BoD Minutes – October 2024

October 16,  2024

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

Guests: Bruce Dover, Al Heatwole, Mark Senior, Ben Tyler

1. The meeting was called to order at 7:00 pm by Anna Crissman, NCR RE.
2. Motion to approve the minutes from the September meeting (Shanks/Lohrman). Approved.

Financial Report

Treasurer Sam Fouse gave a financial report to the Board.

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 had planned to meet with Nikki Edwards leading the meeting, but she was unavailable so Brian Hooper led the meeting instead. Many people were on the way back from Nationals or otherwise busy so they only met with 5 people and not much happened. James Shanks said they postponed the Triangle Chapter meeting by one week and ended up with 18 people including 2 new attendees. They spent the majority of the time discussing the Runoffs, which had just wrapped up. They watched some in-car video and discussed many different things that took place at Road America. The Cape Fear Chapter did not meet this month, due to many regular attendees and the coordinator, Chris Severt, not being able to attend.

Old Business

1. CMP event wrap up: Sam said he could not give us exact numbers for the event but he said we turned out a very small surplus from the CMP event. Anna said we had received positive feedback from many participants, but also some negative feedback from volunteers who did not like the mixed formats. Al said if we planned to do more events away from our scales at VIR, we will need to either improve the scales we borrowed or find another solution. He said we had many strange scale readings throughout the event. Sam said we would also need to consider the logistics of hosting events away from all of our equipment at VIR. This was made easier at CMP by borrowing equipment from CCR but this cannot be done at every event and every race track.

New Business

1. Election: Anna made this item the first topic of discussion this evening. She said there are four seats up for election. The ARE, Treasurer, and two member-at-large seats. The two member-at-large seats are currently held by Rob Wilmoth at Matt Decker. Megan Tyler does not plan to run for ARE this year, so nominations are needed for this position. All voting is electronic, as has been the case for many years, and any candidates must formally submit their intention to run to the Secretary. They must also be endorsed by three members in good standing. These endorsements can be submitted electronically or physically. This must be done by the end of the November meeting. Kit suggested that we should make a public post about these elections, what positions are open, and the nomination process. The election will start in December and run through the end of the month and is entirely online through Motorsportsreg.
2. 2024 Awards: Anna said she has been speaking with Elizabeth Severt and Blair Deen about trying to have our banquet at the same location we had it last year, Tobacco Road in Durham. She said this seemed to be a popular choice and the banquet went well so she felt this was a good location to go back to. The current plan is to find a Saturday at the end of January or February. The banquet last year was on a Sunday, but she felt that having a Saturday lunch banquet could be more fun and provide an opportunity for the region to have fun afterwards rather than having to get back home for Monday morning. Anna said we stayed fairly within our budget last year and she was hoping to do the same. We will need to form an awards committee for this year. This has usually been staffed by a committee chairperson as well as the members at large. Rob Wilmoth volunteered to be the chairperson for this committee. The members at large agreed to be part of the committee as well. Anna said we needed to find an emcee for this event as well, as she suggested Gregg Ginsberg might be a good choice. Ryan Lohrman said he would be happy to be the emcee for the banquet. We will need to canvass the solo team to see what their plans are for their end of year awards. In the past, the solo program has done many different things as far as their end of year awards, so we will need to see what their plans are and invite them to join in with us. Rob suggested we should find a way to reach out to anyone who cannot make the banquet who is receiving an award so we can find a way to help them make the banquet, and Anna suggested that we should try and prerecord those people who cannot attend receiving their awards. This was an idea everyone felt would be great, and there was discussion about finding a projector to show videos during the banquet.

Rob Wilmoth had several items he wanted to discuss that were not on the posted agenda.

Rob said Dave’s Race at VIR was a huge success. He said that the help of NCR was extremely helpful throughout the event. We allowed them to use the speed suite for staging and equipment, and Stephen Miller provided food for the Saturday night social event. Kit and Al Heatwole had attended and presented a booth promoting NCR, and the NCR Pace Car was used for the charity drive around laps. Al said he felt the car show was a great success with a lot of great people, and he said he wanted to do this again next year if there is another car show at Dave’s Race. The NCR booth had several people stop by and talk about getting on track, and the TV show Lokar Car Show stopped by our booth as well. Rob said they had filmed a full episode of their TV show at Dave’s Race. He said registration for next year’s Dave’s Race will open towards the end of this year, and he said the event normally sells out in a few days. Rob said the entire Racing for ALS team was very thankful for everything we do to support them, and we are very proud to be a part of what they are doing. Anna said we are also helping support Racing for ALS by supporting a dinner at TT Nationals this year, where we will be helping provide a barbeque dinner where all of the proceeds will go to Racing for ALS.

Rob Wilmoth said we have received a sponsor for our NCCAR Time Trial event in November. The team at Dixie Fab have offered to sponsor several awards for the event. Rob and Stephen Miller have been working with them to help promote their sponsorship, and they are asking for us to promote them in several ways during our promotions for the event and during the event. Rob felt this is a great start to working out ways that we can find other sponsors in the future to help make our events more successful, both from a promotional and a financial standpoint. He also has some experience with this from working with other groups, such as Audi Club. He felt that finding ways to help offset our costs is a big deal, especially given how expensive it is to run events these days.

Rob said NCR has been helping support the Hurricane Helene relief efforts in western North Carolina through Racing for ALS. We donated money to their relief efforts, wherein they have been taking supplies to western NC in their racing trailers. They are planning to make another trip next week, and are still accepting donations. The list of supplies they need has been shared in many places and we are actively trying to help source any of the needs that they have. Rob said the biggest current need is cold weather gear, as the areas that have been hit hardest are now starting to get snow, which is making their situation even worse. There are several NCR members who are actively helping find these things, and Rob thanked the entire region for their efforts.

Al Heatwole said after the last meeting he sat in on an SCCA volunteer recruitment meeting and he said it was a fantastic meeting. He said there was a lot of very useful material in the meeting and he wanted to send a copy of the material from that meeting to the Board. Everyone agreed this would be great to review and hopefully put to good use.

Motion to adjourn the meeting (Lohrman/Wilmoth). Passed at 8:10 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