October Letter from the CRC President

Every month seems like a busy month. But for some reason, this month seems to be especially busy. I have been working on the CRC election nominations since the first of October, and I am very happy to see that great group of individuals is so willing to step up and be of service to our club. I really hope this is trend that continues with more member becoming involved in club activities.  

Shifting topics, some of you may have noticed that we are trying to do a lot more with our FaceBook page. We are listing races, doing free race entry giveaways, and posting race discounts. This is one top of the daily QofD posted by Rob. This is all part of my endeavor to give our members more interaction and to supply more up to date club information. We could send emails but you know the story. Emails sometimes get caught in spam filters or they just get lost in the numerous emails that we all get each day. Our FaceBook page provides our club with a quick and easy was to post information and members can check it at their leisure.

I would also like to a moment and thank Katherine from Run for Your Life. Because our club had so many members run the Rocktoberfest Half Marathon, she rewarded our club with a free entry to the Thunder Road Marathon (Leah Lashley), free pair of shoes, free running tech t-shirt (won my Jeremy Grey), and $16 Run For You Life dollars.

During the last two weeks of October, I posted trivia questions specifically for CRC members to win some of these items. I felt it was only fair that our CRC member enjoy these perks. They were the ones that earned them for our club. Special note, we will be giving away the $16 RFYL dollars on our FaceBook page in the coming weeks and the shoes to a lucky member at our annual meeting in December.

Lastly, our BOD voting is now open so please exercise your right to vote and cast your ballot. The individuals that you choose will help shape the future of our running club.

Upcoming CRC Events:

Here is the list of CRC fall events. Please make an effort to come out and participate in at least one event.

·         11/3/13 @ 4 PM. CRC Monthly Social/Fun Run. Run starts at the Metropolitan between Hickory Tavern and Dressler's. 4 miles max. All paces are welcome.

·         11/6/13 CRC NoDa Brewery Group Run – more info below

·         11/16/13 CRC Thunder Road Mile 25 Cheer station - https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/1427936304096316/?ref_dashboard_filter=calendar

·         11/23/13 CRC Huntersville Holiday Half Preview run No. 1 – 7:30 AM Fleet Feet in Huntersville run.charlotte@gmail.com (sports med education talk starts at 7 AM)

·         11/30/13 CRC Huntersville Holiday Half Preview run No. 2 – 7:30 AM Fleet Feet in Huntersville run.charlotte@gmail.com. (sports med education talk starts at 7 AM)

·         (Canceled) 12/1/13 @ 4 PM. CRC Monthly Social/Fun Run. Run starts at the Metropolitan between Hickory Tavern and Dressler's. 4 miles max. All paces are welcome .

·         12/7/13 CRC Annual Meeting Triple C Brewery Company  - 1pm– new board members announced, yearly recap, and plans for ‘14

·         12/8/13 Holiday Lights Run - Freedom Park - Gravel Parking lot. Hot Chocolate and Chocolate Chip cookies will be available for everyone (Run starts at 6pm – meet at 5:30 PM for group picture).

·         1/26/14 CRC Winter Classic 8k 2pm start time. Same fast course at McAlpine Greenway off Monroe Rd

Holiday and Sunday Social/Runs:

Our next Social/Group 4 mile run at the Metropolitan occurs on Nov 3^th at 4 PM. Stephanie Werntz continues to be our group run leader/organizer for this event. Her contact info is the following: stephsgoodemail@gmail.com. Note, we are moving the time back to 4 pm so the run continues to have plenty of day light hours for running.

RSVPs are not necessary. Members just need to show up about 3:50 PM behind Hickory Tavern and be ready to run at 4 pm.  Afterwards members can hang out at Hickory Tavern for a beverage and food.

Also do not forget about our holiday lights run in December – 12/8. As has become the custom, we will have hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies for everyone’s post run enjoyment. Our run kicks off at 6pm from the gravel parking lot across from Freedom Park. Please plan to be there early for a group picture.

Nonprofit Status:

Sadly, our nonprofit status has not changed.  On 10/28/13, I called the IRS and talked to agent about the status of our reinstatement application. During this conversation, I asked if he tell me the specific reason for our club to have its nonprofit status suspended.

I am not a tax expert, and I suspect that neither Aaron nor Billy realized this needed to be done. The agent told me that our club needed to file a tax return for the years ’09, ’10, and ’11. Even thou, we only applied for our nonprofit status in ’11.

As I understand it, the moment that we acquired our nonprofit status, we fell in violation for having not filed a tax return in 3 successive years because we listed the club’s forming date as ’09 rather than the date the club requested its nonprofit status – ’11 via RRCA.

Furthermore, the agent looking at our case said it could be 6 months or more before it was assigned to an agent for review. He also told me that if I have not heard anything in 6 months, I should call again. 

Laurie, one of my fellow board members, is connecting me with one of her friends that works with the Atlanta Track Club and is a CPA. Worst case, I will learn even more about this process.  

Runner Friendly City Initiative:

The RRCA submission process for Runner Friendly City application was the first of November. Being that we only started talking about applying for this status a month ago and the amount of effort required in obtaining all of the necessary information and signatures; I felt this just was not possible to do at this time.

The best course of action for now is to put this effort on hold until the first of January. This just makes the most sense given the availability of individuals to help.

White Listing email senders

We have a few club members that have not been getting our club emails. As I have said in the past spam filters account for the biggest reason why.

However, there could be other reasons a well. Constant Contact could be blocking your email address from being sent because of past send failures. Once on this list, you have to contact them to have it unblocked. I helped one member get this corrected. She had been on their block sending list since ’06.

The other possible reason is the filters on the ISP side. Make sure that Constant Contact is listed on the approved sender white list for your email account. For instructions on how to check the white list, please use the following link –

http://support2.constantcontact.com/articles/FAQ/2753

CRC Throwdown Relay and Fall Social:

Rob and his social committee get another thumbs-up from me on this one. Sadly, I was off racing my marathon that weekend, but I was living vicariously by watching the numerous FaceBook post and pictures. 

Spending 12 hours hanging out with friends and running, I do not see anything wrong with it. Based on what I have heard, we will hopefully have the Throwdown II next year.

Gear Store:

During the month of Oct our club opened our fall gear store. Every effort was made to have a larger selection of items than our previous store. We recognize that our members want CRC gear. Where we struggle is how we get club gear made available to our members. We have tried selling it through the local stores and purchasing and reselling the gear our self. Both options have their own pros and cons. This year we tried the online store concept. In all honestly, none of the options are truly home run. Where these online stores make their money is through shipping and handling. With our fall store, we choose an online store where they had an office local to Charlotte. Thereby giving our members an opportunity to pick up their gear and avoid the major shipping and handling charges.  

Ideas around gear are always welcome and if you encountered an issue with the latest store, please let us know at run.charlotte@gmail.com

Board Elections:

Our board election is now underway and the voting will be open until November 24, 2013 at midnight. If you have not received your survey monkey voting ballot, please email run.charlotte@gmail.com.  Every member needs to exercise their right to vote.

We are so fortunate that so many members have accepted the challenge to guide our club. Please thank the members listed below their willingness to service.

·         Laurie Knowles

·         Todd Mayes

·         Paul Mainwaring

·         Melinda Law

·         Eric Bilbrey

·         Lee Neitzel

·         Billy Shue

·         Wen Norvell

·         Joey Church

·         Brad Belfiore

We have spotlighted each candidate on our Charlotte Running Club website. You can read those spotlights by clicking here.

Huntersville Holiday Half Marathon Course Preview Run:

We are working with Bear Robinson (Race Director) of the Huntersville Half Marathon to lead two course preview runs. We plan to start these runs on the 11/23 and 11/30 from the Fleet Feet in Huntersville and cover as much of the course as possible. These runs will start at 7:30 AM. No RSVP is necessary. Runners can just show up.

Please arrive early because a sports med education clinic will be provided by Novant beforehand.

More information about the Huntersville Half Marathon races can be found here and on FaceBook.

*** We also need club members to come to these preview runs – email run.charlotte@gmail.com if you are available to run **

CRC and Noda Teaming up for a Wednesday Night Run

CRC is joining forces with Noda Brewery to have a CRC Wednesday night run on Nov. 6^th, 2013. Our BOD plans to attend and each of the candidates for the ’14 board has been invited.  Click here for information about the run via the NoDa Brewing Run Club. They have loops of 1, 3, and 5 miles and all paces are welcome. Runs start at 6:30. We will be out there early.

Member Referrals:

September we had one referral and in October, we had one referral. Remember, the referring member gets an Inside Out Sports gift – card while supplies last.

Board Meeting Update:

This month we shifted our monthly meeting to 10/28 so board members with plans for Thursday night would have it free.

Topics covered this month were our Nonprofit status, membership referrals, board elections, dates and times for the our Nov and December meetings, Runner Friendly Community Initiative, WC8k Status, Membership sign up – new members that sign up after 10/1 will have their membership extended for all of ’14, wrap up of the CRC Uptown Throwdown, CRC Store opening, and planning of events for ’14, and Billy gave us a treasury status update.    

Minutes from the September meeting can be found here.

Board Meetings:

Our November and December meetings will be shifting dates the usual last Thursday of the month dates. The November meeting will be on the 19^th at 6:30 PM at the Dowd Y. The December meeting will be 11^th again at 6:30 at the Dowd Y.

Our annual club meeting will be held at 1 PM on the 7^th of December.  The location for it will be at the Triple C Brewery Company. As we get closer, I will post reminders on our FaceBook, Twitter, and www.charlotterunningclub.com pages. During this meeting our ’14 elected club officers will be announced, and I will recap ’13 and talk about our plans for ’14.

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 want to listen to our member’s concerns.

The days are shorter and the nights are longer but do not let this deter you from your appointed runs,

Bill Shires

CRC President