Houston Area Road Runners Association

Board Meeting

September 15, 2003

 

 

Members present:

            Audrey Christiansen, Roger Boak, Annie Hadow, Bill Dubinsky, Camille Yarbrough, John Phillips, Noah Mathews, Ralph Collins and Tom McBrayer.

 

Others Present:

            Terry Thomas, Tom McClintoch, Pat Nelson and John Cody

Reading of the minutes:

            The minutes were read and approved.

 

Reports of Directors and committees:

 

Membership Committee - Annie Hadow

            Annie reported that there was a big spike in membership with both Houston Fit and the Marathon Sign up party. There are now 970 members. She also reported that there was interest in one of the Houston Fit members about the editorship of Footprints. This will be followed up on.

 

Treasurer – Audrey Christiansen

            It was a good month with a lot of income and few expenses. There is about $9500 in the checking account with another $2000 to be deposited.

 

V.P. Of Clubs – Roger Boak

            There isn’t much to report on the clubs at this time, but there is a lot of activity in other arenas. The most pressing is that the Parks Department has a grant for $125,000 that has to be spent by December. There was a proposal that included the following:

                        Seymour-Lieberman Trail            $60,000

                        Replace Bridges on trails            $25,000

                        New trails                             $25,000

                        Design & studies                      $15,000

 

However, the bridges were vetoed and cannot be put back where they were originally. New proposals include improvement of the equestrian tunnels/paths under Memorial Drive and Woodway, and building a new trail on the outside of the park loop road. Planning for these two improvements is under way. There is also consideration of the main trail itself, particularly stabilizing the surface.

            Roger also has a new design for the Iron Foot award socks. 

                       

New Business

 

John Phillips took the opportunity to introduce some of the visitors to the meeting, Terry Thomas and Tom McClintoch from the Katy Corridor Coalition. They wanted to update and alert HARRA to some of the changes that were being proposed by Texas DOT. They felt that these changes could have a significant impact on the running community. According to federal laws, every effort must be made in the planning of roads to avoid infringing on any park properties. The coalition is working with Texas DOT on the I-10 expansion project and are very concerned about possible effects on Memorial Park. They announced a meeting that is to be held October 2, 2003 discuss the I-10 expansion and environmental consequences with an environmental lawyer, Jim Blackburn.

 

Tom McClintoch is an architect and discussed some of the proposed changes and likely effects on the area. The modifications of 610 plan to use park land on both sides of the highway. The current plan will raise the interchange to some 70 feet above the current elevation and the area approaching the interchange between 6 and 20 feet. They are also studying the feasibility of extending the northbound access road around the 610 to  I-10 bend that would utilize some of the property of the Bayou Club and the Polo grounds.  There is another study of a plan to put a toll road on the railroad right of way through the park to the galleria area. Technically these plans are not done deals, but as you can see work is already proceeding on some of these projects.

 

Equipment – Tom McBrayer

            The 5K course is now being used for a number of races thus eliminating the costly engineering study. Tom will keep us informed and report back on the single course events.

            The numbers of sign ups for the Marathon and the Warm-up Series were down from previous years. The decline may in part be due to the increased number of on-line registrations that take place a little closer to the events.

            The USA Track and Field Association has put close to 14,000 different race courses on the internet. Thus runners have immediate access to any course that they might be interested in.

 

Power in Motion – Noah Mathews

            PIM has 192 participants after the second week and will likely go over 200 soon. This will be the largest fall group thus far. Dr. Hoekman trained an additional 5 coaches in CPR. The program is using the Run With the Saints and has negotiated a $3 discount for PIM members. Also, all of the local running stores have been invited to display onsite during the program.

             

Bayou City Classic – Camille Yarbrough

            Camille presented the changes that have taken place in invitations to local runners. There is an increased amount of support for both the Marathon and Half Marathon as well as changes in the qualifying times and the number of categories that are to be considered for an invitation.

 

Kids Run – Pat Nelson

            The Kids Run is well underway and all preparations seem to be proceeding in a timely fashion. They have set up a good committee and have been successful at gathering support for the event.

 

Partner Fit – Chris Rampacek

            (This was actually a topic to have been discussed under the New Business) Chris reported that PTI and Hermann memorial Sports care have teamed up to form a program that is designed to train and certify personal coaches in a number of different areas of personal fitness. The course is broadly based and covers leadership skills, physiology and anatomy, sports psychology, and medical, rehabilitative and legal aspects of coaching.

 

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:20 pm.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Bill Dubinsky