On Monday, April 15th, I opened up a browser on
my computer to watch the splits of our CRC members running the Boston Marathon.
For the next several hours, I watched as they made their way from Hopkinton to
downtown Boston. Then, two bombs exploded near the Boston Marathon finish line.
My thoughts immediately shifted from being jealous of my friends for running
Boston to concern for their welfare. I sent “txt” messages and left voice mails
with those that I knew were in Boston. I watched the CNN coverage of the events
as they replayed the explosion over and over, and I silently hoped that
everyone was okay.
Sadly, those two explosions changed the lives of so many
people. This fact was brought home when Charlotte’s own running community
learned that it was directly impacted. Several members of the Gross family were
standing near one of the explosions and were sent to the hospital with
injuries. Here’s hoping they make a speedy recovery and are back running with
us soon.
To help the Gross family as they continue their road to
recovery, an online donation web site has been setup at Be Strong Stay Strong. The out
pouring of support from our Charlotte Athletic community has been tremendous.
Let’s keep up this effort and show the Gross family that we are here for them.
To help with this effort, the Charlotte Running Club,
Davidson Timing, Vac & Dash, and Charlotte Runners (SLRC) combined their
skills and put on the Run Your Heart for Boston 2.62 hour run on April 28th,
2013. This event was able to raise over $17,000 dollars, which will be given to
the “Be Strong Stay Strong” Fund for the Gross family. Most impressive to me was
how quickly this event was organized and how many people turned out for it.
There were 400+ runners filling the narrow paths of McMullen on Sunday morning.
Charlotte’s Running Community has a huge heart. This point was made apparent to
me as I looked back at the starting line to see all of the brave faces not letting
a little rain keep them way.
This event couldn’t have happened without the tireless
efforts from the following individuals: Rob Ducsay, Stephanie York, Wen Norvel,
Johanna Curry Remes, Matt Bush, David Munger, Chad Randolph, and Phyllis Neiah
In a little over a week, their organizational skills created
this event. Please join me in saying “Thank You” to them for stepping forward
to share their time and energy, as well as giving the rest of us a way to show
our support to the Gross family.
CRC Board Changes:
Our board continues to evolve. In the middle of April, Jaime
McDonald sent me a very nice email explaining that her current work load was
expanding and this wasn’t going to leave her with the kind of time that she
felt should be given to our CRC Board. Therefore, she felt that it was best for
her to resign. This is the kind of action that we all have to respect. We all
have limits and knowing those limits is very important. Jaime plans to continue
in our club and help out wherever possible. Jaime was only on the board for a few
months but her impact was being felt and will now be missed.
Following the club’s bylaws, I nominated and the board
approved Katie Howard to our open board position. Katie’s approval was the
second item of business during our club’s monthly standing meeting. Please join
me in welcoming Katie to the CRC Board. I am sure that she will bring her own
thoughts and experiences to our club which will make it even better.
Also during our April monthly meeting, we nominated a new
club Vice President. Please join me in congratulating Stephanie York for
accepting her new role on the CRC board. Stephanie may be the youngest board member,
but she brings a perspective to the board that is much needed. I am excited to
see how she tackles her new responsibilities.
Membership Cards and Magnets:
The effort on the membership cards and magnets continues to
move forward, and our board continues to target a June rollout to all of our
members.
Membership Term Changes:
In the past our club has been using a rolling membership
expiration date. For example, if I joined in June of ’12, my membership would
expire in May ’13. Our board has decided to shift to a yearly expiration that
ends on Dec. 31 of each year. The goal behind this change is to give gear to
members when they renew. Starting with the ’14 renewal, members will be asked
to supply their t-Shirt size. We will gather those sizes at the end of Jan ’14
and place a shirt order. Each renewed member will then receive a Charlotte
Running Club t-shirt.
Club Gear:
The board has been exploring different ways of getting more
club gear options that members really want. After looking at various options, we
selected the option of using an online store that is only open for about 3
weeks at a time. After 3 weeks, the store closes and those orders are filled
and shipped directly to our members. The results from our first online store were
pretty much in line with our expectations. The club plans another store opening
in either July or August, and it will contain gear for fall and winter. We will
publish the store opening dates in our upcoming club newsletter and on our FaceBook
and Twitter accounts.
CRC Monthly Board Meeting:
I wanted to remind everyone that our CRC board meets once a
month at the Dowd Y at 7PM in the common area. Every CRC member is welcome to attend
these meetings. The meetings occur on the last Thursday of every month.
Board Meeting Minutes:
During each board meeting Jon captures our conversations,
To-Dos, and notes. This information is then posted to our club’s gdocs site.
This information is available to every club member to review. I have attached a
link to the notes from the April meeting. Click here.
In each future “Letter from the President” I will include a link to the minutes
from the previous month’s meeting.
CPR Training:
Katie asked me if our club held any CPR training. To my
knowledge, we have not. However, as I sat there reading her email, I thought
about what a great idea she had. Running pushes our
hearts to the max. We never know when a heart attack might occur. Knowing that
the people around me have CPR training provides me with a little more comfort.
I am looking into training cost and potentially setting up a
training date for members of our club. In my May Presidential Letter, I hope to
be able to share more details about it.
Running Buddies:
Earlier this month, I received an email asking about running
buddies. There is a local support group that works with Alzheimer’s patients. A
few of their patients are runners but they are no longer able to run either
solo or in large groups. They would really like to have some running buddies
from our club. Here’s the contact info for potential running buddies who are
interested – sdunning@alz.org or
704.532.7390.
Volunteering:
Please remember to email run.charlotte@gmail.com for
volunteering efforts. We have a community service page on our club’s website
where we are listing our member volunteer efforts.
Let's run together sometime,
Bill
Charlotte Running Club President
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