January Letter from the CRC President

Hi CRCers,

Where do I start? There is so much to talk about this month. First, I would like to let everyone know that we have elected our Board Officers for ’14. Paul has agreed to be our club’s Treasurer. Melinda has accepted our club’s Secretary position. Stephanie will continue as our club’s Vice President. And like it or not, I was nominated and approved as our club’s President for another year. Wonders never cease to amaze me. I would like to thank everyone for believing in me and for allowing me to serve in this role. I am fortunate to have been bless with so many great friends through running.

Let's move on to other news. 

Our club has been bouncing all over Charlotte this month. We attended the NC Health & Fitness Expo in support of their Commitment miles race at “The Park”. We followed this event up with a visit to Earth Fares’ Wellness Event at South Park.  

This past weekend, we finished the month off by holding our 3^rd annual Winter Classic 8k. Each year we have tried to improve on the previous year and based on the feedback, our progress continues down the path to excellence. But success is not an easy thing to achieve. Let me just say it this way. Success starts with a great group of people and strong leadership. Our club is fortunate to have both. Mike and his race committee put in long hours in preparation for our race and then executed their game plan beautifully on race day. When you see them, please remember to thank them for volunteering their time and energy on behalf of CRC.

Don’t forget to checkout our upcoming events below. We are trying to have at least one activity per month over the course of this year for our members.

Upcoming CRC Activities and Events:

Please make an effort to come out and participate. If nothing else, make a late New Year’s Resolution to attend at least one event this year.

·         2/13/14 CRC Valentines Group Run @ Triple C Brewery 6:30 PM

·         3/5/14 10,000th Daily Run @ Triple C Brewery 6:30 PM

·         4/12/14 CRC Scrambled Egg 5k @ Reedy Creek Park 2PM

·         5/8/14 CRC's 5 Year Birthday Group Run @ Triple C Brewery 6:30 PM

·         All Around Miler Series - 3 weeks in May – One dirt, one road, one track

·         CRC Summer Picnic June

·         CRC Summer Track - July/Aug

·         Brain Freeze Run - July

·         Uptown Throwdown 12hr Run Oct

·         CRC/Run Safer Clinic Oct

·         Holiday Lights Run - Dec

10,000 Continuous Daily Runs

Please keep this on your radar for March 5^th. I would like to invite everyone to run with me. We will start from the Triple C Brewery at 6:30 PM. We will do at least four miles but we may extend it to a 10k in recognitions of my having run 10,000 days in row. 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.

Nonprofit Status

I wanted to pass along that we have followed up with the IRS again. Our application for reinstatement as a nonprofit continues to wait in the queue for agent assignment. We were also told that we do not need to efile our club’s taxes until such time as the IRS has reviewed our case.

Mileage Program:

By now, you should have received Audrey’s Jan. reminder email. The rules remain the same as last year. You can participate by either having your mileage total pulled from AthletiCore – which is an online mileage log for runners or you can simply reply to Audrey’s email with your mileage for the month. Audrey will tabulate the results for our club and post it to our www.CharlotteRunningClub.org website.

We still have awards from our ’13 mileage program. I will have them with me for pickup at our Valentine’s Day Group Run 2/13/14 and our 10,000 Consecutive Day Group Run 3/5/14. 

Run Safer:

If you happen to see one of the Charlotte Running Company’s emails about Run Safer, or you were at the Winter Classic 8k, you know about Todd Williams and his Run Safer initiative. Todd, a two time Olympic Runner, is bringing self defense to runners. He was in town giving three free clinics to runners at the Charlotte Running Company stores last week.

Todd is coming back to Charlotte this fall so we are planning to organize Run Safer clinic for our club members. Tentatively, we are looking at the Oct/Nov timeframe. No dates and times have been finalized but when they are, I will share them with our club.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about Todd’s efforts – click here 

Member Referrals:

January saw several new members join our club. They listed 11 existing members as having referred them. This qualifies these referring members for an Inside Out Gift card. I will be getting those cards out to these members soon.

CRC Membership shirts and cards:

Our shirts and cards for ’14 have arrived. We gave out about 57 shirts and cards at our Winter Classic race. The next opportunity for you to pick up your shirt will be before our club’s Valentine’s Day Group Run at Triple C Brewery on 2/13/14. They will also be available at our 3/5/14 group run.

Board Meeting Update:

With our Winter Classic being held on the last Sunday in Jan, we pushed our monthly meeting up by one week. Gathering everyone together before the race gave us an opportunity to get the entire board on the same game plan for the weekend.

Additional members present: Jon, Lori, and, Steve

Board Member absent: Laurie and Billy

Board Agenda:

• Nominate and Vote upon '14 board officers
• Member "Challenge" - approval of gift card to winner or winners - Eric to recap status
• Approve Mileage Program addition funds - budgeted 300 - total was $408 - Mike
• Website Mgmt. – Group Discussion - continue
• Membership Cards Status - Mike
• Membership Club shirt Status - Bill
• Membership status (Individual/Family/Student counts) and referral status - Bill
• Allen's Road to Board 5k – making this a CRC Event
• WC8K Status - Mike
• Valentines Group Run/Scrambled Egg Run - Rob
• Summer Social/Picnic - Rob - location booking
• All Around Miler Series Status - Bill
• July Summer night 3 miler Series Status - Bill
• Monthly Email Monitor – Bill – ask board members to select their months
• Monthly Article for the CRC newsletter – Bill – board member write an article for the newsletter in the same month as they monitor the email inbox.
• '14 Budget Report – Bill – modified for the change in the mileage program cost
• Treasurer Report – Bill – by way of Billy

 

Minutes from the 1/23/14 meeting can be found here.

 

 

Wrapping Up:

I watched many runners run by me during our Winter Classic 8k and seeing all of the CRC jerseys reminded me of just how many CRC members that I have yet to meet. If you see me around Charlotte, please don’t hesitate to come up and introduce yourself. 

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

 

Warmer weather is just ahead,

Bill Shires

CRC President

run.charlotte@gmail.com