CRC Member,
Hard to believe, but the end of January is upon us. This
means I need to start writing my letter from the CRC President to our
membership.
January has been a busy month not only for me personally but
for the club as well.
Many members journeyed to Winton-Salem for the Frosty 50k.
There were lots of great individual performances. There were also some great
performances by our members in the relay division. Our CRC “Mix it Up” team finished 3rd
in the co-ed category with a 3:29:58 time. Our CRC “Too Hot for the Cold” team
finished 3rd in the all men’s division with a time of 2:57:46. Our
CRC “Gone Chickin” women’s team won their division with a time of 3:11:39.
Congratulations to all of our runners that participated in the Frosty 50k
events. Racing when it is 25 degrees outside is no small feat. You proved your
“metal” this day.
A week later we had the Mileage Program Awards and Social at
TrySports in South Park. We need to give TrySports a big “thanks” for hosting
this event and for providing the awards for our Mileage Program. The awards were
really nice plaques and everyone that I met has really liked them. On that
note, if you have not picked up your award, send an email to run.charlotte@gmail.com. We will try to
work out an arrangement where you can pick up your award.
On to ’13, the board approved it, so the mileage program
will return for this year. The exact details and sponsorship are being handled by a committee but more details will follow. So look for mileage program emails to continue
in ’13.
I wish every day could be sunny and warm but this isn’t
always the cause. One of our club members posted a comment on our club’s
FaceBook page, in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of interaction with
the club since he joined. He expressed it with language that I make every
attempt to never use. Then another individual, whom I can only assume is a
friend of this guy, jumped on the post and added a less than colorful branding
to all members of club. Setting aside the frustration of having someone use
this type of language and the name calling, I tracked down this individual in
our club’s membership database and contacted him.
Our club doesn’t pummel our membership with endless emails.
We point them toward our listing of group runs on our website and to our FaceBook
groups where they can make connections if they are looking to join others on a
run. Our club is a very diverse group
of runners and workout at different times during the day.
I shared all this with this individual and even invited him
and his friend to join me for a run. This was the end of the email chain. He
hasn’t responded. I feel like I am a pretty nice guy and treat people with
respect, but I also expect the same in return. Just because someone is
frustrated with a situation, they shouldn’t stoop to a level of bad language
and name calling. My door is always open and anyone with a concern or question
about our club is free to see me or email me. I’ll listen and then we can talk
about how to resolve the situation.
Enough said about that, so let’s move on to some brighter topics.
With Emily stepping down from the CRC Board and from her
role as our CRC Social Coordinator, Rob Ducsay has willingly stepped into her place. Rob shared his committee's ideas for this year's club social events and I must say; they are awesome. Look
for a posting of our CRC social calendar in the coming weeks and in our club's newsletter.
This past weekend, our CRC club held our second running for the
Winter Classic 8k. With only a few “gotchas”, I considered the race an overall
success. The “gotchas” included running
out of small shirts. For those people, we took down their names. We are having
additional small shirts printed and we will ship them their shirts once we
receive them. There was only one other disappointing thing that happened. We
had one parent whose child missed the fun run. I don’t know how they missed it,
but it happened.
With every experience we learn from it and next year, we
will come up with a better plan to make people aware of the start times.
The “gotchas” aside, the rest of the feedback was all
positive. The RRCA awards were a hit. We had some fast runners both from
here in Charlotte and from Ashville. We had two runners break 25 minutes on
what I will term a “wet and sloppy” course. I guess when you design a “flat”
course, you cannot hold runners back. Major “props” go to Mike Beigay and Ben Hovis for our
course layout. Everyone enjoyed the post race pizza – consuming all 80 purchased.
Some of the best race moments were seeing Meredith, Justin,
and Pat along with the entire Running Works crew complete our race. Meredith
and Justin have been telling me how excited the Running Works crew was about
our race and how much they were looking forward to it. Judging from the smiles
on their faces, I would say that they indeed enjoyed themselves.
The Charlotte Running Club has a “passion for running” but
we also have a “passion for making our community a better place for everyone”.
Working with Running Works gives us this opportunity. I am certainly glad they
were willing to come on board as our charity partner for this race.
Saturday afternoon was pretty much a blur for me. There were
so many decisions to make and chores that needed to be done. I could never have
done it alone. We had a fantastic race committee that spent many hours behind
the scenes shaping our race. But I really want to thank all of the volunteers
who gave their time and energy to our race on race day. Whether you realize it or not, you were an
integral part of each racers positive feedback. Because racers only see what
happens on race day.
I would also like to thank our many sponsors: TrySports,
Inside Out Sports, Carolina Sports Clinic, State Farm, Omega Sports, Vac & Dash, Earth Fare,
Fly Wheel, YWCA, Great Harvest Bread and Extreme Ice for being the presenting
sponsor of our CRC Kid’s fun run. The contributions from these companies were a
major reason that we were able to put on our race. The expense of races has jumped skyward in
recent years. Without these sponsors and their willingness to be involved, I am
not sure that we could put on this race so again my “thanks” to each of our sponsors.
I want to wrap this post up by talking about our membership
renewals. Our ability to support socials, group runs, and races come from
membership dues. Without them, we could not, as a club, have these types of
activities. I scanned our membership
database and found that we have 547 members but 334 members have yet to renew
for ‘13. Like many people, December was a busy month and it has slipped most
people’s minds. Please take this opportunity to go out and renew
your membership. We will also be sending a gentle tap on the shoulder email
reminder to these 334 members.
Well, this is it for January.
I hope your training is going well and look forward to
seeing you on the roads,
Bill
CRC President
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