July Letter from the CRC President

Throughout my previous writings, I have described the activities where CRC has participated to better the Charlotte community as a whole. For example, we had spent time at Running Works and Let Me Run. We have volunteered our time and energy at races.

Sometimes there is just the verbal “thank you” from the race director but most of the time, there is just the knowing “that I did something good”. This should be enough. We are giving of our personal time for others and thus, the knowledge that we are giving back should be satisfactory.

For me, I think it is.

But sometimes the unexpected can make it all the better.

Recently, I got a letter from Paul Martino the Executive Director of the “Let Me Run” organization. This nice hand written letter was signed by Paul and Ashley Armistead the Founder and President of “Let Me Run”. The letter was brief but it expressed both Paul and Ashley’s thanks to CRC for helping with their event.

Now, Paul and Ashley didn’t have to send this letter but they did.

I think we are all a little vain in our efforts. We don’t want to be recognized for our hard work, but we all get that warm feeling inside when our efforts are recognized.  

I hope every CRC member makes an effort to volunteer their time this year. It feels good to do something for someone else. When the task is done, recognition or not, know inside that a difference was made by your efforts. 

CRC Member Referral Program:

To reward our members that bring their friends into the club, the CRC Board had decided to institute a CRC membership referral program.

When a new member signs up for CRC, they will be able to enter their referring member’s name during the registration process. At the end of each month, we will pull a list of referring members and give each of them an Inside Out gift card for every referred member.

As with anything there are some guidelines for membership referrals:

·         Members not in the club for two years will be consider new members

·         Family members cannot refer one another if under the same family membership

·         This program will continue while supplies of Inside Out gift cards last.

For questions or more information about our referral program, just email run.charlotte@gmail.com

 

Club Bylaws changes:

After working on our IRS Non-Profit Status, I realized that we only needed a few tweaks to them. First, we needed to add the word “recreational” in our clubs purpose. We also needed to add a new section to our bylaws to describe our club’s “conflict of interest” policy.

These bylaw changes have now been made, reviewed, and approved by the CRC board. To view a copy of the changes, the updated document has been posted to our club’s gdocs account. To view it, please click here. 

FireCracker 5k H20 waterstop:

Sean from the Charlotte Running Company reached out to me and asked if we could put together a team to “man” their water stop during the FireCracker 5k. After posting to our Charlotte Running Club Facebook page, we quickly had a good group volunteer their time to help out. Then on race day, we had even a few more people show up. Best dressed among our cast of volunteers was Matt Jaskot who came dress in patriotic outfit fit for the 4^th of July. There some pictures taken of him. However, I don’t know if any of the pictures were made public. We hung our CRC banners and handed out a huge number of water cups. Volunteering is a rewarding experience, and it gives me all the more appreciation for those people standing out in the elements while I am racing.

Brain Freeze 5k Group Run:

Rob picked the perfect afternoon to hold our Brain Freeze 4 mile run. For those of us supporting the run, we were soaked in perspiration. The sun was beating down on us and sweat rolled down from my forehead. I can only image how tough it was to run, eat a Popsicle, and then run again.

Ben Hovis seemed to handle it pretty well finishing in just over 31 minutes. However, he wasn’t alone in his ability to run and eat Popsicles. John Fillette was close on his heels.

We had a great group come out to participate. I would like to personally thank those who attended for sharing their Sunday afternoon with me. Special thanks for Rob and his crew for organizing this event. Nothing happens by chance so be sure to thank Rob when you see him.

CRC Prediction 5k Run:

We held our first of hopefully more prediction runs on the 25^th. We had a small group that came out but what we lacked in numbers, we made up for in enthusiasm.

I would like to congratulate Lori and Dave. Each of them took home a CRC hat for their efforts.

CRC Summer Track Series:

On Saturday, we held our first of four CRC Track Series meets at Providence Day School. I would like to thank Ben and his team for helping to organize this series. I would also like to thank Larry Fredrick. He officiated our event. Additional, I give a big thanks to PDS for allowing us to use their track for our events.

Photos from the first meet can be found through our Charlotte Running Club FaceBook album.

Remember our series continues for the next 3 weekends. Activities start at 8:30 AM each Saturday morning on the PDS track. The cost is just $8 dollars for non members and $5 for members.

CRC Question of the Day:

I don’t know how many members have noticed but on the Charlotte Running Club facebook page we have been having a question of the day (QOD). This is just one of the ways that we are trying to get members involved in CRC. What you might not know is that Rob Ducsay has been the driver behind this effort. The next time, that you see Rob, please tell him “Thank You”. “Thank You”s are free to say but the meaning behind words carries a lot of weight.

Board Meeting Update:

This month we defer our club board meeting from the 25^th to the 27^th so we could extend the meeting time. This was done to allow us more time to cover more topics than could be possible during a typical hour and half meeting.

In this meeting, we adopted the bylaw changes, discussed the membership referral program, the adoption of May 5 as the club’s official Birthday and moving the spring social to May 5 so both coincide. We also started preliminary planning for the Winter Classic 8k. The first task at hand was selecting a race director. Pleasing join me in thanking Mike Beigay for stepping forward and accepting this role. But remember Mike cannot do every task alone and needs a lot of help. Anyone interested in being on the race committee, please email run.charlotte@gmail.com. We make sure that Mike gets you on his list. 

Minutes from this meeting can be found here.

Board Meetings:

I know this is somewhat of a reminder, but it bears repeating. Our Charlotte Running Club Board meetings are open to current club members and their guest. These meetings take place on the last Thursday of each month at the Dowd Y at 6:30 pm. There are exceptions to this schedule for November and December. Those meeting dates, times, and locations will be announced before hand.

 

Once again, I would like to thank every member for being a part of the Charlotte Running Club. If there is ever a question, concern, or just a comment, please email it to run.charlotte@gmail.com. Our Gmail account is monitored daily and emails will get directed to me. The other option is seeing me personally. I run all over Charlotte and am always willing and able to listen to our member’s concerns.

 

Stay hydrated and keep running,

Bill Shires

CRC President