Pace Setter : July 2016

HMRRC Club Minutes (June 8, 2016)

Attendance: Tom and Marcia Adams, Frank Broderick, Ed Neiles, Chris Nowak, John Parisella, Ray Newkirk, Jon Rocco, Ken Skinner, Cathy Sliwinski, Lara Stelmaszyk, Jim Tierney

Call to Order (John Parisella):

1. Approval of May 11, 2016, minutes. Motion to approve minutes made by Marcia Adams, seconded by Jon Rocco. Motion passed.

2. Reports of Officers

2.1 President (J. Parisella):

(1) Received slate of candidates for 2017 from the committee. President: Chris Nowak or Ray Newkirk; VP: Frank Broderick; VP for Finance: Ray Newkirk or Chris Nowak; VP for Running Events: Jon Rocco; Treasurer: Jon Golden; Treasurer for Running Events: Cathy Sliwinski; Secretary: Marcia Adams; Member at Large (one-year term): Ed Neiles; Member at Large (two-year term): Maureen Cox.

Members can nominate alternate candidates; nominating petitions need to be presented at the July meeting, along with signatures consisting of 1 percent of club membership or 30 people, whichever is more; the elections committee needs to verify signatures by July 31.

(2) Received a letter from Abby Atkins, board president of USATF ADK, regarding how HMRRC would like its logo to appear in the Junior Olympics materials.

2.2 Executive Vice President (F. Broderick): Shrader Scholarships awarded before the beginning of the meeting; scholarship recipients Victoria Spezio, Julia Flower, Thomas Conboy, Joey Somerville, and their families were in attendance and were presented with a plaque and a check. Scholarship recipients Olivia Munson and Sean Russo were not present, due to scheduling conflicts, but they will/have been presented with scholarship checks at their school awards ceremonies.

2.3 Executive Vice President – Finance (R. Newkirk): Confirmed that accounts have been reconciled.

2.4 Secretary (L. Stelmaszyk): No report

2.5 Treasurer (J. Golden): (Not present; report e-mailed.) See attached report. Total of accounts: $355,331.12.

3. Reports of Committees

3.1 Membership (D. Fisher-Golden): (Not present; report e-mailed.) See attached report.

Total membership: 2,899

Change in membership: ‐24

New memberships: 13

Facebook followers: 2,631

Twitter followers: 240

3.2 Volunteers (M. Adams): Need Distinguished Service report and Workforce Team Challenge report still. Volunteer lists up on website.

Nine-inch digital finish-line clock not functioning following the WTC race; mailing out for repair assessment. Insurance claim will be made to cover repair or replacement. Value of clock is about $5,000.

3.3 Public Relations (R. Moore): (Not present; report e-mailed.) Press releases about our upcoming races sent to all papers. HMRRC did not have a booth at the expo for the Freihofer’s Run for Women 5K race, due to Robert’s unavailability.

There was no HMRRC tent at the Workforce Team Challenge this year.

HMRRC has been invited to have a booth at the Saratoga Palio Half Marathon expo in September and at the Adirondack Marathon Distance Festival expo in late September.

HMRRC will have a booth at HMRRC’s Mohawk Hudson River Marathon/Half Marathon expo in October.

Discussion followed about effectiveness of spending time and money on having booths at expos other than HMRRC events. Also, about the need for more effective tracking of HMRRC brochures.

3.4 Race Committee (J. Rocco):

Races since the last meeting:

37th CDPHP Workforce Team Challenge (May 19): Once again, a huge success.

Stats:

8,217 finishers, down about 100 from 8,319 finishers in 2015, but up from 7,700 in 2014. Entrants this year capped at 10,000, versus 10,237 in 2015. No-show percent this year was 17.8%, versus 18.7% in 2015 and 20.5% in 2014. Gender ratio: 57% female, 43% male. In 2015, the gender ratio was 56% female and 44% male.

Individual winners:

Overall winner: Matt Brooker, with a time of 17:01 (4:52 pace). This was the fastest winning time since 1996. This was 1 second faster than last year’s winner, Kieran O’Connor, who finished 2nd, with a time of 17:08.

Female winner: Renee Tolan, with a time of 20:18, 4 seconds faster than last year’s winning time. She was 2 seconds faster than runner-up Erin Lopez.

Teams:

Male division winner: Fleet Feet Sports. ARE Event Productions, who won last year for the 5th time in 6 years, finished 4th.

Female division winner: ARE Event Productions. GE, who had won 3 years in a row, finished 4th.

Co-ed division winner: Albany Medical Center won for the 2nd year in a row and the 4th time in 5 years.

Most participants: GE (523; up 80 from 2015), CDPHP (273: up 12 from 2015), and Albany Medical Center (277: up 1 from 2015).

Congrats once again to our Charities of Choice, Girls on the Run and Schenectady ARC (total donations not released as of yet).

Thanks to Mark Warner for directing once again, as well as to the coordinators, volunteers, CDPHP and their staff, and our 20 sponsors (13 of them premium sponsors).

A wrap-up meeting is soon to be scheduled, but we can report that the crowds flowed well, everyone got to the start line on time despite the construction at the Empire State Plaza, post-race participants were able to easily get T-shirts and refreshments, there was plenty of water on the course, there were no known issues on the course, the four bands were a big hit, and the medical team responded well to the few issues we had. HMRRC placed a thank-you ad in the Times Union.

45th Distinguished Service Race: Held Sunday, June 5. John Parisella honored. Congrats again to John, the 56th Distinguished Service winner.

Male winner: Eric Young. Female winner: Liz Chauhan. 68 finishers: 45 male, 23 female, down from 127 finishers in 2015 and from 108 in 2014. Martha DeGrazia was the age-graded winner. The threat of rainstorms was certainly a factor, though the first drops did not come until 50 minutes into the race. Also, the race was the day after the Freihofer’s Run for Women this year; typically it falls the day after the OK 5K, which is this coming Saturday, June 11. Thanks to race director David Tromp and all volunteers.

Upcoming races:

6/14: Colonie Summer Track, the first of 8 weeks on Tuesdays thru 8/2. Will do e-mail blast reminder. The Colonie Mile event is 6/28.

6/18: ValleyCats Father’s Day 5K. Mail-in registration ends 6/13; on-line registration thru Active.com closes 6/15; last chance is Thurs 6/16 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Joe Bruno Stadium. No day-of registration.

7/7: Summer Series Two-person relay

3.5 Race Committee Treasurer (C. Sliwinski): See attached report. HMRRC has a new interest-bearing savings account at SEFCU.

3.6 Pace Setter and website (E. Neiles): Final payment made to the web developer. The construction of the website framework is essentially complete. Cyndy Allen and Sally Drake are pursuing more content for the online Pace Setter.

3.7 Conflicts Committee (R. Newkirk): No report

3.8 Safety Committee (VACANT):

3.9 Grants Committee (R. Newkirk): Put out a notice on the website that grant applications are due by July 31. No applications have been received to date.

3.10 Long Range Planning Committee (E. Neiles): Meeting in July; still settling on a date.

3.11 Just Run Program (K. Skinner): The two-day Just Run spring meet was held June 7 and 8. Just under 1,000 kids participated. About two-thirds of the kids who participated in the program came to the meet. The volunteers were great.

4. Unfinished Business:

5. New Business:

A proposed Credit Card Policy and Policy Acknowledgment were distributed to meeting attendees for review and further discussion at the July meeting.

Marcia Adams wants to hold an HMRRC garage sale to clean out the HMRRC clubhouse--miscellaneous items that can be parted with, including old race shirts—as a fun public-relations event. She will prepare a list of items to be sold. She is thinking of organizing a fun run in conjunction with this event, and having promotional materials and race registration forms available at the event as well.

6. Announcements:

Adjourn:

Motion to adjourn made by Ray Newkirk at 9:32 p.m. Seconded by Marcia A