Houston Area Road Runners Association
Board Meeting
October 20, 2003
Members present:
Roger Boak, Annie Hadow, Bill Dubinsky, John Phillips, Noah Mathews, Bob Hoekman and Tom McBrayer.
Others Present:
Pat Nelson and Roy Lira
Reading of the minutes:
The meeting was called to order at 6:06 PM. The minutes were read and Noah requested clarification on a point about the reported single 5K course for Houston races. The minutes misquoted Tom McBrayer’s comments on the idea of having a single 5K course that would avoid expensive engineering costs for course approval in the future. The minutes were corrected and approved.
Reports of Directors and committees:
Treasurer’s Report – Audrey Christiansen
Audrey was at the Columbus marathon and emailed that there was little activity in September other than a lot of $$ from new members.
Membership Committee - Annie Hadow
Membership remains active. We currently have 1301 members, which means we've
added or renewed 332 members since last meeting. Last year at this time, we had 1427 members, so we are slowly closing the gap created by the membership extension. Annie reported difficulty in getting member information posted on the website and offered that she would be willing to do it herself
Treasurer – Audrey Christiansen
V.P. Of Clubs – Roger Boak
The fall practice for the Tour de bayou series was going very well with strong participation. He has the results from the relay but is waiting on the 10 M and the 20K. These will be posted when he gets them.
AED – Bob Hoekman
Bob gratefully noted that during the fall series so far there were no cardiac emergencies requiring activation of an AED. One of the AED team members was present at an incident in the park on a Sunday morning a few weeks ago that required the City ambulance and EMT intervention. This raised a question as to the disposition of the AED unit that was dispatched to the HPD for use in Memorial Park. After asking some of the officers in the area, Bob is concerned as to whether the unit is being deployed on a regular basis. He will follow up on this since it is of obvious importance to runners and others who use the park.
Bob also reported that he continues to train and recertify people, but that coverage at some of the fall races has been a little light and the 20K was short one CPR trained team member.
Equipment – Tom McBrayer
Tom reported that there was a break in at the storage facility last week. One site was the Marathon shed and the other was Bill Smith’s. Nothing too serious although Bill lost some tools from his shed.
Tom also requested that HARRA consider replacing one of the “FINISH” line banners. These are rented practically every weekend and are quite old. He sought out a bid estimating the cost at $225. The banner is designed such that smaller non-reusable banners can be attached to it for any specific group for $35. Annie moved to approve purchase of the banner and Roger seconded. The board voted unanimously for approval of the purchase.
John Phillips asked Tom to get an estimate for a new HARRA banner for use at events.
Power in Motion – Noah Mathews
PIM has 209 students "officially" signed up for the fall 2003 Clinic. This is the largest group to attend a fall clinic (out of a total of 6). There have now been a total of 2,400 students pass through the program since the start in 1998.
There are 3 sessions to go, 2 in October, then the Run for the Saints 5K race (Nov 1st) and the last session on Nov 5th. The last session is to review the program from the prospective of the students and to help the students plan a program to continue running. It might be nice if some of the HARRA Board (besides myself) would come out to the race and /or the last meeting to talk with the students and get a first hand look at the success of the program.
The attendance (student retention) has been exceptional this session with about 130/135 (65%) average each Wednesday evening, so far. Many, probably 40 / 50 students ran the Warm-Up series 20K on Oct 19th. Many of these people were doing it as part of a personal training program to run the hp Houston Marathon or Half Marathon in January. Several of the students are also in Houston, Katy, Champions and Clear Lake Fit programs.. ! Most all of the students have signed up for the Run for the Saints 5K at the end of the clinic. We will probably have 100 + attending the race. The enthusiasm is just remarkable this year.. ! It is very evident that the success of the program is growing..
Noah also reported (as a member of the Houston Striders Running Club) that the HARRA 20K Marathon Warm-Up series race went very well this year. The new course was very well received, the logistics of the race went off without any problems and the post race party was a success. Of course the weather put a blanket of success over the whole day, Sunday.
The Kids Run seems to be under control with an effective committee. Pat has been very pleased with the contributions to the run which has good sponsorship.
New Business
John Phillips reported on progress at finding a new editor for the newsletter. The publisher of Runner Triathlete News and Inside Texas Running came up with a possible solution to our problems. Under consideration is a proposal to put, for example, an 8 page insert in RTN to replace FootPrints at no cost to HARRA. We could probably carry the same features and would not have to deal with ads. HARRA would then include a subscription to RTN as part of the membership package. This is a viable alternative to FootPrints that should be considered.
Volunteers were requested for the 25K.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:03 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Bill Dubinsky