BoD Meeting Minutes – August 24, 2016

Minutes of NCR-SCCA Monthly Board of Directors Meeting
August 24, 2016

PresentHeather Clark, Rex Deffenbaugh, Bruce Dover, Sam Fouse, Steve Keadle, Buddy Matthews, James Shanks, and via conference call, John Byers, Eric Danielsen, John Lindquist, and Morgan Mehler. Blair Deffenbaugh, Mark Senior, and Mike Spencer, were not present.

  1.  The NCR BoD meeting was called to order by RE Sam Fouse at 7:25 pm, on Wednesday, August 24th  2016, at Piper’s Deli, 3219 Old Chapel Hill Road, Durham, NC, 27707.
  2. The only guest in attendance was Marketing Committee Chair Eric Danielsen via phone.
  3. Motion to approve the July minutes as written (R. Deffenbaugh / Clark). Passed.

Financial ReportCircumstances prevented Treasurer Steve Keadle from presenting the full accounting that he had promised in the last meeting, but he was able to state that we were comfortably in the black through the end of August and had made money on all our races this year, even March. Full details are expected at the next meeting. Steve also passed along a copy of the Region’s 2015 income tax return, which he had just received from our auditors. It will be circulated at the next meeting.

Old Business:

  1. Annual Awards Dinner Update: Buddy Matthews reported that he had formed a committee of several members of the West Chapter, including Tim and Brenda Lyons, Doug Hooper, and Brian Hooper, to pull this event together. Plans were well underway to make it a memorable event.  A hall has been secured at the Vailtree Event Center, located on Bakatsias Lane in Graham, just off Exit 150 on Interstate 40. The owners, he says, are avid car people, and upon being approached to host the event, have gone so far as joining the Region. They even plan to help out in Tech at our October events. In addition, they are planning to have some of their classic cars on display for our dinner engagement. Their personal collection contains such notable marques as Ferrari and Bentley, plus the one of the new Alfa Romeos, as well as classic muscle cars like the Dodge Charger. Food is to be provided by these well-known restaurateurs at a rate of $40 per person for 125 people. With our traditional subsidy, we should be able to keep the cost to our members who attend at the same level as last year. A meeting room for our business meeting is also included in the price. Buddy is also negotiating for concessions at the nearby Tanger Outlets Center, and he has secured a deal for reduced room rates at a Days Inn less than a mile away from the meeting site. The big attraction, however, will be the presence of nationally-known former NCR member Bill King, who will fly in from Seattle to be our guest speaker. This may coincide with the release of Bill’s new book on VIR, and if so, we will try to arrange a book signing at the dinner.
  2. Update on Renting Rockingham: Morgan Mehler reported that the situation at Rockingham has become a bit more settled.  There is only one owner now, though he lives in Florida, and that they are interested in renting to us later this year and next. Sam interjected that he had received an e-mail from Lisa Noble at the National Office (before her resignation) stating that the owner had contacted them and was interested in renting to SCCA. Morgan said that there is an inaugural event planned for October, with some NASCAR-affiliated group running V8- powered cars, which might be Late Model Sportsmen, but he was not sure; and that after that event, Rockingham management said they would welcome a proposal from us. Apparently the format of what we might want to do is wide open, and might include a PDX, Driver’s School, Bracket Enduro, Track Night, or whatever else we might dream up. Morgan estimated the rental rate at approximately $3500 to $4000 per day, which would make a lot of those activities doable. There is a fly in the ointment, Morgan said, in that an outside group of investors has started discussions with the new owner about buying the facility from him. But that may not impact us in the short run.

New Business:

  1. Request for Majors Refund: A competitor who registered for the Majors was forced to withdraw when he learned of the sudden demise of a long-time friend back home. He had to complete his sign-in in order to get into the paddock to remove his car, which he had brought to the test day. He informed a new volunteer in Registration that he was leaving and wanted to withdraw, but that information was never communicated to Bruce Dover, who handled the billing, so the withdrawal never happened. We paid credit card fees and the Majors fee (about $100) for him. It was felt that as this was our fault, he should get all his money back. Motion to refund his entire entry of $615 (Shanks / R. Deffenbaugh). Passed. Bruce will inform Deanna Flannigan of the Majors Program about this development and ask whether the Region can recover the fee we paid for this driver who never turned a wheel.
  2. Request for New Radios and Headsets: David Turner, the Flag Chief currently in charge of our racing radio system, submitted a request, through Bruce Dover, to obtain funds to purchase 10 new radios to replace some aging ones, and 2 additional headsets with dual- channel capability for use on pit road. Bruce put it on the Google drive for August for Board members to peruse. It was explained that the people at Pit In and Pit Out need to communicate with each other “off net” while simultaneously listening and communicating “on net”; and that lack of a dual-channel headsets had already caused a serious problem at one of our past races when a car came into the pits with no brakes. David’s report indicated that 20 of our 40 original radios were no longer serviceable by Motorola for lack of parts, and that he was still using 20 others. Even the replacement units, which we bought for the 20 that expired, have reached the end of their service life, per Motorola, and have been deprecated. David estimated the cost of ten new radios at $4100 and 2 dual-channel headsets at an additional $1100-$1600. Motion to spend up to $6000 for this new radio equipment (R. Deffenbaugh / Shanks). Passed. Sam indicated that he would inform David that he should examine his inventory after the close of the racing season and decide whether an additional request was warranted, as we expect to have surplus funds available near the end of the year.
  3. Free Entry for John Morton: Rex Deffenbaugh proposed that we offer a free entry for famous SCCA driver John Morton, who is planning on competing in the Prod Fest at the our Goblins Go race in October in a Datsun similar to the one he raced for BRE back in the day. This would provide us with national recognition and a great marketing opportunity. Motion to offer him 2 free SARRC entries for that weekend (R. Deffenbaugh / Shanks). Passed.
  4. Approval of Supps and Schedules for Goblins Go and 13-8 Hour Enduro: As most of the Board members present had been involved in the recent meetings of the Comp Board to draft these documents, there was little discussion. The only change to the Goblins Go Supps was to add “James A Buckberry Memorial” to the title. The schedule as approved by the Comp Board was updated to add a 30-minute time limit to the SARRC races and a 45-miniute limit to the longer V8 series race in case of some catastrophe. In addition, the order of the groups was changed so that classes involving drivers whose cars might allow them to “double dip” in more than one race group would not be in back-to-back sessions. This had the added benefit of not having the same group (SM) be last on the schedule this year that had been last on the schedule the year before. The 13-8 Hour Enduro Supps and schedule were passed without comment as they had already been forwarded to the requisite SEDIV officials. No formal votes were taken. Approvals were by consensus.
  5. Reimbursement Policy for Required Meetings: Rex Deffenbaugh brought up an issue which had been bothering him for some time, he said, but he did not feel that he could bring it up while he was RE, because it directly affected him. The problem is that our reimbursement policy for people who must attend required meetings, particularly SEDIV meetings, is too restrictive. No one really wants to go to them, and in the past we have required that people pay their own meals and cram as many as four people in a rental car for the trip there, and so on, which makes attending not only inconvenient but bothersome and expensive. He floated the idea that we should reimburse the RE and the Assistant RE for travel expenses (air or car fare), meeting costs, hotel rooms, and a per diem for food; and allow them to include an additional person to accompany each of them, even a spouse if he or she were also a member. Rex said he felt that this policy should extend to the national convention as well. The question arose as to whether we could require the “plus one” to also attend meetings and functions and report back to us in exchange for their participation. It was decided to table this issue until the next meeting rather than take it up now, before Board members had a chance to think about it in detail.

Chapter and Committee Reports: There was some time left to discuss committee reports and the following were reviewed. There were reports from all three Chapters, Cape Fear, Triangle, and West, on their most recent meetings on the Google drive for August, which were not discussed.

  1. Membership: James Shanks reported that our membership was up a little from 758 to 764 over last month, which is our traditional summer low point. He promised a full Membership Report next month to include results from the IMSA tent event.
  2. Region Tent at VIR IMSA event August 26-28: Sam indicated that he had received the new Region Hospitality tent and had tested it in his driveway. He would be taking it to VIR on Thursday and erecting both it and the old tent on our site in the Skid Pad for the event. He also indicated that some supplier had contacted us about providing free beer for our participants, and that after investigation, he had okayed that. As long as we control access and restrict distribution to our workers and their guests, we should be fine. VIR management has been notified and they are OK with it, too.
  3. Solo: Morgan Mehler and John Byers gave an update on the Solo program. Generally things are going well but they had a problem last week at Cherry Point where a group of novices, about six of them, was not allowed on base. Apparently when the list of attendees was pulled from Motorsportreg.com, they were inadvertently omitted, and so were not vetted in advance by the Marines. Morgan said they had apologized to those affected and would be taking care of them at the next event at Cherry Point, September 10 and 11. Other than that, attendance was down a little bit, due to competing events by other clubs on the same weekend, but they expect it to rebound in September.

Motion to adjourn at 8:43 PM (Shanks /Keadle) Passed.

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