1. Financial report: Scott reported that the club has $3230 in the bank. This is good news, particularly given that there are no large outstanding debts. The club’s current fiscal obligations include about $200/year to affiliate with other clubs, $200 for the website, and $70 for the post office box. We need to decide how to use the remaining funds.
2. Membership report: Michael said that about 50 people thus far have renewed their membership for 2006. He is sending out a reminder this week and will notify people who haven’t paid that they will be dropped from the mailing list if they do not renew.
3. Ride Calendar: The bulk of the meeting was spent discussing the 2006 ride calendar. David Gaus reported that the poll indicated that 11 or more people expressed interest in each of the following centuries and events: Tour de Palm Springs, Solvang Century and Half-Century, Evil Step Sisters, Wine Country Century, Strawberry Fields Forever, AIDS Lifecycle, Giro de Penninsula, San Francisco GLBT Pride, Holstein Hundred, and Surf City Century
In addition to these rides and events, Board members expressed interest in the Tierra Bella, Cinderella, Chico Wildflower, Sea Otter Classic, and High Sierra Fall Century rides. The Board also thought we should replace the Holstein Hundred with the Tour de Napa (both are on the same weekend).
We spent a long time discussing what it means for the club to endorse an event, and ultimately agreed that someone from the club had to agree to serve as a point of contact and coordinator. This involves getting information about the event to other club members, designating a meeting time and spot at the event, and helping arrange transportation, if necessary.
We also discussed whether or not the club should list in our newsletter all the other centuries and events going on in California if they are not club-endorsed events. On the one hand, some club members may find the information useful. On the other hand, the list is so long that it could discourage club members from planning and leading rides on their own. We finally agreed that we would have information about other rides available through our website and possibly provide information in the newsletter as an “FYI,” but would make clear that they were not club-endorsed events.
Finally, we discussed whether or not to change the date of the jersey ride from the second to the third Saturday of each month in order to avoid conflict with some of the major centuries that are coming up. The Board unaminously agreed to keep the jersey ride on the second Saturday, in part because most club members are used to it, and in part because shifting the date would lead to conflicts with other events.
4. Newsletter: Dave Glidden asked the Board to discuss the possibility of switching over to a blog format from the current monthly newsletter. Jerome reported that the blog has been started already and that he will make it public in the next couple of weeks, meaning that anyone in the club can add content. Jerome cautioned, however, that the Blog is not intended as a forum and that e-mail is better used for that purpose
The Board felt that it would be desirable to continue producing a newsletter, but also recognized that it is a burden that unfairly falls on Dave Glidden. Scott Steffans volunteered to help Dave with the February newsletter, if that will help. Scott thinks he can be most helpful on the layout and less helpful on the content. The Board also agreed that the newsletter could become less frequent, perhaps coming out once a quarter instead of once a month. Tom asked whether anyone would mind if we disbanded the newsletter and just relied on e-mail communications, since that is already the major way we inform each other about rides. Everyone agreed that e-mail was probably sufficient, but expressed hope that we could keep the newsletter going a little bit longer. The upcoming election could be an opportunity to see if anyone in the club is willing to take on the role of editor, in order to free up Dave from the responsibility.
5. Men’s Outreach: Bill asked for clarification on the Men’s Outreach role. Michael explained that last year, he e-mailed new members to introduce himself and serve as a point of contact. Michael was not sure whether this had much of an effect on membership. We discussed whether it might be wise to advertise the club in gay/lesbian and sports-related publications. Scott said we could pay for ads out of the club bank account. Bill is going to look into this before the next Board meeting.
6. Next meeting: The Board felt we should try to meet again soon after the Board election, possibly in February or March
The Chain Letter 