December Letter from the CRC President

When I look back at ’13, I realize how nervous that I was when I assumed the role as CRC President. My worst fear was that I would screw things up. Fortunately for me, I had an awesome set of board members that worked selflessly to keep things on track.

Setting here on the last day of ’13, I am proud of our club’s achievements.

We donated 2000 dollars to Running Works. We volunteered at numerous events. We flew our colors at lots of the area races. We had a team at the Boston Marathon. Our Charlotte Running Club Blue Ridge Relay team brought home the overall title with the fastest time ever recorded on the course.

Our social committee did an awesome job to give us a reason to come out and gather as club.

There were a lot of people that contribute to our club’s success this year and to them, please know that I appreciate your efforts.

Below is just a short list of the people that contribute to this success.

·         Jason –gathers are club results from the RFYL Series races

·         Audrey – send our monthly mileage program reminders that inspires us all

·         Phyllis –stepped into our CRC Newsletter Editor role and has handled it beautifully

·         Rob –has shown that he can eat donuts, run endurance races, and organize awesome social events. Then still finds time to post our daily “Question of the Day”

·         Ben – who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to setup our online gear store and organize our CRC Summer Track Series

·         Mike – worked with Audrey on the Mileage Program, handler our CRC Card and Magnet program, and is our ’14 Winter Classic 8k race director

·         Jessica – who came on the board during the spring and helped us get our gear situation in order and keep it that way.

·         Jon –each month takes excellent minutes. Even thou some of our meetings have rambling conversations.

·         Stephanie – stepped up and became club Vice President and handled our club’s advertising

·         Laurie and Katie – who were willingly stepped into two board vacancy positions. 

·         Billy – for handling our club’s financials and reminds us all that youthful exuberance is still alive.

 

With so much good work done, I am looking forward to seeing what our ’14 board does. Our board members: Mike, Paul, Laurie, Eric, Melinda, Stephanie, Billy, Rob, Wendy, and I will be working hard to move the bar even higher than the one set by our ’13 board. I am sure of it.

I hope each of you takes time to reflect on your own personal accomplishments  ’13 and head into ’14 with the energy and drive to leave your ’13 achievements far behind. ’14 is a brand new year and you can make of it what you want.

 

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.

·         1/5/14 NC Health & Fitness Expo/CRC Commitment Miles at "The Park (Old Merchandise Mart off of Independence)" 12-4 PM

·         1/18/14 Earth Fare Wellness event - “Simply Well: A Guide to a Happy and Healthy You” – CRC booth @ South Park Earth Fare 12pm- 4pm

·         1/23/14 CRC Monthly Board Meeting Dowd Y 6:30 PM

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

·         3/5/14 10,000 Days of continuous Running Group Run 4 miles to 10k– Triple C Brewery 6:30 PM (All paces welcome)

10,000 Continuous Daily Runs

On March 5^th at 6:30 PM at the Triple C Brewery, I would like to invite everyone to run with me for 4 miles to a 10k on my 10,000 day of continuous daily runs. This marks a huge mile stone in my running career, and I want to share it with my running friends. The pace will be easy as I want to enjoy the moment.

Holiday Lights Run

After the previous Sunday’s less than stellar weather, our holiday high run went off on Sunday December 15^th at 5:30 PM under ideal conditions. Just before the shades of darkness came, we passed out glow bracelets to everyone and snapped a few group pictures. Rob led everyone off to start our lights run around Freedom Park. After some 30 minutes of checking out the neighborhood lights, returning runners were greeted with smiles, hot chocolate, hot coffee, water, chocolate chip cookies, candy canes, and caramel popcorn as well as the announcing of the panthers game.  

NC Health & Fitness Expo

Our Charlotte Running Club has joined forces with the Greater Charlotte Health & Fitness Expo to help promote their Commitment mile runs on 1/5/14. There will be a Men’s Competitive Mile (2 PM), Women’s Competitive Mile (2:20 PM), a Recreational Mile (2:40 PM), and a Kids Race: 12 & under (3:15 PM). All race registrations include free admission to the Greater Charlotte Health and Fitness Expo.

Register on-line by clicking here

Registration via regular mail can be done by downloading the following registration document .

Registration is also available on race day.

Cost for each race is $20.00 and includes a race T-shirt. The Kids race is $10.00.

All events will be chipped timed.

For questions please contact Peter@PFOEnterprises.com.

 

We will have our CRC tent near the start/finish so stop by and say “hi”.

 

Earth Fare Healthy Living Wellness Event

On 1/18/14 The South Park Earth Fare will be holding a “Simply Well: A Guide to a Happy and Healthy You” Wellness Event with many venders present. CRC will have a booth at this event which runs from 12pm - 4pm. Everyone in the area should stop by the South Park Earth Fare and check it out.

Board Elections:

Our board election has concluded and the top four candidates will be announced during our annual club meeting at Triple C Brewery 12/7/13 at 1pm. Our ’14 new board members are Billy, Laurie, Paul, and Wendy. Our returning board members are Mike, Bill, Stephanie, and Rob. Our two are at-large members are Melinda Law and Eric Bilbrey – serving a one year term. Please thank each of these candidates for being so willing to run and serve. As a current board member and President, I cannot express how appreciative that I am to see this occurring.  

’14 CRC Board of Directors Candidates

·         Laurie Knowles

·         Todd Mayes

·         Paul Mainwaring

·         Melinda Law

·         Eric Bilbrey

·         Lee Neitzel

·         Billy Shue

·         Wendy Norvell

·         Joey Church

·         Brad Belfiore

Member Referrals:

We had a couple of more referrals for November. Remember, each referral gets you a gift card to Inside Out Sports (** while supplies last **)

CRC Membership shirt:

Everyone renewing their CRC membership online before 1/1/14 may pick up their CRC membership shirt at the Winter Classic 8k.  This will give you a chance to wear your club gear after the race for a CRC group picture.

The very last chance to renew and still get a shirt will be at the NC Health and Fitness Expo on 1/5/14. We will have a tent near the Commitment Miles start/finish line.

Board Meeting Update:

On the 12/11/13, we held our first meeting of the ’14. However, due to the holiday season only 5 of the 10 members were able to attend. A large portion of the meeting dealt with explaining club’s roles and responsibilities to the new board members.   Since we had just 5 board members in attendance, we voted to allow the existing board officer to maintain their existing positions until our Jan meeting. Once the full board is present, we will push forward with electing ’14 officers.

Feel free to contact me if anyone needs additional details.

Minutes from the 12/11/13 meeting can be found here.

Annual Board Meeting:

Our annual club meeting will be held at 1 PM on the 7^th of December.  Triple C Brewery Company will host our meeting and has graciously volunteered their large conference for the meeting. 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.

Our ’14 board will meet on December 11^th at 6:30 at the Dowd Y. The first order of business will be to nominate and approve the two at-large board member and then to elect club officers for the ’14 year.

Minutes from our club’s annual meeting can be found here.

 

Wrapping Up:

The Charlotte Running Club is a group of like minded individuals that have a passion for running. I realize that I do not know each of you personally, but still we all share a common trait. We love running and the feeling that comes from it. This is what bonds us together.

This is the time of year where we should all be thankful. I am thankful to be a part of this club. By being a member I have made a whole lot of new friends that share my passion. I sincerely hope everyone else feels the same way. 

This always deserves repeating. If there is ever a question, concern, or just some general feedback on what the club is doing, please email it to run.charlotte@gmail.com. Our Gmail account is monitored daily and emails will be 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.

 

Happy New Year,

Bill Shires

CRC President