Meeting Minutes: April 2019

April 25, 2019

Meeting was brought to order @ 7:30pm by Kristen Poole. Prior month’s minutes approved as posted.

• RE Report (Poole)
  • Thank you to Melissa Mauro who stepped in as acting RE for a month allowing Kristen to take a break and focus on family and life.
  • Membership report: 553 members. That is a fall from 616 from March due to VW program fall-off. Expecting to stagnate around 550 for the year due to autocross schedule being late in the season.
  • Truck vandalism
    • Truck was in storage at Hershey storage lot. Someone broke the passenger side window. Nothing was stolen from the cab of the truck and the back padlock was intact, but the battery was stolen. Police report was filed; insurance claim filed.
    • Battery has been replaced and Safelite has replaced the window.
    • Exploring other options for storage as we’re hesitant to store it at the same place. Truck is currently behind Kristen’s house in the church parking lot, and we are exploring the possibility of storing it there long-term.
    • Half-a-year has been paid at the Hershey storage lot. If we find alternate storage, we will request a refund for whatever we’ve prepaid for 2019.
• Treasurer’s Report (Lesher)
  • Report provided ending March 31, 2019. AX, RX, membership & sponsorship income, distribution, and YTD figures were reviewed.
  • EMT payments from 2018 were processed due to not being invoiced for 50% of events in the 2018 season.
  • Treasury audit is underway (at no charge); update will be provided at the May meeting.
• Program Reports
  • AX report (Mauro/Brown)
    • Supplementals — Still working on 2019 supplemental regulations. Need to work out a few things including the combined Street Prepared, Prep/Mod and Novice class verbiage before they can be finalized.
    • Autocross School — Received sanction/COI approval for the school currently scheduled for May 25.
    • Woman’s School/Development — In Kristen’s court to do a writeup to see if the Lancaster Training Facility will approve it as an educational event. Kristen will work on the writeup this weekend. We hope to do a women’s school at the training school on a Saturday before an autocross at Spooky Nook on Sunday.
    • Venue Acquisition Committee report — Continuing to search. HB providing some support in talking with potential venues.
  • RX report (Roscinski/Landis)
    • April 13 School, April 15 Points Event
      • Went very well. Had 25 people at the school, which is the most we’ve ever had.
      • Got our feet wet with the venue – one section for drills, one side for test and tune. We’ll need to do some lot maintenance in the future and we’ll rearrange some things to make parking flow better in the future.
      • Timing system was uncooperative. Bryan Roper is going to look into doing some work with this in the future to make laptops work. There is a solution from Race America; may require some funds.
      • Spectators: We had 50-60 spectators show up. We cordoned off an area with caution tape over lunch to maintain control.
      • New venue was a hit with competitors – all smiles, all day.
    • Farm Show event coming up on May 11 — will be doing some lot maintenance before that event.
    • Farm Show contracts and Spooky Nook contracts have all been signed. RallyCross schedule is officially set for the season.
  • Street Survival report (Mauro)
    • 9 kids are signed up for the Street Survival event in July. That’s almost 30% full, which is great this far in advance.
    • We have opened the coach signup on MSR; if you’re interested, please sign up or reach out to Melissa.
    • Discussion on airbags needed. Melissa has a few, but Alan Lesher, Nick Landis and Bryan Roper also commented that they may have access to some if needed in the future.
    • We would like to host two SS events this season, but it’s hard for one person. If we can draft support for a Street Survival committee, we’ll consider scheduling a second event. A second event will put us in the running for a $1,000 scholarship from a National program.
  • Road Rally report (Leathery)
    • No report provided. Event not until October.
• Club Communication
  • Social Media report (Mauro)
    • Nothing new; all is good in Facebook land.
  • Squeal & Website report (Limm) —
    • Website: We’ve seen a decrease in traffic on the website due to blocking malicious bots, which is actually a good thing. We’re still seeing a lot of traffic from new users and a decrease in bounce rate, which is a trend we want to see continue. People are spending an average of 3 minutes per page, which is solid.
    • Squeal: This was Jake’s first Squeal he handled on his own. 25% open rate. Of those, we’ve seen 24% who are clicking and engaging with the content. Jake is doing a great job on the Squeal, everyone gave him a round of applause.

Old Business:

1. Club t-shirt & event trophies: we are at the point where we need to design them and get them made. Kristen committed to designing both and getting them produced as soon as possible.
2. Update on Opaque Truck Graphics: Markus emailed them pictures and hasn’t heard back. Committed to having a concrete update on cost and timing for May meeting. If there’s a charge, we’ll likely just peel the graphics off the windows instead.
3. Update on sale of old timing equipment: Markus has not yet put the equipment on Ebay yet. Committed to having it on Ebay before the May meeting.
4. Update on radios/FCC issue: Roper has not gotten info back from the radio manufacturer yet, but we are OK to use them as-is with no need to purchase anything immediately.
5. Cars & Coffee: No new movement since March. Austin Baker was reaching out to Lisa Leathery and TJ Brillhart on progress. Revisiting in May.
6. NEDiv Mini-Con income and Membership Budget:
   1. In March, there was a question from the board on what the original TNIA grant request was. Kristen sent that request to the board for review.
   2. Recap of income: With everything accounted for, the NEDiv mini-con netted the region almost $2,900.
   3. Kristen asked that the board consider $1,000 be earmarked for membership drive activities (e.g. Facebook ads, collateral for Cars & Coffee events, etc.). Motion made (Lesher), seconded (Mauro) and carried unanimously.
      1. Note: this $1,000 is not required to be spent this calendar year. The Membership Committee (chaired by TJ Brillhart) will make motions at monthly membership meetings for activities, expenses and money needed before spending. 

New Business:

1. Discussion on the possibility of text messaging competitors at events through MSR:
   1. John Roscinski brought up the possibility of being able to use text messages to communicate with competitors at RallyCross events.
   2. RallyCross to test PA system at the next event to see if that suffices for communication.
   3. Melissa/John to look into Text Messaging through MSR. Will be discussed further at future meetings if/when it becomes necessary.
2. Melissa requested a sidebar meeting with program chairs and Markus, Bryan Roper and Chris Benfer to discuss timing training and some equipment issues.

Meeting adjourned @ 8:17pm.

Respectfully submitted — Brian Holmes, Secretary