CRCA Board Meeting Minutes
March 31, 2015 at 7:15 PM
300 E. 85th St.
Present: Liz Marcello (president), Tomi Ketcham, Alexis Kraft, Lisa Vandivort, Lucia Deng, Ann Marie Miller, Randy Locklair, Matthew Vandivort, Joe Grgic, and David Carr (secretary).
The board received a pre-meeting report by email on financials from Ken Edwards
[Next board meeting scheduled right now for 7:15 PM on Tuesday, April 28]
Matters Discussed and Voted
- Open Racing: Joe/Matt/Liz
a. Brief Grants Tomb re-cap
- Registration was quite strong, matching last year's registration despite the bleak weather forecast, as a result the race generated a profit for the CRCA Junior Development Foundation.
- Despite the weather, with some minor course alterations to slow the corners and address concerns raised by Riverside Church regarding garage access the racing was generally clean and safe throughout the day. There was only one crash that required medical attention - on the last lap of the Elite Men's race.
- For 2016 the board discussed various avenues to better distribute workload and insure we are not overtaxing certain board members / volunteers, particularly around logistics and payouts.
b. Outstanding items for Orchard Beach and Bear Mountain – Joe Grgic reported on progress and to-do items going forward for upcoming May races at Orchard Beach and Bear Mountain.
- Team duty clarifications: Alexis -- The board discussed prior history of
- CRCA kit compliance – The board reaffirmed the need for club members to wear CRCA compliant jerseys (or, if new, to have a receipt at a race proving such jerseys have been ordered and are being shipped to them). The policy will be reaffirmed via email prior to the next race on April 11.
- Race Clinics update/to-do: Lucia – Lucia reported that planning is progressing well for both the men’s and women’s clinics
- Membership Update: Randy – Randy updated the board on ongoing initiatives and the report (below) on membership was discussed
- CRCA.net features/stories: Lucia + board – Board members were encouraged to
- Coach payments for weather-cancellation dates: Ken/Matt
The board voted to pay coaches $40 for coaching dates cancelled because of weather, with savings (after cost of permits and coach payments for rain dates are subtracted) normally applied to the cost of permits and staffing for more coaching sessions later in the season.
- Financial picture (including $1700 NYSBRA contribution): Ken (pre-circulated)
Membership - NEUTRAL
- Seemingly broad positive feedback on revamped membership structure
- Season pass highly successful, representing ~2/3rd of racing membership
- However total membership only flat y/y as renewal rates trailing prior year levels
- New membership up versus 2014 though still trailing below 2012/2013 levels
- Donor membership trailing 2014 levels despite additional benefits (surprising)
- Donations down significantly, lowest level since 2001 excluding 2013
- Conclusions: still need to push recruiting & renewals, need to engage with new members to improve renewal rates going forward
Financials - NEUTRAL / POSITIVE
- Performance generally tracking inline with baseline budget
- Expenses higher for various items (donor jerseys, crew polos, etc)
- But revenues generally inline with our targets with flat y/y membership
- Grant's Tomb profits slightly ahead of budget due to sponsorship + registration
- Sponsorship successes should give us an improved margin of safety
- Orchard Beach / Bear Mountain very important for full year financials
- Significant current liquidity due to ~5 year run rate of financial success
- But note timing shift of cash flows - will burn significant cash for rest of the year
- Conclusions: inline with expectations thus far, but will have a much better sense of where we stand on May 15
- Juniors update: Matt (report below circulated by post-meeting email)
Respectfully submitted,
David Carr, Secretary
*********
Upcoming Schedule for Juniors
- Saturday: tentatively working on a juniors team ride for9AM on Saturday (post CRCA race and Cherry Blossom) if anyone would like to join - likely to be a smallish presence from the team due to schedule conflicts.
- Sunday: the team is heading out to Kissena to ride bikes in circles on the track. I'll be there to help oversee them / try not to kill myself racing on the track, but have already spoken to Josh Sakofsky who has relayed some e-mail advice for the team on the format & strategy and who is going to help find an experienced rider to "coach" the team during the day
- Next weekend: we're taking 3-4 riders up to Battenkill, with host housing provided by Dieter. Likely to be a tough day of racing given the caliber of the competition and we're missing our strongest rider due to back pain, but hopefully a good day of racing.
Organization of Juniors Program
Working on getting financial authority passed from Ken Harris who is the signatory on the account to a new and more active individual - Charlie Bird has volunteered to fill the role but the transition is taking far longer than I would like (I'm sitting on $4,000+ of checks I can't cash) and I'm currently fronting for team expenses out of pocket - hopefully this can get addressed in the next few weeks.
The only good news is that we're taking a VERY conservative view of spending this year as we aim to work out a longer-term structure for the program, so expenses have been modest, though we have a big outlay looming for purchasing more kit (which Castelli has provided for free on occasion but we haven't spoken to them about a reload yet)
Longer-term
The team remains focused on Orchard Beach and Bear Mountain - those events will be our priority for the first half of the season and we hope to have good turnout.
