BoD Minutes – July 2021

Minutes of NCR-SCCA Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

July 21, 2021

Present:  Anna Crissman, Bruce Dover, Nikki Edwards, Sam Fouse, Adam Miller, Stephen Miller, Mark Senior, and James Shanks, attended in person, as well as on Zoom.  John Bodnar, Cameron Conover, Blair Deffenbaugh, Justin Deffenbaugh, Eric Danielsen, Chris Schimmel, Paul Spencer, Ben Tyler, and Kit Williams, all attended via Zoom video conference. Several members were late in arriving and joining, as the meeting time had been pushed up to 7:00 PM, but not everyone realized it.

  1. The NCR BoD meeting was called to order by RE Anna Crissman at 7:14 PM, on Wednesday, July 21st 2021, at Atomic Empire, 3400 Westgate Drive #14B, Durham, NC 27707.
  2. John Bodnar, Eric Danielsen, Adam Miller, Chris Schimmel, and Ben Tyler, attended as guests.
  3. Motion to approve the June minutes, as posted on the Google drive (Shanks / Edwards). Passed.

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

Financial Report.

 Treasurer Sam Fouse indicated that as of this meeting, the checking account is holding steady, since our check for the August track rental at VIR, of about $9700, is still pending. The money market savings account remains unchanged. The Solo account is also healthy, after their most recent event.  The scholarship fund stands firm at $5210.  Sam said that he is currently working on an income statement for the first half of the year, which he hopes to present at the next meeting or soon thereafter.

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 and Committee Reports:

 Nikki reported that the West Chapter did not have meeting because it would have fallen too close to the July 4th holiday. They did hold an e-mail campaign to elect a new Chapter Coordinator, since Nikki has to step down due to the travel requirements of her new job with SCCA ‘s National Office. Cameron Conover was elected as the new West Chapter Coordinator. This will necessitate him stepping down as Member-at-Large and a new person selected to fill out his seat for the remainder of his term (see New Business item #1 below).  Kit reported that the Cape Fear Chapter had another Zoom meeting, and that attendance was quite small, even including himself and Anna. The Triangle Chapter had a successful in-person meeting of about ten to twelve people at Casa Carbone in Raleigh, but no report was submitted this time.

Old Business:

  1. Bylaws Committee Update. James reported that the Bylaws Committee had submitted their proposed revisions, but there were issues raised by some members in e-mail that he felt would be better addressed in a meeting. The first issue is whether the Bylaws should retain the requirement that written nominations must be signed. The Committee’s version did that, but others felt the wording was too convoluted, since e-mail ballot cannot truly be signed. James apologized for the wording and said he agreed that it would be easier to drop that requirement and simply say that nominations should be presented to the Secretary either in writing or via e-mail. The second issue is about appointing members to the Bylaws Committee. Since it is a standing committee, its existence continues beyond the RE’s term of office, and there needs to be term limits for those appointed. The Bylaws Committee is a standing committee, James explained, because the Bylaws attempt to guarantee that incoming office holders would always have experienced people around to help them, and thus ensure a continuity of governance across changes to the Executive Board. But no one wants to be on a committee forever, and giving the Bylaws Committee members finite terms of office means that the incoming RE could reshape the committee once he or she was installed. Sam agreed that there had to be a way for them to get off the committee besides resigning or quitting the Club. Justin wanted clarification as to what the Bylaws committee could do without the Board’s consent, and the answer is “nothing”. After more discussion it was agreed that removing the requirement that any new members to the Bylaws Committee should have a term of three years was the simplest solution. That would leave the composition of the Bylaws Committee to the RE’s discretion, with the consent of the Board. Motion to write up a new set of revisions to the Bylaws reflecting these changes and circulate them, so that publication and voting could begin (Shanks / Senior). Passed. James agreed to get that done this week.
  2. Final Preparations for the August Goblins Go Race. Eric Danielsen is the Race Chair. Among all the other tasks that Eric is working on, he wants to try to negotiate the prices of our boxed lunches down. Mark said that he had already tried that for the last race and that the VIR catering operation is losing money, so it is unlikely that they will agree to negotiate further. Eric observed that the prices for sandwiches at the Pagoda, which are online, are significantly less than what we are being charged; and Eric wondered whether we could save more money by doing more of the labor of building the lunch bags ourselves. Sam replied that they did not have time for that. It is all they can do to get the lunches distributed now in the time allotted for doing that. They pick them up already wrapped and labeled, and put them into bags which are marked where they should go, according to the list they made earlier. Eric said he wasn’t convinced and planned on talking to Anna Obst. the head of catering, anyway. He was also trying to set up a Friday night meeting at the track with the Stewards, the various Specialty Chiefs, and VIR staff. It was also mentioned that Libby Killian will be running pit road, and that Sam had promised to help get the equipment needed transported over there. Anna observed that we really did not have to have that equipment in place, especially the speed gun, since the stewards had declined to penalize speeding on pit road. Steve Keadle is a late addition to the officials list as Safety Steward. In summary, Eric said, things are moving along.
  3. Update on the Audi Club running at our October TT. Stephen Miller announced that, just last night, the Audi Club officers had voted down the proposal he and Rob Wilmoth made to them about running an Audi-Club-only time trial on the Friday before our event, October 15th. Our event will proceed as scheduled on Saturday and Sunday, October 16-17, at NCCAR, and any Audi Club members will be welcomed to join, but not as a separate group. Co-advertising is still possible, Stephen said, and if they do that, then there will be a track walk for them and a “Fastest Audi” trophy. He added that, when the composition of the Audi Club board changes, which is happening in a few months, we can revisit the idea of a shared cost and revenue event. Stephen also said that he would contact Sam True at NCCAR and let him know we would be reserving Friday. And Stephen concluded his report by saying that he expected to have the Supps done by next week and then get Registration open on MSR.

New Business:

  1. Election of New West Chapter Coordinator and New Member-at-Large Appointment. As mentioned in the Chapter Reports above, Cameron Conover was elected Chapter Coordinator for the West Chapter after Nikki stepped down, via an e-mail election. Niki said she informed all regular participants (23) via e-mail, but only a few chose to respond (7), and Cameron was the overwhelming favorite of those who responded.  Anna observed that Al Heatwole had received the third-highest vote total during the last election for a Member-at-Large position, and though he was not present tonight, he had agreed to fill that position if confirmed. Motion to have Al Heatwole fill Cameron’s seat as Member-at-Large for the remainder of his term (Crissman / Senior). Passed.
  2. Charity for the August Race. Sam, who was Race Chair for the May race, observed that the Region’s EV crew, who used to handle getting the lunch-time drive-arounds underway up on the grid, had dropped out of the Club, and were no longer available for doing that. He had to press Ed Wentz, the Pace Car chief, and his crew, into doing this duty at the May event, and they were not eager to repeat that task, since they also have to escort the cars on course. John Lindquist, who heads up the NCR Scholarship Program, has volunteered to handle the collection at the grid if the Scholarship Program is the named as the official charity for the event. Sam said that there was nothing in our contract with VIR which said the program could not be our charity again, so he was in favor naming it so and letting John do it. Anna agreed, and said that Chief Steward Ken Blackburn had okayed our running the driver-arounds as we always had, even given SCCA’s new guidelines. She added that Bruce, as Office Manager, would be on hand to independently verify the cash collected, before John made the deposit, so that there would be no doubt about the total amount of the donations. Sam agreed and said he also would be there to verify the amount as well. Anna concluded by saying that, unless someone objected, the Board would approve this by consensus.
  3. New Refrigerator / Freezer for Speed Suite. Sam announced that the Speed Suite had been rewired by our electrical contractor and that there were now two 20-amp circuits available just for charging radios, as well as 2 more for general duty on the other wall, and another dedicated one for either a refrigerator or a freezer (but not both). He proposed that we buy a no-frills refrigerator now, with delivery hopefully before the August event, to meet our needs until the full fit-up is completed, when we could add a big stand-alone freezer. There was discussion about looking around for a used one, cheap or even free, but the problem is delivery. It is a long way to VIR from almost anywhere, and a refrigerator is very difficult to move in a pick-up truck, especially loading and unloading. And it must be transported upright. Additionally, our donated freezer doesn’t work. Motion to spend up to $1200 for a 21-cubic-foot, top-freezer refrigerator, delivered to the Speed Suite (Fouse / Senior). Passed.
  4. Go-Kart Enduro to be Added to the August Event. Paul and Justin want to add a go-kart enduro to the August event, just as they did in May. They agreed to postpone to start time to a more reasonable 6:30, which would give some people a chance to stop by the social before driving, though there would be some food (probably pizza) provided at the go-kart track. Sam indicated that Eric should cut back on the food order for the social, in any case, since last time we threw away a lot of food. The proposal is for only 10 karts this time, as the VIR go-kart manager thought there was too much traffic and aggressive driving when there were 12 on-course at once. Anna expressed concern that no one get hurt this time, since we cannot afford to lose participants, especially volunteers, due to over-exuberant go-kart racing. Paul relayed that they had had this same discussion with the VIR go-kart manager and two changes would be made to the rules: (1) drivers must be 16 years of age or older and (2) any contact requires both drivers to come into the pits for a stop-and-go. After further discussion about proposed rules, Justin said they were planning to leave the rest up to the go-kart manager, since that was his job and what he did for a living. Motion to budget $2500 for a 10-vehicle go-kart enduro in conjunction with the August event, with the intention that it should break-even (Senior / Fouse). Passed.

Motion to adjourn at 8:08 PM (Fouse / Senior). Passed.

Submitted by Secretary, James Shanks.

PS: A post-meeting discussion ensued among those present at Atomic Empire about continuing in-person meetings. The consensus was that we should officially return to videoconferencing only, and let anyone who wishes to get together in a small group, simply do so, and conference in together. It was agreed that the videoconference meetings have proven to be much more efficient.

 

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.

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