BoD Minutes – November 2022

NCR Board Meeting Minutes

November 16th, 2022

Attendees: Anna Crissman, Bruce Dover, Al Heatwole, Shane Irving, James Shanks, Kit Williams, Sam Fouse, John Bodnar, Lee Hill, Stephen Miller late, Blair Deffenbaugh late,

Guests: Elizabeth Severt, Chris Severt, Chris Schimmel, David Ballance, Rex Loden, Mark Senior, Megan Tyler, Ben Tyler, Ron Munnerlyn,

  1. The meeting was called to order at 7:01 by Anna Crissman, NCR R.E.
  2. Motion to approve the October meeting minutes (Shanks / Hill ). Passed.

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 had sent a copy of the financial report to Secretary Kit Williams.

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

Lee Hill said the West Chapter met at Elizabeth’s Pizza on election night, and had a lower than normal turnout of 6 people, likely due to it being election night. Lee said they spent the meeting having a nice chat about various different things, but nothing major occurred. Shane Irving said the Cape Fear Chapter had met virtually with roughly 15 people on the call, which was much higher than typical attendance. The chapter spent the meeting organizing and planning the Solo program offseason. Shane said it was a very productive meeting. Rex Loden, the new Solo Program Chair, spoke up and said that the Solo program was still waiting on a schedule for the next season from MCAS Cherry Point. James Shanks had posted a report of the Triangle Chapter meeting in the region’s Google Drive. The chapter met with roughly 12 people, and they spent the meeting watching different videos from the Runoffs and discussing the upcoming region elections.

Old Business

  1. SARRC Race Entry Giveaway: Anna brought up an issue the Board has been discussing through email for a few weeks now. Earlier in the year, Ron Munnerlyn had approached the Board and asked us to give away a free SARRC race entry at the SIC as a raffle prize. The Board agreed to do this and the entry was given away to a driver who lives in Florida. The winner of the race entry contacted NCR and has said he does not want the free entry and he would like us to give it away, in his words, “to someone who needs it”. The intention of the giveaway at the SIC was to encourage drivers from other regions to come to our events, but it seems that has not worked. The Board expressed that if the driver had told us he did not want the race entry when he won it, we could have just drawn another name at the SIC, but that opportunity has now passed. The Board discussed multiple options, including creating a pool of drivers or starting a drivers scholarship fund to support any driver struggling financially, until a consensus was reached. Motion to give away the free SARRC race entry to an NCR driver who entered a SARRC race in 2022 by random drawing during the NCR Annual Banquet (Heatwole / Deffenbaugh). Before a vote was taken, Ron Munnerlyn joined the virtual meeting and another round of discussion was held. Ron expressed that he had hoped the entry to go to a driver from outside of the Region, but all agreed that getting together a pool of names and addresses for drivers in the SEDiv and then randomly drawing that name and then hoping they did not do the same as the original winner and give the entry back to us was much more effort than needed for this, and also did not honor the request of the driver who originally won. A vote was taken and the motion as described above passed
  2. Election Nominations: The NCR Board election nomination period ends at the end of this meeting, and only those who have submitted their intention to run and received three nominations supporting them will be put on the ballot for the election. So far, the candidates are as follows: Megan Tyler, running for ARE; Sam Fouse, running for Treasurer; Al Heatwole, running for Member-at-Large; and Shane Irving, running for Member-at-Large. The election will start on the first Wednesday of December, per the Bylaws. If all of the elected positions are running unopposed, an election must still take place, but there is not a minimum number of votes needed for a nominee to win their seat. The term of office for the new Board will begin at the first meeting of the new year. Stephen Miller raised a question about Shane Irving leaving the Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator post to become a Member-at-Large, and Anna Crissman said the issue would be addressed later in the meeting.
  3. Speed Suite Cleanout: Sam and Anna are working to schedule a cleanup of the VIR speed suite before the racing season begins. This is something that is done each year and gives us time to restock on supplies and reorganize the Speed Suite. Anna, Sam, Ben Tyler, and others worked to coordinate their schedules and tentatively decided on the weekend of December 10th and 11th.

Item Not on the Agenda

  1. Ron Munnerlyn, who is the NCR Board Representative for the SARRC Board, wanted to give the Board an update on a meeting that was taking place just a few minutes from the current time virtually. Ron said the SARRC Board was meeting to discuss several rules updates and to clarify several of the current rules, and that he was leaving the NCR meeting to join that meeting in just a few minutes’ time. Ron needed to appraise the Board and get a general consensus to present to the SARRC Board. Ron said there were three main points the SARRC Board was discussing: whether a driver can compete at the SIC if they competed at the Runoffs, whether you were allowed to race at the SIC if you did not have a SEDiv region listed as your region of record, and whether drivers would get bonus SARRC points during a race for finishing ahead of drivers who had DNF’d the race. These issues were all fairly complex and took a good bit of discussion to work out exactly what each of them entailed. The Board wanted to take time to think these issues over but Ron said the SARRC Board was making their decision on these issues tonight and he needed to know the NCR Board’s position on them. The Board and Ron reached the following consensus on the issues listed above: First, that if a driver finished in the top 5 of their class at the Runoffs, they could not compete at the SIC; Second, that if a driver does not have a SEDiv region listed as one of their SCCA regions, they cannot compete at the SIC; and Third, that if a driver DNF’s during a SARRC race, drivers finishing ahead of that driver do not receive bonus SARRC points for finishing ahead of a DNF’d car. Ron said he would take our consensus to the SARRC Board meeting and report back.

New Business

  1. Annual Banquet: Elizabeth Severt reported that she has been looking for places to host our annual banquet in Wilmington, NC with help from Blair Deen. They have narrowed their choices down to three locations. The proposed date is January 14th, 2023. Elizabeth said depending on which location we selected, she expected the room plus food and a full bar would end up being roughly $9,000 depending on the exact price of food. This estimate would be for 100 people to attend in person, and we would also have a virtual component set up for people to join in online. Elizabeth said this would lead to a banquet fee of roughly $40 per person. She and others noted that prices have gone up significantly since our last in person banquet back in January of 2020. Elizabeth said there were multiple options for food depending on which location we choose. The options for the banquet are: the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Carolina Beach; Ironclad Brewery in downtown Wilmington; and The Warehouse on Water in downtown Wilmington. Elizabeth said the deadline for signing a contract with a location was coming up quite soon, and she had plans to visit each of the locations in person with Blair Deen in the coming week. The Board discussed the options, and several members who live in Wilmington suggested going with one of the two downtown Wilmington locations rather than the Carolina Beach option. The Board agreed and also agreed to have Elizabeth and Blair Deen choose the option they felt would work best based on their in-person visits. The Board then also agreed that the banquet fee would need to go up compared to previous years, and all agreed that we needed to get to work on finalizing this event and opening up registration as soon as we are able.
  2. Solo Committee Formation: Anna and Shane have been working together through email trying to address the formation and rules regarding the Solo program and the Solo Committee. Just a month ago, a new group of people stepped up to take charge of the NCR Solo program, which has been looking for new leadership for some time and was at risk of being leaderless in 2023. The new team has found that the Solo program structure was not well defined and did not have its own set of written rules and regulations regarding how the Solo program operated. The new team wants to create a structure and guidelines describing how the Solo Committee is organized. They would like to define what roles take on what jobs, and they would like to put it into the Operations Manual. The team wants to have a specific set of rules for how the Solo Committee operates, much like how the Club Racing Comp Board is organized. The team wants to separate the Cape Fear Chapter from the Solo Program so they are not tied together, making the Solo program its own entity, like Club Racing and Time Trials. The Board agreed that this could be done and that the Solo Board rules and regulations can be added to the Ops Manual. Shane said he is going to step down as the Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator and is running for a Member-at-Large seat so he can stay on the NCR Board. Shane does not live anywhere near the Cape Fear Region, but he accepted the coordinator position as it was tied to the Solo program. Chris Severt has said he would step up to be the Cape Fear Chapter Coordinator, as the position is no longer tied to leading the Solo program. The Solo team noted they need to update their Supplemental Regulations for 2023.

Mark Senior asked the Board for permission to set up a meeting with VIR and the Board before the 2023 season. The Board said yes to his request.

At this point, the open meeting was concluded by Anna Crissman. The Board continued in a closed meeting to discuss a personnel issue and a scheduling issue. The open meeting concluded at 8:15 pm. The closed meeting ended at 9:00 pm.

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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