BoD Minutes – January 2022

Minutes of NCR SCCA Annual Meeting

January 20th, 2022

Attendees: Bruce Dover, Anna Crissman, James Shanks, Mark Senior, Kit Williams, Chuck Stanley, Chris Shimmel, Al Heatwole, John Lindquist, Tim Lyons, Blair Deffenbaugh, Ben Tyler, Sam Fouse, Lee Hill, John Bodnar, Cameron Conover, Brenda, Paul Spencer, Patricia Deffenbaugh, Eric Danielsen, Rob Wilmoth, Alex Heggie, Roger and Kristen Green, and Stephen Miller all attended via Zoom. Justin Deffenbaugh and Nikki Edwards joined roughly 30 minutes after the meeting started. Several attendees left after the conclusion of the annual meeting.

  1. The meeting was called to order at 7:35 pm by Anna Crissman on Thursday, January 22nd, 2022
  2. Motion to approve the December minutes, as posted on the Google drive (Fouse/Senior). Approved.

Order and content of the items listed below reflects the order of discussion, as nearly as possible; not necessarily as they appeared on the published agenda.

Financial Report

Treasurer Sam Fouse read a statement on the region’s financial balances.

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.

In coordination with our accountant, I am finalizing the books for 2021 and should have a complete financial report for the board on or about Jan. 31, 2021. The short summary is that we made a very modest surplus in 2021 and were able to improve our cash position only slightly compared with Dec. 31, 2020, but we are still down almost $43k from where we were at the end of 2019. I attribute that to multiple factors, most notably COVID and the canceling of almost our entire season in 2020. For 2021, the Spring Sprints continued to do extremely well as it always does, while Regional racing showed losses overall. Solo made somewhat of a recovery, and Time Trial is nearing break even.

Chapter and Committee Reports

The Cape Fear Chapter did not meet in January. While this is not abnormal for January, the reason there was not a meeting is there is currently not a Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator. This issue is trying to be resolved by Anna Crissman and Kit Williams. Cameron Conover reported that the West Chapter had an in person meeting that was successful and mostly involved talking about the upcoming racing schedule for 2022. James Shanks reported that the Triangle Chapter had a successful meeting as well and he would be posting the report. He also reported that the February meeting had been moved to February 9th due to multiple scheduling conflicts.

Annual Meeting

  1. Message from the RE:  Anna Crissman, NCR Regional Executive, gave a State of the Region message, which is traditional for the annual meeting. Anna did not have a pre-written speech which could be copied into these minutes, but her message was that the Region as a whole is doing well. We have struggled through the Covid 19 pandemic for the last several years and while that has been tough on the Region, we have handled it well and have come through the tough times in a good position. We have several challenges this year, including the Runoffs in October, and scheduling conflicts with our March race and the Super Tour at Road Atlanta. Anna gave a brief recap of the events we had in 2021, including our road racing, time trials, and autocross programs. Anna also touched on track changes to VIR that may affect our events this coming year before wrapping up her address with the overall feeling that the region is doing just fine.
  2. Introduction of New Board Members: Anna rolled into the introduction of new Board members from her State of the Region speech. The election took place throughout December, and while none of the elections were contested, the new Board members officially take their seats on the Board at the Annual Meeting. Kit Williams has replaced James Shanks as Region Secretary, and John Bodnar is now a Member-at-Large, replacing Justin Deffenbaugh. Anna Crissman continues as Region Executive and Stephen Miller retains his Member-at-Large seat. James Shanks, as previously noted in the minutes, is now the Triangle Chapter Coordinator. The Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator position is currently unoccupied.
  3. Other Items: Before the conclusion of the Annual Meeting, Sam added onto his financial report that there would be several financial concerns at the beginning of the year, most notably that MARRS would not be joining us in an official capacity this year as they had decided not to participate in the SARRC/MARRS challenge of years past. He also remarked that the VIR contract has not been finalized and that he expected track rent to increase but did not have an exact figure. At this point James Shanks spoke up as the Region Membership Chair and reported that at the last report he received from the SCCA, NCR currently has 874 members.

At this time, the NCR Annual Meeting officially concluded, and the NCR Monthly Board Meeting proper began. Several members left the Zoom meeting, but many stayed through the end of the meeting.

NCR Board Meeting

Old Business:

  1. Door Prizes for Awards Banquets: In the past, NCR has given away multiple “door prizes” during the annual awards banquet. This year’s banquet has been moved to a fully virtual meeting, so a decision needed to be made as to if door prizes would be given out and if so, what amount we would want to commit to those prizes. The same is true of the SEDiv Banquet, where each region normally brings a selection of door prizes to give away. This discussion became somewhat hard to follow, as different people seemed to have different ideas about what we had done in the past or what questions were being asked.
    At the end of the discussion and after checking between Sam and Bruce as to what we had done in the past, it was decided to give away 3 VIR coupons at the amount of $250 each and two Time Trial entry coupons at both banquets. It was also decided to give away $500 worth of gift cards and one autocross season pass at the NCR awards banquet.
  2. Update on Awards Banquet: Justin Deffenbaugh gave a brief update on the NCR Awards Banquet, which is planned to be held virtually on Saturday, February 5th. Justin said planning was going ahead but he still had work to do. He was working out a schedule and would have more concrete plans in the coming days.
  3. SEDiv Convention: The SEDiv banquet will take place February 18th-20th at St. Simons Island. The NCR Board has traditionally attended in good numbers to represent the Region and we plan to continue to do this in 2022. There are a large number of Board members who intend to go to the banquet. In the past, the Region has financially supported Board members who attended the SEDiv Banquet. Anna stressed that if any Board members wanted to attend, they needed to reach out to her or Bruce so they could get on the list and get compensated for expenses. Anna said that there was still budget left for other NCR representatives to attend so she would be reaching out to the Competition Board to see if any of those members wanted to go to the SEDiv banquet. During this conversation it was also mentioned that the SCCA National Convention would be starting virtually on Friday, January 21st.
  4. Rockingham Report: Al Heatwole, who had been chosen previously to be the NCR representative to Rockingham Speedway, said he had no new information to report but was planning to attend the speedway in the coming weeks, pending the upcoming weather.

New Business

  1. VIP Program: Anna started a discussion about raising the amount NCR pays out to our volunteers at road races through our VIP program. We are currently paying volunteers who do not opt out of the program $35 per day they work. Anna’s suggestion was to raise this amount to $45 per day beginning at our May event. Anna was making this recommendation based on looking at what other regions are doing with paying their workers. At this point, a question was raised about worker camping at VIR. Last year, VIR started requiring volunteers to pay for camping, which is different from previous years when volunteers did not have to pay for camping. In 2021, NCR offered to pay for volunteer camping in multiple ways, such as through pre-purchasing camping passes from VIR for our workers to pick up at registration, and through reimbursing volunteers who presented their camping passes to Bruce. The question was raised that if we were to raise the VIP payment, would we continue to reimburse for camping. At this point, the conversation seemed to turn more into an argument about if we should continue to pay for worker camping and if so, how we should do it. This lengthened into a somewhat confusing conversation about the specifics of worker camping, how this could be paid for, what VIR would charge us to rent out certain areas of the track, how many people actually camped at our events, etc. The conversation continued for roughly 25 minutes, after which time the Secretary, Kit Williams, asked to reign in the conversation and get back on track with the Board meeting. Stephen Miller then made a motion to increase the VIP payout to $60 per day and to stop paying for camping. This motion was not seconded and Stephen did not press his motion after receiving no support. Cameron Conover then made a motion to increase the VIP payments to $45 per day starting in March. This motion was also not seconded, and led to another lengthy discussion about how the March event revenue would not support such an increase and the large number of workers who attend the Spring Sprints would also make for a tough financial situation, which was why Anna originally suggested increasing it to $45 beginning in May. Cameron did not press his motion again, and after further camping discussion was had, the group agreed that this issue was taking up too much of the meeting’s allotted time and would need to be tabled for future discussion. No motions were seconded and therefore none passed.
  2. Flagging Updates: Ben Tyler gave an update that Heather Clark has stepped down from her role as an NCR Flag Chief, leaving Ben as the only NCR Flag Chief for this year.
  3. Autocross Update: Kit Williams gave an update on the NCR autocross program, as he was previously the Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator and in charge of the program. At the moment the Solo program is still having issues with MCAS Cherry Point and getting our event contract for the year finalized. Currently, the program does not have a member in charge, as Kit is now the Region Secretary, and the Solo Board of Tara Arnette and Justin Arnette are also looking to hand off their responsibilities after running the program for the last five years. Kit, Justin, and Tara are still handling the functions of the program at this time but are all looking for members interested to step up and take over the program.
  4. Meeting with VIR: Mark Senior gave a brief recap of the meeting between the NCR Board and VIR staff that took place over Zoom on Wednesday, January 19th 2022. There were many issues covered in the meeting and the VIR staff were very helpful with all of our questions. An issue was raised by several members, most vocally Chuck Stanley, about the changes VIR has made to the track, particularly around Pit and the Start Tower area. Chuck in particular was concerned about the flow of traffic on and off the track based on the changes VIR is making. As a group it was noted that we had not seen any pictures of the changes and had not been specifically told how VIR planned to have traffic flow onto and off of the track. It is assumed that any changes VIR is making have been thought out by the track, so we will have to see what has been done when we are able to assess the track.

Motion to Adjourn: 9:00 pm (Fouse/Bodnar). Passed

After the meeting adjourned there was further informal discussion about the camping issue that continued for roughly 20 minutes. Clearly this will need to be resolved in the future but it is complex and requires more information from VIR as to their camping process and what can be done to resolve the problem.

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

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  • BoD Minutes
  • Cape Fear Chapter Report
  • Triangle Chapter Report
  • West Chapter Report