Minutes: January BoD Meeting
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LOCATION: Comfort Inn Capital Beltway, Beltsville, MD
Meeting Called to order at 8:57 AM.
Members in Attendance: Guests:
Wayne Armbrust MS Heidi S. Weir
Paul Anderson Region Administrator
Mike Snyder Michael Root
Lin Toland Katie Orgler
Dave Fitzgerald Sam Vassallo
Shawn Roberts Kahlil Natirboff
John Nesbit Adam Kimmitt
Alan Olson Chuck Edmondson
Mike McKee – Late Arrival Andy Thomas
Minutes of Previous meeting
Minutes from the December BoD meeting had been previously approved by the BoD.
Treasurer’s Report:
Treasurers Report 01.13.2018
In CR Investment Fund as of 12.31.2017- $734,636.94
In CR Cash Fund as of 12.31.2017- $100,124.36
(total Merrill Lynch Funds from both above: $834,761.30
In Solo Fund as of 12.31.2017- $18,688.61
In Region Checking as of 12.31.2017- $128,691.61
Current operating balance in Checking Account (as of 01/12/2018)= $129,129.15
Our final financial tally for 2017, subject to our accountant’s tweaks, was a loss of $26,108.00.
RE Report
Appointments
Mike McKee – Board of Directors (Approved by BoD at last meeting)
Alan Olson – Sponsorship Program
Program Changes:
Bob Crawford agreed to continue as Membership Services Chair-Representative as coordinated through Dave Fitzgerald. The business portion of the Membership Services Charter is being divided up to relieve the load on Bob and future candidates. The Program Charter should be revisited by the BoD to resolve any potential issues.
Steve Miller has resigned as the Chair of the Memorial Program. Review of the DMMC program mandates and guidelines should be undertaken by the BoD.
Current Policy Criteria:
The member must be deceased
The member must have been a member of WDCR for at least 15 years
The member must have supported our Region and made substantial contributions to the Region's programs and/or to the Region's operations as a whole.
Current list of Memorial nominees include:
Stan Damren
Skip Reber
Dottie Huemmer
Bob Johnson
Anne Callihan
Sue Roethel
Shirley Wantland
Summit Point Update:
Scheduling: Discussed date scheduling at some length. In most cases the track schedule is carried over from year to year. The earlier in the year that the following season can be confirmed is helpful to help resolve scheduling issues for the following season.
PDX – Will regain the second Main Circuit event in the 2019 season. August date lost to the 2017 season scheduling conflict issues.
RX – Return to Summit Point dirt tracks unlikely for the 2018 season. New buildings and property development in the old orchard grounds next to the RX event dirt tracks will be ongoing into the 2018 season. When the development is completed Summit Point Management will check with the property managing group to see if RX activity can be resumed. Likely to be revisited prior to the 2019 season.
CR – The July CR booking for 2019 will likely be moved up by at least a week, into the third weekend.
Financial Issues:
Track Entry SCCA/Track shared billboard or display: Plans for an Electric display board have been dropped (Initial cost quotes to the track management were well into the 5 figure range. An alternate advertising display is still under consideration, but not yet in progress. We will remain in contact with SPR management on this issue.
Pavilion – Is moving ahead. It will initially be an optional add-on of about 2,000 per weekend for use. If WDCR contributes to construction, number of days for available use at no cost will be discussed at that time. It may be available by Labor Day weekend. Eventual long range use planning will likely include the pavilion use in track rental cost.
Washington Circuit – Scope of the project has been pulled back some. The initial quotes for the size of pad being discussed for development exceeded 1M. SPR management made the decision that full scale development was not feasible at this time. Still looking at developing to the size of the three skid pads that currently exist. SPR will contact WDCR with revised scope and discuss potentials for use at that time.
SP Circuit Safety Mods are in progress. The modification WDCR has helped fund has expanded in scope to include a bank cut back and addition of Armco from the end of the tire wall DR past the gravel pit at T3 to past T4. Visibility to T5 will be improved from the top of T4. Work has started but slow in progressing.
Club Racing Report
The January preseason CRC meeting was held this part Saturday, January 6th. Attendance was much better than the December meeting. Discussion and action items are below (in no particular order):
The subject of out of region MARRS races was reopened. A first motion was made to re-open the subject and void the December vote. That was passed and a fair amount of discussion followed. One motion for an alternate OOR schedule was made and failed on vote count. A second motion was made for VIR in May (same as the original OOR schedule), NJMP (Lightning) in June, and NJMP (Thunder) in August. This motion passed with a good majority.
As an aside on the above, after discussion with Greg and at his request I have contacted the South Jersey RE and given them the news. We also asked SJR for two considerations since they would be getting two MARRS races. The first was for them to place two of the “Jerk” (Jersey racing series) events at Summit and for them to drop the driver’s school portion of their scheduled March event. He is going to take both requests to their board and expects to be able to get most, if not all, of what we asked for.
Entry fees were set at $375. This should supply a small surplus at the end of the season if all goes as planned.
The CRC voted to bring back the DC Region Championship. Only the Saturday heat races plus the Labor Day Sunday race will count toward the championship and there will be no drops.
For the MARRS series the current point structure remains the same. All of the races count and there will be one heat race and two feature race drops allowed.
Registration for all 2018 races will open in February.
There will be a new $25 fee for reserved numbers. This will not impact current number holders, but they must participate to hold the number, otherwise the number will be released and another driver may pay the fee and acquire rights to the number.
Shirley Thompson will chair the Labor Day charity committee.
There will be a drawing at each PDX to award a free school entry. The free entry may not be transferred.
Chuck Edmondson updated the committee on Bracket Racing and showed the Grassroots advertisement.
The committee voted to change the committee name to ‘Road Racing Committee”. This is in order to be in compliance with the new National designation instead of the old ‘Club Racing’. This will require a CRC charter change and I will bring it up at our board meeting for vote.
Member Services / PR and Sponsorships
According to the SCCA national database, the WDC region had 2,393 members as of 12/31/17.
226 memberships expired on 12/31/17 (it is unknown if they are renewed)
1,798 memberships will expire in 2018
69 members from WV
76 members from DC
949 members from MD
1,115 members from VA
184 members from outside WV, DC, VA and MD
204 members have birthdays in January
The new WDCR-SCCA website will be (or has been) temporarily launched under the domain WDCR-SCCA.COM to allow members to view and comment prior to transferring it to the WDCR-SCCA.ORG domain. The old website will remain accessible at WDCR-SCCA.ORG for the time being and even after the domain name has been transferred to the new site it will be available for reference at the URL sites.google.com/site/wdcrscca.
The WDCR iRacing League is winding down with only one event left on the calendar - Wednesday 1.17.18. Class-winner trophies will be ordered and awarded in the coming weeks. The anticipated final cost for this season is $254.50 ($245.50 less than the budget amount of $500).
The Long-Term Planning Committee has been meeting regularly for the past 3 months to develop a strategic multi-year plan to ensure the Club’s financial health. The LTPC submitted their Executive Summary and a more detailed Action Plan for 2018 Season and Beyond to the Board of Directors for discussion at this meeting.
The Membership Committee Chair has not reported any activity for the month of December 2017.
PDX
Very little to report. Highlights:
I shared my DrivingEvals report with Chuck.
Some discussion around SCCA renaming/rebadging. More detail expected at the Convention.
NASA has scheduled (or repurposed a club race weekend) an HPDE/TT on Summit Point Main the weekend before our July PDX on Shenandoah..
Continuing discussion around incentives for instructors, and improving our attractiveness for instructors, compared to other bodies.
Rally Cross
Annual Awards & Party Festivities scheduled for February 3rd. The Details:
We will meet at 4pm at the Autobahn Dulles location. Awards will be given at Autobahn. Then we'll all head to a nearby restaurant or bar for dinner and drinks. Please check Autobahn's website for pricing.
Road Rally
No Report Submitted.
Solo
No Report Submitted.
Old Business
DrivingEvals Agreement
Work continues with DrivingEvals and MSR representatives. There was a lengthy reports provided and a good discussion on the subject. Work continues on finalizing a Non-Disclosure Agreement agreeable to all.
Summit Point Updates:
Manu of these were touched on in RE’s Report and any further on this topic was differed to a later meeting due to time concerns.
New Business
Rebranding of Programs
SCCA National recently announced the rebranding of several motorsports programs as follows:
SOLO will become Autocross
Club Racing will be known as Road Racing
Within the PDX Umbrella
PDX events will be known as Track Events
Club and Time Trials will be known as Time Trials
Motion: Anderson: to rebrand the Region’s Programs to follow the new National branding. 2nd by Snyder. Vote: Unanimous.
The Pennsylvania Hillclimb Association (PHA) is requesting the Regions permission to host three events within the Regions territory:
Track Trial events on Jefferson and Shenandoah Circuits at Summit Point on Memorial Day and Labor Day Weekends
Host their Annual Polish Mountain Hill Climb August 4-5.
Motion: Anderson: To allow PHA to conduct the requested events. 2nd Fitzgerald
Vote for: Toland, Anderson, Snyder, Fitzgerald, Roberts, McKee, Nesbitt. Olson Abstained.
Long Term Planning Presentation.
Several members of the Long Term Planning Committee were present and provided the BoD with a very good presentation outlining the loss of participants in Club/Road Racing over the past several years. They also presented the proposal to “to re-acquire inactive members”. There was a lengthy discussion and Q&A session with the final result being to reserve any action until the Budget Meeting.
Motion to Adjourn January BoD Meeting: Lin Toland, 2nd: Olson, Vote Unanimous.
Meeting ended: 10:03 AM
Special Meeting info on Budget, Marketing, Contract and Long Term Planning
