BoD Minutes – December 2024

NCR SCCA December 2024 Board Meeting Minutes

Attendees: Kit Williams, Lee Hill, James Shanks, Anna Crissman, Megan Tyler, Matt Decker, Chris Severt, Sam Fouse, John Bodnar, Ryan Lohrman

Guests: Bruce Dover, Al Heatwole, Stephen Miller,

1. The meeting was called to order at 6:33 pm by Anna Crissman, NCR RE.
2. Motion to approve the minutes from the November meeting (Shanks/Hill). Approved.

Anna started the meeting by passing on sad news that she had just received that Brenda Lyons had passed away. There were not many details available as this news had just been given to Anna. The Board expressed their condolences and is awaiting further news and information.

Financial Report

Treasurer Sam Fouse had sent a financial report to Kit Williams before the meeting.

As the details of our finances are confidential, NCR members who wish more information should contact either the Office Manager or any member of the Board of Directors. They are also invited to attend a Chapter Meeting, where such matters are discussed in detail.

Chapter Reports

Chris Severt said the Cape Fear Chapter met last Tuesday in their normal location but not in their normal room with 4 members in attendance. They brainstormed looking at other locations as they regularly lose the private room at their current location. James Shanks said the Triangle Chapter met with over 20 people attending including a large portion of Clan Deffenbaugh. They watched several different race videos, and they are moving their meeting date to the second Wednesday of the month due to several meeting time conflicts they have had this year. James said he will continue as the chapter coordinator for now as no one stepped up to take over the position. Lee Hill said the West Chapter met with 7 people, mostly regulars. He said the weather was poor which probably impacted the meeting. He also said that no one else has currently stepped up to take over the West Chapter coordinator position, as Lee will be taking over the ARE role in 2025 and cannot hold two positions on the Board. We will need to work with Lee and the regular attendees of the West Chapter meetings to find someone to fill that role for next year. Lee also said they will not have a February meeting as it will be right after the annual banquet.

Old Business

1. Awards Update: Anna said she had spoken to Rob Wilmoth earlier and has most of the driver awards sorted out. He has not yet heard back from any of the specialty chiefs to go over their awards for the banquet. Anna said she also had received a notice that Eric Danielsen had a medical issue earlier this year, and while he is currently okay at the moment, he does not want to take an active role with our trophies at the moment due to this. Anna said she and Rob are working with Eric to work out the situation for our banquet on February 8th. She stressed that the specialty chiefs need to get with Rob as soon as possible, and reminded everyone that the registration for the banquet is open.

New Business

1. VIR Contract for 2025: Anna said they spoke with a new representative at VIR recently and we have received and finalized our contract for 2025. The track rent increase is roughly 1%. They have added a new section to the contract requiring us to not share the details of the contract outside of the executive committee of the Board, essentially working as an NDA. There have been very few other major changes, but lots of very small changes. The rate for renting VIR flaggers has gone up and the fee for renting them is now due in advance. We have already started paying the deposits for this contract.
2. MSR Registration Protection: Sam said MSR had sent out an email that he initially passed over, but Bruce had mentioned it to him, and he went back and read through all of the details. He said they are now offering cancellation insurance on events that are through MSR. He said the insurance amounts to a 7% fee for each registration, which would mean that in the event of a cancellation we would get back 93% of the entry fee. Sam said in 2024 we spent $15,000 in credit card fees, and MSR is also offering a service where we can pass the credit card fees on to the participants. Anna was very much against passing this on to our participants, and there was some discussion about what the best course to take would be. Credit card fees are becoming very common in many businesses and we are currently paying them, and we can choose to continue paying them or pass them on to our participants. There was then a discussion about how the cancellation insurance would work. The scenario Sam described would have a participant register and purchase the registration insurance, then if they cancel the region would keep their registration fee and MSR would pay the participant back their registration fee minus the insurance premium of 7%. This discussion was very complex and had a lot of different specifics covered and explained. Lee mentioned that each SCCA region handles their registration process very differently, so we may not be able to wait and see what other regions do at the start of the year. He specifically mentioned that CFR does not charge credit cards until the start of the event. There are a lot of specifics to both of these items that will need to be thought out and discussed further, and they are two separate things that the Board will need to spend time reviewing. As our costs to run events continue to go up, every single dollar we send out and get back will become more important and we need to look at items like these and determine what the best course of action is for the Region.

Anna reminded everyone that the SEDiv conference is coming up and anyone who is interested in attending should reach out to Sam as soon as possible as the region is assisting Board members who wish to attend.

Al brought up a recent announcement that RaceHero, a popular live timing app that we use as a region, is being discontinued and will no longer be available. Anna said we will likely be using RaceMonitor for the time being, but we are also looking into SpeedHive as a possible alternative. RaceHero was a free service, and RaceMonitor requires a subscription fee to access all of the functions. John Bodnar said he briefly looked at SpeedHive but will need to spend more time looking over it to see if it is a usable platform for us or what the best live timing solution will be for us next year.

Motion to adjourn (Fouse/Lohrman) at 7:33pm. Motion passed.

Please note that all NCR members are welcome to attend NCR Board of Directors meetings.

If any member should have a question about the Region or its activities, please contact the Office Manager or any member of the Board.

Submitted by Secretary Kit Williams