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Board Members Present: Diane Bailey Sandra Fontaine Hal Gensler Norm Janoff Megan Powers steven finkelstein Board Members Absent: David Bluestein Bill Rowell Guests: Paul Ruckel Sharon Ross The meeting was called to order at 6:06 pm at the Glendale Library. Minutes from the October 2007 meeting were approved as submitted. Paul Ruckel discussed the Moon Valley Grasshopper Bridge 5K, and thanked the ARR for their help. They were able to donate $15000 to Phoenix Children’s Hospital this year, as opposed to last year’s $8500. Next year’s race will be on 9/27/08 at 7am. Paul asked ARR for our help with registration and timing again. ARR voted to approve to help with this race. Paul added some comments about the race. Next year the run and walk will start at the same time. He plans to have tape for both the first male runner and first female runner, as apparently there were issues with that this year. Paul will have his own A-frame results board. The music may change for next year. Norm suggested that the music might be better after the race. They had 60 volunteers this year, and Paul wants them to be more involved in race day registration next year. Paul will have his wife come help with race day registration at one of our races to see how it works. The largest complaint Paul had was on the amount of time it took to post the results and he wondered why it takes so long. He thinks we should have the results by 40-45 minutes after the start of the race. One obstacle that has come up are dogs and strollers; strollers are not allowed in the run but are allowed in the walk. He is not sure what to do about the dogs. Steve said that if you don’t allow strollers or dogs, you probably also shouldn’t allow headsets either. The pricing structure of the walk will change next year. with 10 and under being free for the walk (no t-shirt). One of the biggest challenges is advertising the event. Sandra said he could go to other races and put fliers on cars, and perhaps work with the people that do the Cactus Cha-Cha to help put out fliers. Steve will list the race on the website calendar. Old Business Volunteer Report: David was not present at the meeting but had sent an email out prior to the meeting. In it he made the following motion: "for future ARR races, we will give out t-shirts to all volunteers before the race begins." The Board approved this motion. Registration Report: Nothing to report. Special Activities Report: Diane only had 4 tables for food for Thanksgiving instead of the 8 she requested. She thinks her email with this request was lost in cyberspace. She also had no volunteers for the first hour or so. Diane would like Steve to put a link on the website to let people know who has awards still waiting for them. Diane said that 2 canopies are broken and would like to buy 2 new ones (they are about $100 apiece). Steve wondered if we should buy 4 more (10’X10’). The Board approved to purchase 4 new canopies. FYI - Diane would prefer if the Board only use her hotmail address in the future. Finance Report: Hal provided a written financial report showing a YTD income, as of 11/28/07, of $117,408.58 and expenses (over the same period) of $113,215.95. The YTD net is $4,192.63 and we currently have approximately $21K in total fiscal assets (checking/savings/investments), though he did purchase another CD for $5K. Race management fees to date don’t include several races including the cross-country races. The advertising increase is mostly due to the Thanksgiving race. Auto is more due to insurance, and contributions don’t currently include that to the West Valley Crisis Center. Membership Report: Norm provided a written summary of the current membership numbers. He stated that people that join for 3 years are pretty stable. Norm assumes there will continue to be a bit of a decline in membership until next year’s Summer Series. Clothing Report: Megan stated that we need a policy for race day shirt prices since they were sold for $8 at the Thanksgiving Day race. Shirts should be sold for $10 per shirt on race day and only after the race (to make sure that all runners get a shirt). The clothing booth sold $1027 worth of clothing at the Thanksgiving Day race (thanks Sharon!), but are missing $33 worth of clothing. Megan asked about whether we should get youth T-shirt sizes for races. Sandra said we should do this for Summer Series and the Thanksgiving Day race only. The twilight blue shirts were ordered from RaceReady for $10/shirt. We will not continue to offer Road ID bands once we sell out. Tyvek jackets are not selling for $40. We bought them for $30. We will drop the price to $35. Shipping is going to increase to $3 per item. Megan will need to order shirts for the December race soon. She wondered how many she should order. Hal will look at numbers from last year. Megan will order 300 tech shirts for the race in February. There was a discussion on whether to buy the XCart software. It was decided to buy the software, and decide later if we want to use PayPal (or some other system) for credit cards. Starlight Elementary: It was decided to give no donation to Starlight Elementary, but to give shirts at cost if they preregister. Sharon asked if we could use the ARR name as being a resource of Starlight Elementary; the Board agreed. Monster Mash & Dash: Lots of fun, $360 paid for food. Sandra wants to do it again next year. Just Another Mad Dog: Perry Edinger was the race director. Everything went well aside from the timing kit. Perry wants to be race director next year but wants to do it at Reach 11 instead of Scottsdale. Thanksgiving Day Classic: We will need to talk about where people should take donations/toys at the Thanksgiving Day race next year. Sandra said we need 4 people to do money and 1 more for registration for race day, and would like to do bib pick-up on Wednesday from 3pm – 7pm. Diane suggested pinning the chip to the bib and putting it with the T-shirt prior to pick-up, but Steve and Sandra thought it would be too difficult. Preliminary numbers for the race: total revenue was around $30K (last year was $23.5K), expenses this year are probably $5500 - $6000 higher than last year. We had a $3K grant last year that we didn’t get this year. Roy wins the number of water bottles contest (we used 1717 bottles). Desert Classic 30k and Desert Classic Marathon: Registration will be by the start. Diane would like the food up against the wall, away from the toilets. Clothing will be in the same place as last year. There will be 4 toilets. We will have medals for the December race. New Business Running with the Heard: It will be a small race, and they all start at 7:30am. We will provide tables, coolers, cups, timing and registration. Castle Hot Springs: Jamil Coury will organize this race. He will charge $5 to cover cost of food. Sandra will make sure he has everything he needs. Road Runner Sports Casual Run: Steve would like to do this on December 22nd in the morning (7am). It will be a casual run, possibly a 5K or 10K from the Scottsdale store. Steve will list it on the website. Crown King alternative: The formal Crown King race is not happening in 2008; however, there will be an informal Crown King run. Paul Norberg would like to stage a 50K run on the same day as well. Sandra and Norm didn’t like the idea of having this on the same day, especially if Crown King is happening unofficially. It would be okay if it’s on a different weekend. Membership survey: We can ask 10 questions and get 100 responses for free on SurveyMonkey. Megan will set this up if the Board sends her questions. Megan will email the missing Board members for questions. Vendor booths at races: Jon Richardson would like to have between 10 and 14 booths at the Thanksgiving Day race and charge $100 per booth. If there is a booth that gives a benefit to runners (e.g. massages), then it would be free. The Board discussed whether we wanted to have vendor booths at other races as well, and decided they could be there if they do not sell anything. The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 pm.