Minutes of Club Northwest’s board meeting for October 1998

October 12, 1998

The College Club, Downtown Seattle

The meeting commenced at 7:10 p.m. All nine Board members — Bill Roe (president), Saul Kinderis (vice president), Greg Crowther (secretary), Liz Stahl (treasurer), Sally Bergesen (team co-manager), Mark Davies, Thornton Perry (hereinafter “T.P.”), Clay Stenberg, and Mark Williams (!) — were present. Also in attendance were Tom Cotner, Steve Hatzenbeler (team co-manager), Dan Hayes, Brian Oster, and Martin Rudow (editor of Northest Runner).

The minutes of the previous meeting — Sally’s secretarial swan song — were approved.

FINANCIAL REPORT

Current assets according to treasurer Liz: $4,000 in checking, $650 in savings, and $15,750 distributed between three CDs. The CDs mature on November 19, December 18, and Februrary of ’99, respectively.

Liz distributed a summary of the Club’s checking account activity since March 1 to members of the Board.

NORTHWEST RUNNER

Regarding the financial status of the magazine, Martin Rudow reported a negative cash flow during his first 45 days as editor. He explained that most of the monies collected during that time were ad revenues owed to erstwhile editor Jim Whiting, and he added that income is now exceeding expenses as per usual. President Bill asked Martin to bring a summary of projected income and expenses through March ’99 to the next Board meeting, and Martin indicated that he would comply with this request.

Steve Hatzenbeler volunteered to write the Club column for the December issue of _Northwest Runner_. Mark Williams and T.P. will collaborate on a column for the January ’99 issue. Club columns are due by the 7th day of the preceding month.

EVENTS

PNAC/PNWTF cross country meet: Sunday, November 8 at Lower Woodland Park in Seattle. The first race is a masters/ corporate cup event, followed by the women’s 6K at 10:30 and the men’s 10K at 11:15.

Terry Fox post-mortem: Bill reported that the course route was once again heartily endorsed by the Seattle Police Department and that Greg Crowther did a wonderful job compiling the race results. Less wonderful aspects of the race were:

1. The West Seattle viaduct closed unexpectedly on race day, causing some potential participants and volunteers to miss the race.
2. The walkers turned around at the runners’ turn-around point and finished the race with suspiciously fast times.
3. Because of the course layout and race schedule, the slower runners continue to be in danger of getting mowed down by the faster wheelchair athletes.

Resolution Run: Thursday, December 31 at 3 p.m. in Seward Park in Seattle. Brian Oster said that he has several sponsors interested in the event.

TEAM

The fall national cross country meet will be held Sunday, December 6 in Orlando, Florida. Tom Cotner indicated that many local masters runners, including some “terrific” ones, would like to attend this meet. Steve said that there is considerable interest among the open men as well. He will send out a mailing to men’s and women’s team members explaining Club|s policies with respect to funding for nationals, volunteer point requirements, etc.

The Board passed a motion in which it committed to pay open team nationals-related expenses (airfare, hotel, and entry fees) for seven men, seven women, and one managerial/support person. In addition, the board will pay half the expenses of its male masters team (six members).

The first Club team selection race (i.e., race to determine who receives funding for cross country nationals) was to be the British Columbia Championships on October 24 in Victoria. However, it was noted that the Club and/or its athletes would incur considerable travel costs in attending this meet. Clay made a motion to send Club athletes to the Western Washington University Invitational, also scheduled for October 24, rather than to the B.C. Championships. The motion passed unanimously.

Steve wondered aloud whether the Club would be paying him, Emily Andersen, and Sally Bergesen for their work as team managers, seeing as how money had been “dangled in front of them” before they had been pressed into service. A motion was passed to have Bill, Liz, and the three team managers meet to discuss compensation; the Board will approve the agreed-upon salaries or stipends at next month’s meeting.

MEMBERSHIP

Dan Hayes offered to work on a newsletter to be distributed to the general membership of the Club. He will also ask Rob Cook about the possibility of compiling a list of members’ e-mail addresses. According to Bill, Rob continues to update and improve the Club website, http://www.cnw.org, which continues to be accessed on a regular basis.

EVENT MANAGER

Bill updated the Board on progress made toward hiring Brian Oster’s company, Pro-Motion Events, to become the Club’s event manager. Bill said that the language of the prospective contract between Club and Pro-Motion has yet to be finalized; however, he described the general format of the contract as he envisioned it. This format would include an event-by-event listing of goals for sponsorship and race entries, as well as a section describing how to compute the value of sponsorships to Club. He suggests that Pro-Motion be paid a monthly base salary plus a percentage of the sponsorship revenues it secures.

Time constraints precluded a lengthy discussion of the Pro-Motion proposal. As the clock struck nine, Bill made a motion to approve an interim contract with Pro-Motion for the months of October, November, and December in which the Club agrees to pay Pro-Motion $1250 per month. This contract will be superseded by any subsequent contract between the Club and Pro-Motion. The motion was approved.

NEXT MEETING

The next Board meeting will take place on Monday, November 9 at 7 p.m. at the College Club in downtown Seattle.

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