger with this function. Chris Rampacek noted that he has a number of 1/2 marathoners in his group and that he has already set up a ½ marathon series. The series included a 1/4 marathon in July, and he has worked out embedding a 1/2 marathon distance in the 20 K race. There was considerable interest amongst the board to develop the series. GiGi will put out some information in Footprints and we'll approach the clubs to get a feel for their level of enthusiasm. Jeremy will work with Roger on the results and Randy will get together with race directors to work on developing the distances in current and perhaps additional races.

V.P. Of Clubs - Roger Boak
Roger is recovering from Leadville Trails 100 Miles - congratulations

Membership Committee - Annie Hadow
1. Annie reported that we currently have 754 new and renewing members. There have been some problems with the online registration. She and Jeremy were trying to resolve the problem which seems to be at the Sign Me Up sports site.

2. Annie was working on the design and production of membership cards.

3. The effort to recruit members at Houston fit resulted in only 3 memberships. Recruitment was briefly discussed. Chris Rampacek of Team PTI suggested that we encourage the officers of the clubs to talk to their members and help promote HARRA.

V.P. of Communications - GiGi Wark
1. GiGi reported on Footprints. Changes have been made in the cover and the content and look of the newsletter is being revamped. In general there has been some redesigning and some additional aspects of running are being covered. She has been very pleased with her assistant editors. This system seems to work well, allowing for more thorough coverage of different types of events that Houston runners participate in.

2. She also reported on her efforts to publish Footprints in a more timely and economic fashion. Susanne and Charlotte at Imageset who have been working with Footprints have split away to form their own company. GiGi has decided to stay with them because of the good working relationship and their familiarity with the project. The board agreed with the decision. She was also looking into the printing and mailing procedures as well. This process has been taking an inordinate amount of time and she would like to expedite the process. Bids were expected in the next week or so that would help with her decision making process.

Students Run Houston - John Reich
John brought up some issues with SRH that needed board input. He got together with Steve Karpas to discuss SRH. Steve was interested in developing SRH and perhaps having the final race on Marathon weekend in either the 4 mile or 1/2 marathon distance. Steve has managed to get tremendous involvement of elementary and middle school students in the kids run on marathon weekend, but thus far has been unable to get an appreciable high school representation. If possible he would like to work with HARRA and SRH to improve participation. John's question is what do we want to do with SRH?

Do we want to take students that are already well trained athletes and help promote their participation by providing support ion the form of entrance fees and other rewards, or do we want to take kids with little or no prior experience to train and develop an interest in the sport of running by offering coaching, encouragement and support.

There was a very extensive discussion of a number of aspects and the pros and cons of growing the program into a large effort. This might be accomplished in several ways. Perhaps getting more sponsorships would help in enrolling more students. Alternatively, individual clubs could "adopt" a high school that they could work with. One of the major problems is recruitment of students. How can we reach them?

Mercedes Tarley noted that John Shepard has experience working with students at risk, and GiGi pointed out that Serait Abraham also works with students at risk and disadvantaged students. We should approach them for their expertise and advice.

The dialogue has been opened and judging from the reaction of the board there is great interest in SRH. The board agreed to continue the dialogue and to talk about this with others for ideas. John will get together with Steve for further discussions and he will put a column in the October issue of Footprints about SRH and these possibilities.

New Business
1. The Bayou City Classic: John Phillips resurrected the issue of an assistant race director to take over when Camille Yarbrough stepped down after the next running of this event. Bill Dubinsky had written to John regarding Terry Garret's interest in learning how to put on a race. John invited Terry to take the position and Terry agreed to assist Camille and move into the race director's seat in 2004. The board overwhelmingly was in favor of the move. In the same vein, Randy Carlson said that he had discussions with Michele Fredenberg-Arriaga about taking over the post-race party for the event. He would pursue this further.

2. GiGi brought up the issue of bulletin boards at the park and who was responsible for them. John Phillips was not sure, but Jeremy indicated that the person was identified on the web site. John said that it was incumbent upon people who had information to be posted to get in touch with him. GiGi felt that maybe we should be more pro-active and use the bulletin boards as an additional mode of communication with the members.

3. Participation of the clubs at HARRA meetings is still very weak. A number of ideas were exchanged to promote interaction. This is deemed as extremely important in order for lines of communication to be opened. We are trying to get the information to the clubs, but we aren't getting a lot of feedback at this point. GiGi will look into the possibility of a poll or questionnaire. She has had some success with the request for clubs to submit articles to Footprints. Since this is a regular part of Footprints, we can see what happens over the next several months. Bill Dubinsky will look into ways of getting to the clubs.

Old Business
1. Jeremy updated us on the parking situation at Rice and the changes at Rice are still on schedule. That means that "close" lots will have an hourly charge starting 9/1. Also, the visitor parking section in North Lot (the one closest to Valhalla) has been moved from the east end of the lot to the west end of the lot (closest to entrance 13).

2. Annie said that membership cards were being designed and will be ordered for distribution at the Kick off party.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:10 pm.