BoD Meeting Minutes – October 26, 2016

Minutes of NCR-SCCA Monthly Board of Directors Meeting
October 26, 2016

Present: Heather Clark, Blair Deffenbaugh, Rex Deffenbaugh, Bruce Dover, Sam Fouse, Steve Keadle, John Lindquist, Buddy Matthews, Mark Senior, James Shanks, Mike Spencer, and via conference call, Eric Danielsen, Morgan Mehler, Sara Snider and Ben Tyler. John Byers was not present.

1. The NCR BoD meeting was called to order by RE Sam Fouse at 7:00 pm, on Wednesday, October 26th 2016, at Piper’s Deli, 3219 Old Chapel Hill Road, Durham, NC, 27707.
2. Guests in attendance were Marketing Committee Chair and outgoing Flag Chief Eric Danielsen, Steward and Race Chair Sara Snider, and incoming Flag Chief Ben Tyler, all via phone.
3. Sam said he had a small correction to the minutes but could not find it. After a few minutes a motion was made to accept them as written. Motion to approve the September minutes as written (R. Deffenbaugh / Senior). Passed.

Financial Report: Treasurer Steve Keadle indicated that he was still unable to provide a detailed financial report. Since Sam had worked up preliminary accounting reports for our last two races, the Goblins Go and the 13-8 Hour Halloween Enduro, the full report was tabled until next meeting.

Old Business:

1. Reimbursement Policy for Required Meetings: Tabled from last meeting, this issue was tabled again, as it was not pressing and Sam and Rex had not been able to devote any time to it.
2. Annual Banquet Planning. Buddy had a number of questions about scheduling and other operational details relating to the annual meeting and awards dinner that he was coordinating.

• Schedule. The meeting and dinner will take place on Saturday, January 14, 2017. A social hour is planned between 5:00 PM and 6:00, with the business meeting to start at 6:30. It is expected to take only about 15 to 20 minutes. Food service, buffet style, will begin at 7:00. After dinner, Sam will introduce Bill King, the guest speaker. The last thing will be the presentation of awards. Tim Lyons has volunteered to be the emcee. James indicated that the awards committee will provide him with speaker’s notes a few days in advance for the awards he will present. Chiefs of Specialty have the option of presenting awards for their specialty in person if they wish.
• Cost. The cost to us for food is $40 per person at 125 people ($5000). Since we subsidized this event last year at $2100, it was briefly discussed whether to do this again. If so, then we would have to raise the fee charged by some small amount over last year’s $25 per person and $40 per couple. Motion to charge $30 per person or $50 per couple and subsidize the food at $2000 (Matthews / Shanks). Passed.
• Guest Speaker. Bill King, renowned former Region member, will be the guest speaker, Sam will introduce him. This is appropriate, Sam said, because Bill is the one who got Sam to join SCCA 40 years ago. Bill has just completed the second volume of his book on the history of VIR and will have some copies of the first volume on hand to sell and to autograph.

New Business:

Topics below are in the order discussed; not as they appeared on the Agenda.

1. 2017 Majors: Sam reported that he had received the 2017 Letter of Agreement from Deanna Flanagan in the National Office regarding the Majors and that he was being pressured to sign and return it by Friday. The only real change was that both races will be timed affairs, 25 minutes’ duration on Saturday and 35 minutes on Sunday. The issue before the Board was whether we would opt to be one of the 12 Super Tour Majors (three-day Majors-only events) or we would opt to be a Conference Majors which would be a two-day affair and include SARRC races as well. The consensus of the Board was that we should not tinker with our premier event because it had done so well to establish our reputation and fill our coffers. Motion to be a Super Tour Majors (Shanks / Spencer). Passed (unanimously). The tentative date for this event is April 14-16, 2017, which, it was noted, is Easter weekend.
2. 2017 Race Calendar. Sam presented the following schedule for 2017and asked that Mark Senior discuss it with Kerrigan Smith at VIR.

• March 11-12          March Memories
• April 14 – 16         US Majors Super Tour (ends on Easter)
• May 6 – 7              SARRC / MARRS Challenge
• October 21 – 22    Goblins Go
• Some weekend in June through August, event to be determined

This schedule would be ideal, in Sam’s opinion, as it puts the Goblins Go on the weekend where the Enduro had been and gets it farther away from the historic date for the SIC. There was considerable disagreement about whether we should cancel the Enduro date. Some members still felt that we could make the Enduro work by raising entry fees even more. Others argued that we had already decided to kill this event earlier in the year if a title sponsor could not be found and if it could not be made part of a series with other Regions. In addition, having two major events less than a week apart was a hardship with regard to attracting drivers and workers alike, and the SEDIV calendar was already too crowded in October. Sam terminated the discussion by saying he was planning a survey of the drivers who had participated in the Enduro to see whether they would continue to attend if entry fees were raised considerably. He also indicated that he wanted to hear what VIR would say to Mark when this schedule was discussed.  The point was to make our wishes known before VIR draws up the 2017 contract. Last year they said that it was too late to discuss any date changes after they presented us with the contract.

3. Sunday Race Schedules. Sam brought up the very long days we had at the Goblins Go due to extra cleanups being required. Ben pointed out that having timed races also contributed to this problem.  Sam said that other Regions were addressing this problem, which results not just in complaints but in some competitors withdrawing and going home early, by doing away with Sunday qualifying. Rex asked whether this was accompanied by a reduction in entry fees and the answer is that it was not. Motion to refer this issue to the Comp Board with a recommendation that they figure out how to make it work (Lindquist / Shanks). Passed.
4. Partial Refund for Two Drivers from the Goblins Go. Bruce indicated that a driver who had crashed his car before completing even a lap of qualifying on Sunday had requested a partial refund. He indicated that there was another driver in same position who would be due a refund if we decided to give one. Sam announced that he was that other driver, so he recused himself from further participation in the discussion. Once again, several Board members said that we should have a standard policy for Bruce to follow. Others felt that this was too restrictive and that we should in fact take the time to consider these issues on a case-by-case basis. The consensus was that we should be generous if we could be, so that drivers, our customers, would keep coming back, and would feel that we were sympathetic to their misfortune. Motion to give both drivers their money back less our expenses (B. Deffenbaugh / Lindquist). Passed, with Steve Keadle voting a resounding nay.
5. Registration.  Sam announced that Walt Michael had told him at the Enduro that he was dropping out of the SCCA for 2017 and would be unavailable to serve as Registrar. Bruce had contacted Ginny Condrey, who was uncertain as to what her availability would be going forward.  This leaves us without a Region Registrar. Bruce indicated that he would be willing to step into the role, but this would require training at other tracks and he could not afford to travel. In particular, Sharon Rollow had offered to start training him at the ARRC at Road Atlanta the weekend of November 3rd. Bruce indicated that he could stay with family nearby, but would need a rental car for the journey. Motion to nominate Bruce as Region Registrar in training and provide him with a rental car for transportation to the ARRC (Senior / R. Deffenbaugh). Passed.
6. Goblins Go and Enduro Preliminary Financials. Sam had finished his preliminary analysis late in the day and passed around copies of two documents which will be posted on the Google drive tomorrow. The Goblins Go entries were as predicted, with about 254 entries on Saturday and 202 on Sunday. Expenses ran about 15 per cent over, leaving us with a reasonable profit before unallocated expenses (expenses not attributable to any particular racing event, general expenses such as equipment, the annual dinner and year-end trophies, and so on). Per event unallocated expenses come to about $3500, so that reduces the actual profit considerably. The Enduro, on the other hand, lost money, as expected. We had 44 starters, yielding decent revenue, but this was offset by higher than expected track damages and much higher worker expenses, due to the reinstatement of the third worker credit and the breakfast at the last minute. Still, even considering unallocated expenses we lost much less than last year. So, all in all, the Goblins Go profit helped offset the expected loss from the Enduro, but we still lost about $1250 on the two of them. Much better than last year but not enough to make many Board members sanguine about continuing the Enduro event in this form or on this weekend next year.
7. Elections notice. Chapter coordinators were advised to bring up the upcoming election of officers for 2017 at their next Chapter meetings. The Assistant RE and Treasurer positions, and two Member-at-Large posts (the ones currently held by John Lindquist and Blair Deffenbaugh) are up for re-election. Nominees, including current office holders, must provide a written notice by the end of the November Board meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, November 16. Each nominee must sign the notice (and provide his member number) to indicate that he accepts the nomination and three other members must also sign (and provide their member numbers as well) to second the nomination. Nominations may be forwarded to any Board member to present at the November meeting. James noted that each nominee should also plan to send a few sentences about himself and why he or she wants to run for office, so that Bruce may include them in a Region-wide e-mail notice or on the web site.
8. Awards Committee. The Awards Committee, per the Bylaws, consists of the Chapter coordinators and the current Members-at-Large, plus the Past RE, who acts as chairman, if he is present. Buddy made a deal with James some time ago to take his place on the Committee since he, Buddy, is now planning and coordinating the annual dinner. Rex indicated that he would soon announce a time for a meeting of the Committee so that they can get started on their business for this year.
9. Hospitality Tent trailer and printer. Sam reported that he wanted to repaint or wrap the trailer we had repurposed to house the Hospitality tent and merchandise now that we had discovered, at the Goblins Go, that it could also double as a printer station on site, producing race results on demand. Using it that way would make it much more visible at our events. Sam promised to get estimates and present them to the Board in the future. He also indicated that we would be looking to purchase a laptop or tablet, so that we could take chip credit cards, and a laser printer, so that we could print results quickly and reliably. John Lindquist suggested that, as Chief of Hospitality, James should determine what was needed and come back with a budget proposal for next year.

Chapter and Committee Reports: There was no time left to discuss committee reports. There were reports from the Triangle, and West Chapters on their most recent meetings on the Google drive for October, which were not discussed.

Motion to adjourn at 8:58 PM (Keadle / R. Deffenbaugh) Passed.