The DSSF Board met on February 25, 2006. Present were Bill Bir, Jerome Thomere, David Gaus, Dave Glidden, Michael Schmucki.

Update on the Saddle Challenge. March is Saddle Challenge month. Tina S. will work on the website for people to track their miles. One again the saddle challenge will be run as a benefit for the Ron Wilmot ride sponsored by Project Inform. Scott has agreed to collect the pledges as the end of the month.

Dave Glidden’s Note: this year the Wilmot ride will not conflict with the Wine Country Century. We would like to encourage participation. Would it be possible for people to show up after the Jersey ride which will be the same day?

The board discussed setting a date for the club picnic. The suggestion was made by Dave to change the venue to China Camp State park. It is easy to reach — no White’s Hill for riders up. There is excellent mountain biking and even nice riding for those who would like to do a road ride up. Plus, it is beautiful.

The date for the club picnic was set to be Sunday July 2nd, 2006.

We discussed the River weekend. Some complications were clear. The Willow’s was not universally embraced. Fife’s has been sold. The Highlands was mentioned as a possibility. Another possibility was to rent a house or two for people to stay at. However, we may take a break from the River weekend to sponsor a Santa Cruz weekend.

Santa Cruz weekend. The idea was floated at a previous meeting for the club to sponsor a weekend ride. The idea would be to ride south (70-80 miles). Overnight with camping and motel options and then head back up the next day. Some possible routes were discussed and the possible destination would be Henry Coe park. We discussed the amount of work and planning involved. A route would have to be developed. We would need to determine the overnight site, make reservation, and plan for someone to haul people’s stuff and provide some level for SAG support (given the distance and the rural routes). A tentative date was set for August 26-27th, 2006. Dave volunteered to coordinate this effort.

Tahoe weekend. A date was set for the Tahoe weekend. October 7-8th, 2006. Right after Castro Street fair and not conflicting with the Jersey ride.

The newsletter. The newsletter editorship remains vacant and it is quite a task to format the beast. We would like to reduce the burden and frequency of the newsletter. The board is interested in transitioning to the blog at http://blog.dssf.org. It has the possibility of being more up-to-date. The board decided to continue to support and add content to the blog. The newsletter will eventually only contain information which has already appeared on the blog. This will get people in the habit of looking to the blog for the most up to date information. We will also send a monthly or twice monthly message to the group. Pointing out new content posted to the blog. We also want to get people in the habit of posting to the blog.

Non-paying members. Michael reported that some people did not renew their membership for 2006 and they have not yet been purged. The current plan is to spam them into submission.

Bill brought up a number of new venues for advertising. The Bike Coalition newsletter, the Gay/Lesbian Sierran’s newsletter, Bay Times, Cycle California and maybe the newsletters for the Frontrunners. In addition, we will pursue free coverage will Jim Provenzano at the BAR.

Women’s participation was also raised. The idea was floated that perhaps a monthly ride in the East Bay might increase women’s participation.

The board is looking to meet again in April. Dave will poll the date April 15th, 2006.

• Dave will reserve the campsite for the picnic.
• We will look into ways to promote participation in the Wilmot
  ride.
• We will gauge interest in the club for the Santa Cruz weekend as a possible one-time replacement for the River weekend
• Michael will go after non-paying members.
• Bill will look into new places for club ads
• Dave will ask some Easy Bay members about developing a monthly ride

Get ready for….

The DSSF 2006 Saddle Challenge

The premise is simple. Commit to a mileage goal for March 2006 and track your March miles – rides to work, errands, road rides, club rides; they all count. It’s a great way to jump start your training and to challenge each other to ride.

DSSF is asking that people give (in a lump sum or per mile) to the Ron Wilmot Ride to support Project Inform. The ride was founded by DSSF member, Ron Wilmot, who died of AIDS in 1997.

Details on sign up will come over the weekend.

The officers of DSSF for 2006 are: Secretary: Kim Walsh, Treasurer: Scott Steffans, Vice-President: Tom Brock and President: Dave Glidden. The elected positions are: President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary. The following people have agreed to Board appointments: Jerome Thomere – Web Content Editor, Bill Bir – Men’s Outreach, Laura Petracek – Women’s Outreach, Michael Schmucki – Membership Coordinator, and David Gaus – Ride Coordinator.

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

Congratulations to Aaron for leading the most DSSF rides in 2005 and to David for his outstanding energy and participation in the club!