BoD Minutes – Special Meeting, April 8, 2020

Minutes of NCR-SCCA
Special Board of Directors Meeting

April 8, 2020

Present:  Heather Clark, Anna Crissman, Blair Deffenbaugh, Justin Deffenbaugh, Bruce Dover, Nikki Edwards, Sam Fouse, Stephen Miller, Mark Senior, James Shanks, and Kit Williams, all attended via video conference. Al Heatwole and Heather Powers were unable to attend.

1. The NCR BoD meeting was called to order by RE Anna Crissman at 7:00 PM, on Wednesday, April 8, 2020.
2. There were no guests, as this was a special meeting, called by the RE to specifically discuss new make-up dates, suggested by VIR, to replace the ones we had lost, due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak.

New Business:

1. Suggested Alternative Dates Proposed by VIR. Anna called this meeting after Mark met with Kerrigan Smith at VIR to discuss alternative dates to replace the April Spring Sprints and the May SARRC/MARRS races. Kerrigan indicated to Mark that, while he had no open dates available, he was willing to bump someone else off their reserved date, if we would commit to a full three-day weekend. This was the only way that he could make a business case for giving us that date rather than letting someone else keep it. The weekends he was talking about were either one in July or Labor Day weekend, September 4^th through the 6^th. Heather and Anna both expressed concern about getting workers for these events, for July particularly, and it had been noted in e-mails beforehand that MARRS had a traditional date at Summit Point on Labor Day weekend, so they, and their drivers, would not want to participate. Sam was adamant that we could not pay the bills without the participation of many drivers from the DC area. Stephen Miller said he did not want to set a precedent of renters bidding against one another for dates at VIR, and Kit Williams added that we did not want to be known as the group that took reserved dates away from others. Mark said that this might not be a problem, as it would be a business decision by VIR, but others felt that it would still be disrespectful. Motion to not accept either of these two alternative three-day weekends at VIR (Fouse / Justin Deffenbaugh). Passed unanimously. There was further discussion surrounding the fact that Kerrigan felt that we were premature in canceling our May race, the SARRC/MARRS Challenge, which the Board had already voted to do. It was pointed out that our drivers would have to contend with multiple state-imposed “Stay-at-Home” orders, including Virginia’s, which was currently scheduled to continue through June 10^th, and that MARRS had already announced that they would not participate in any races during the month of May.  By consensus, then, the earlier decision to cancel the May SARRC/MARRS event was reaffirmed. Mark said he would pass those sentiments onto Kerrigan as soon as possible.
2. Planning for Future Board Meetings. Stephen Miller indicated that he much preferred these video conferences over the Zoom platform to the conference call format we had been using during Board meetings. Those were often quite hard for remote participants to hear, and they had to get someone’s attention in order to be heard during discussion. Others agreed that the video conferences were better. Stephen added that he had a Zoom account, which we might use, and Anna said she did too. Motion to hold future Board meetings using Zoom, at least in place of the conference call function (Miller / Williams, Justin Deffenbaugh and others). Passed unanimously.

Motion to adjourn at 7:38 PM (Fouse / seconded by acclamation). Passed.

Submitted by Secretary, James Shanks.

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.