Houston Area Road Runners Association
Board Meeting
January 19, 2004
Members present:
Roger Boak, Bill Dubinsky, Annie Hadow, Roy Lira, Bob Hoekman, Tom McBrayer, Camille Yarbrough and Audrey Christiansen.
Others Present:
Reading of the minutes:
The meeting was called to order at 6:10 PM. The minutes were voted on and approved.
Reports of Directors and committees:
Treasurer’s Report – Audrey Christiansen
The Kids Run was the major financial activity and there were no membership related transactions.
Membership Committee - Annie Hadow
We currently have 1365 members plus some that were picked up at the marathon EXPO.
V.P. Of Clubs – Roger Boak
There are some marathon towels remaining. In all there were 203 that were distributed at the marathon. Roger also raised a question about the website. Bill Dubinsky related an email that he just received from Ken Gonsalvez who would no longer be able to maintain the site much longer. Annie noted that Jeremy was back in town and would communicate with him regarding the website.
Medical Report – Bob Hoekman
Bob needs a list of all of the races for the spring series in order to line up AED and medical coverage for the events. We would try and get him a finalized list; however there were still some uncertainties about a few of the dates.
FootPrints – Roy Lira
About a half dozen clubs had sent in letters for the new issue to come out in ITR. At this time there is some uncertainty about what is going into the first issue. Camille reported that the next issue of ITR was going to press on the following Wednesday. Still not too much is known regarding the agreement between ITR and HARRA.
Bayou City Classic – Camille Yarbrough
The BCC is coming along very well and there are no problems or issues for discussion. There was a question as to how well informed the clubs were regarding the Party in the Park. She needs to have them communicate with her for planning purposes, e.g. how many tents will be needed? She also wanted to know specifically if PIM would be there.
Roger will get a hold of the clubs to notify them of the date and other particulars.
Equipment – Tom McBrayer
As Tom had previously mentioned, there was a drop in income from equipment rentals this year by about 25% to just over $10,000.
Bill Dubinsky asked if there was some way to track the income and expenses of the Kids Run as a separate entity to more accurately gauge its performance. Audrey felt that this could be done relatively easily.
There was some discussion regarding age graded scoring, and as in the past, there are numerous opinions, much discussion and little resolution. Tom noted that his impression was that it was practically a requirement in Oklahoma, but was unaware of how this was handled in other parts of Texas.
Finally, Camille noted a number of problems facing HARRA such as the lack of a newsletter, pending loss of the webmaster, budget, apparent demise of Students Run Houston and so on. She then opened a lively discussion by asking if anyone on the board was concerned with these problems. There was considerable discussion as the various issues were addressed by the various board members. There is a consensus that these are serious problems, however some have been on-going largely because of the lack of personnel to do the jobs in some cases, responsible parties dropping the ball in other cases, and perhaps inattention by the board in some cases. After much discussion the board decided to address issues of relevance and substance at the next meeting as an agenda item.
One immediate response was an effort to help inform the membership of HARRA activities by including a copy of the HARRA “lite” brochure in all series race packets. Camille made the motion to have each race stuff the brochure in their race packets as a requirement to be a series race. HARRA will provide sufficient copies to each race director prior to packet stuffing. The motion was voted on and approved unanimously.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:45
Respectfully submitted,
Bill Dubinsky