BoD Minutes – October 2021

Minutes of NCR-SCCA Monthly Board of Directors Meeting

October 20, 2021

Present:  John Bodnar, Cameron Conover, Anna Crissman, Blair Deffenbaugh, Justin Deffenbaugh, Bruce Dover, Sam Fouse, Al Heatwole, John Lindquist, Steve Martin, Chris Schimmel, Mark Senior, James Shanks, Elizabeth Severt, Kit Williams, and Rob Wilmoth, all attended via Zoom video conference. Rob Wilmoth joined late. Stephen Miller and Paul Spencer did not attend.

  1. The NCR BoD meeting was called to order by RE Anna Crissman at 7:32 PM, on Wednesday, October 20th
  2. John Bodnar, John Lindquist, Steve Martin, Chris Schimmel, Elizabeth Severt, and Rob Wilmoth, attended as guests.
  3. Motion to approve the September minutes, as posted on the Google drive (Heatwole / Shanks). 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 sent an e-mail in advance of the meeting to Secretary James Shanks, which he read aloud. Per Sam’s e-mail, our cash position is quite solid and we will end the year comfortably in the black, though we are waiting for our outstanding checks to clear, including the check for $12,900 to NCCAR for the last Time Trial and about $2,100 in additional year-end VIP checks. The money market savings account remains unchanged. The Solo account is solid and the scholarship fund stands firm at $8009. Sam said that he has not done an accounting of last weekend’s Time Trial, but that he would be very surprised if it broke even. He also noted that our income from membership dues just about matches our expenses for the mortgage and utilities on the Speed Suite.

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:

There were no written reports. Kit said that the Cape Fear Chapter met and largely discussed planning for the upcoming autocrosses to be held at Cherry Point this coming weekend, October 23rd and 24th, and the one which follows in two weeks, November 6th and 7th. Mark said that the Triangle Chapter met in person and about 15 people attended. They watched in-car video from Chuck Hines at the Runoffs, which featured him using a rag duct-taped to a stick to clear the inside of his windshield in the rain on every lap. Cameron reported that the West Chapter met and even welcomed a new member. At Anna’s suggestion, they are planning a move to the second Tuesday of the month, rather than the first, so that their meeting no longer falls on the same day as the Cape Fear Chapter.

Old Business:

  1. NCR Scholarship Program Update. John Lindquist noted that after the fundraising efforts at Indianapolis during the Runoffs, and at VIR during the IMSA weekend, the Scholarship Program is now fully funded for eight years, which takes us out to 2029, and he thanked everyone involved for helping to get it this far. If it should get to ten years, then he thinks we can start giving away more scholarships per year, and every one we give away increases our viability and clout with potential sponsors. He reminded us that 11 counties have asked for an in-person presentation, complete with a race car, if possible, and that he is planning the first school program to be in January. He is hoping that other folks will volunteer to become involved with that. For example, he said that Doug Piner wants to bring his car to the presentation in Pender County. The actual sites, and dates, have not yet been set, because he is waiting to hear back from the schools, though he has told them what would work best. John also said he is also waiting on the other local autocross clubs, Tarheel and Triad, to respond with their schedules so that he can recommend them as groups to get involved with. In addition to high schools, one of the school events will be held in a coliseum in January. More current than that, however, John asked for as many people as possible to join him at Carolina Brewery in Pittsboro on Monday, October 25th at 6:30 for the drawing for the slab of the VIR Oak Tree and the other prizes that have been used to get the current donations. He plans to ask a staff member to draw the names to prevent any conflict-of-interest issues and he wants as many witnesses as possible to assure that it is all on the up and up. Al suggested that John put his calendar online and share it with the rest of us, so that we could all know what was coming up, and we might then be better able to volunteer. John agreed and Bruce said he would publish it.
  1. Time Trial at NCCAR Debrief. In Stephen’s absence, Kit started the discussion by observing that while we had some rain interfere with the Time Attack portion of the event on Saturday afternoon, overall, it was a very good event.  There was a lack of volunteers, especially on the corners, but there was a new volunteer, a fellow named Casey, who has been an autocrosser for years, who showed up and did an awesome job on grid. Sam said he actually recruited him at the IMSA weekend by promising him a free Region t-shirt if he showed up, and thankfully, he did. Numbers-wise, Kit said, he thought we were at about 40 drivers per day for both days, in three groups, but we had a lot of dead track time, because the drivers in each group needed time to decompress and check their cars before going back out again. The turnout was lower than in the past, but we were competing with other events going on that same weekend, including a Charlotte solo pro tour and NASA Time Trial at Rockingham. As usual, there were many positive comments about the food, and also about the track improvements at NCCAR, though more are needed in terms of curbing and grading. Anna chimed in and said that we were looking at the same weekends in April and October for next year, but we were still waiting on all the dates to fall into place.
  1. Region Address Change. Bruce is losing his lease and will be moving on the 30th. So, Sam is in the process of changing our official address to the Speed Suite, since it is a permanent piece of real estate we actually own. The new address is 1081 Ace Drive, Suite 6, Alton, Virginia 24520. We can receive mail there, and Bruce will be going by a couple times a week to check on it, as his new place will still be close by. Packages, however, should be shipped elsewhere, as there will be no one there to receive them. They can be shipped to Bruce directly once he is settled in.

 New Business:

  1. Region Elections for 2022. For 2022, the RE, Secretary, and 2 Member-at-Large positions, the ones currently held by Justin Deffenbaugh and Stephen Miller, are up for re-election. Since James had declined to run for Secretary again, after three terms (6 years).  Anna asked him to head up the Elections committee, whose job it is, James noted, to recommend the method by which the election should be conducted and to certify the result. Bruce and Mark Senior volunteered to be on the Elections Committee as well.  As the current Secretary, all nominations are due in James’ possession by the close of the next board meeting (November 17th), and these can be via e-mail or in writing, and each must be supported by at least three members in good standing, one of which could be the nominee themselves.  Anna made a point of asking James whether he would help the new Secretary transition into the job and James agree that he would. He said he would hang on the archives, as the Region’s unofficial historian, so that the new Secretary would not be burdened with them, and he pointed out that now that our Meetings ae being recorded on Zoom, one need not even take notes during the meeting, but can summarize it later by viewing the recording as often as required.
  2. Annual Banquet. Elizabeth Severt volunteered to look into what venue might be available for an in-person annual banquet if we wanted to have one and could agree on some dates and how much we would spend on such an event. Kit said that the Solo Program would be having an in-person awards presentation somewhere and that they would combine that with a larger one if we were to agree to have one. The consensus was that we should try to have something but it should include a digital component for those who could not attend or were reluctant to attend, and Anna even suggested a mid-afternoon timeframe so that we might be able to do something outside, weather permitting. She also suggested that the Solo portion might be a brunch meeting the next morning. Al Heatwole offered us a large, flat area on his property in which we could put up a tent if we wanted. After discussion about schedule conflicts, it was decided that we should avoid the last weekend in January because of Daytona, and the first week-end in February because of the SEDIV convention, so Elizabeth should look for something in January or early February, but avoiding those weekends. There was further discussion about capping the event at no more than 75 people, since we seldom had a hundred even in good years, and setting the budget based on expecting modest increases over what we spent before. Motion to plan an in-person banquet event, during the time-frame discussed, with a budget of $3000 or less (Crissman / Fouse). Passed. Justin then spoke up and said he would like to be involved in setting up the awards presentation, since he enjoyed doing that last year, and it was so successful. Anna concurred and said he should get started as soon as possible. She then constituted the Awards Committee consisting of the Chapter Coordinators and the Members-at-Large, to help get the ball rolling. Elizabeth said she had enough information to go forward and obtain some quotes and would get with Anna and Sam when she had them.
  3. Dates and Issues for Next Season at VIR.

(a) Mark will ask Paula to reserve ten (10) room as the Lodge for the Spring Sprints for us and the National Staff to use. We can always let go of the ones we don’t need as the date draws near.

(b) Anna wants Sam to come up with a comprehensive offer to include breakfast and cold beverages at lunch for the workers, should SCCA ask us to do the shuttle service again.  She does not want to present this to them unless they ask us to provide that service.  Her view seems to be that either they will pay us to do it right or we won’t do it at all. Sam doesn’t think we should even offer.

(c) Dates we have been offered at VIR in 2022 are as follows

    • March 12 -13
    • April 8-10
    • May 7-8
    • August 5-7

It is up to us to decide what to put on them.  The Spring Sprints in April is the only one cast in stone, but we are hoping for our usual regional races, SARRC and ECR, in March and May, and one of the new SCCA Enduro series week-ends in August, though we are not sure what we will do with the Friday before. It could be a test day, though these are not common in endurance racing, or it could be used for something else, such as a one-day time trial. Rob Wilmoth said other groups are being pushed by VIR to either book a 3-day weekend or find someone else to partner with so that it can be a 4-day event. This led Anna to suggest that perhaps the Friday, August 5th, might be used as an Audi-Club-centric TT event, one we would sanction but would be primarily for their members. Rob said he would talk with the Potomac Chapter Lead of the Audi Club to see what he thought about that, if we liked. Mark said that he would go back to the track in any case and ask them whether the Friday was optional or not, and then we could go from there. Anna agreed that we should not take the Friday if it were indeed optional.

Motion to adjourn at 9:08 PM (Heatwole / Fouse). 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, James Shanks

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