Author: pagodapacers

General Meeting Minutes

Date: February 11, 2021

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: Virtual meeting via Zoom

Treasury Report – Shaun Luther—we are at 118% of target. Starting to see income from Blues Cruise and Charlie Horse registrations. Savings were taken from an unused bulk mail account, which hasn’t been used in 2 years, and closed the account. The residual money in the account will be refunded. RRCA is refunding money for the music licenses that weren’t used. The IRS sent a letter that stated the 2019 had to be filed—which they already were. So Shaun is trying to resolve this by providing copies of the tax return and the mailing receipts.

Races:

• Charlie Horse Half Marathon—Shaun Luther—May 29, 2021, he and Libby have been reviewing options of how to hold the race. Thinking is that people won’t want to ride on bus with other people, which is the traditional transportation, or hire 3 buses. But this is an expense. Starting a Rustic Park is difficult, especially with the minor vandalism to the marking in previous years. The third option is start/end at Sleepy Hollow. Shaun was able to get this option approved by Brecknock Township. They had a few reasonable conditions that would allow this to happen. So, this is the 90% most likely course that will happen. There are some road crossings. Shaun will be looking at places for aid stations. This year will be a half marathon only (no 5K). No day-of registration, or post run awards, celebration, or eating. (See the PP Discussion Group FB page for updates.)
• Run for the Ages 10K Trail Run—Donna Hey—Nolde still has restriction on group activity. She has some dates in mind, and will continue to monitor the situation.
• Grings Mill 5K and 10K—Jane Setley—they have the date, and will be starting the planning. 
• Blues Cruise 50K—Dan Govern—registration is open. About 40 people are registered. Has the permit and the pavilion reserved. Caught up on the details for now. He is planning some training trail runs. Fleet Feet has offered to do an aid station.
• Oley Valley Country Classic—no report.
• Kris Kringle 5 Miler—Polly Corvaia—the profit was more than budgeted this past race due to limited expenses. Polly would like to give to a few charities. First option, $900 each to the coaches, a charity, and Pacer general fund. Second option, $900 each to coaches association, IM Able foundation, and the Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) Fund, to improve the section of trail in West Reading that is having security issues. Polly is asking for people to donate additional funds to either the Schuylkill River Trail or IM Able. The club voted to give $800 each to the three charities (coaches, IM Able, and SRT) and reserve $300 to the clubs general fund. Polly will post additional information on the PP Discussion Group about individuals volunteering on 3/27 for the “Reviving the Reading Gateway Section of the SRT” and/or donating to the $70,000 needed for the project.
• Shiver by the River 5K and 10K—Sue Jackson—Regarding the 2/14 scheduled race, the condition of park and the course were not good, and the weather forecasters are calling for more bad weather. The decision was made to postpone this race until February 28. There will still be a race on March 14. Sue will need volunteers, mostly for people to manage the traffic and runners on the road.
• Jr. High Cross Country Fall Invitational—Tom Chobot—still a fluid situation, no updates yet. 

Committee Reports

Social Committee:

• Movie night at the Goggleworks was looked into by Polly. Max occupancy is 25 people in the theater. They sell wine, beer, beverages, and food. The cost is $10 per person, so it would be no cost to the club. If interested the theater must be reserved for at least 6 people. They have a list of movies that can be shown. Larry Sundberg will take this project on. 
• Possibility of something in the Spring at Mike Whalen’s.

Communications Committee—Jon Durand—will still try to plan a Wawa-type run.

• Newsletter—Matt Brophy—nothing to add. Ideas for content are welcome.
• Facebook—Jane Setley—has been keeping up with the Discussion Page.

Community Service

• Weekly runs—Steve McGuire—good attendance for these WNRs. Shaun Luther mentioned using an e-blast in Constant Contact for a “new runner” to try to reach a larger crowd to perhaps get a better showing. Focus on one that’s more centrally located. Steve will look at a good location. Mike Whalen offered that the club should be more cognizant of any new people and their running paces. The group agreed that we should try for a better focus on making this work. Do an e-blast, choose a night that seems central, or perhaps designate a particular night in the month. Will try to start in April, when there will be daylight for the start of the WNRs.
• Trail Maintenance—Mike Whalen—some areas need clean up, so he will coordinate a few people to do this when the location is accessible. 

Charity Committee

• Scholarship committee—Beth Kohl—she wants to bump the deadline for application submission to the end of March (March 31^st), as the applications are usually due the end of February. An e-blast for the Pacer-related portion of the scholarship will be sent. Tom will send an email to the head of the coaches association, who can forward an email to county coaches.

Membership committee: No report

Old business

• Donna Hey—donation to Nolde Forest to improve the trail markings (as described in January’s meeting minutes). They want to enhance the markings there now. It would be a $1400 donation to the Friends of Nolde Forest. The donation amount of $1400 was proposed and seconded by the membership present. The Friends are agreeable to the ‘big check’ presentation, and posting on their social media sites

New business

• Fleet feet is looking to expand its involvement with the club, such as an aid station at Blues Cruise. They put a paid-for article in the newsletter, which was not its traditional advertising method. They may have some shoe fittings at WNRs and are offering more trail shoes in their store to cater to that running market.
• Tom Chobot—Dylan McKissick wants to put together a morning run program in Spring Township. If we have members in this area who are interested, Tom is forwarding details to Matt for the newsletter.
• Georgine McCool said that Constant Contact is going to do an upgrade on March 1st that will require a new template. Not a lot of races use this, so Georgine will take care of creating a new template.

General Meeting Minutes

Date: January 14, 2021

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: Virtual Zoom meeting

Treasury Report – Shaun Luther—we are at 115% of target. Regarding setting our target (i.e., 3 years’ worth of operating expenses on hand at all times) for 2021, per the bylaws, we are supposed to set our target based on non-race related expenses. The treasurer should determine this based on previous year’s operating expenses. But because of the inactivity and low operating costs of 2020, the target for this year would be very low. Therefore, Shaun suggests that the club use the 2019 target amount. This was agreed to, and the target for 2021 will remain the same as the target in 2019. 

Shaun reported that RRCA gave a refund to the club for insurance costs. The music licensing cost increased. This will be made known to the race directors that use music for their races. 

Races:

• Charlie Horse Half Marathon—Shaun Luther—Scheduled for Saturday, May 29, 2021; 10 people have registered so far. Shaun is considering a few ways to hold the event: A) continue with the way we’ve always done it, start at Rustic Park with buses transporting from Sleepy Hollow; B) start in Brecknock Township and run some distance around there; or C) start/finish in Rustic Park. For this year, though: No Dirty Pony 5K and no music or anything afterwards. Shaun plans to run the race, unless restrictions prevent it.
• Run for the Ages 10K Trail Run—Donna Hey—no word on this, as the park is still closed.
• Grings Mill 5K and 10K—no report
• Blues Cruise 50K—Dan Govern—Sunday, Oct 3, 2021, Dan is getting some inquiries, but still not sure how to handle it. He is going to start making some inquiries about permits, etc. Registration has been opened through UltraSignUp.
• Oley Valley Country Classic—Lenny Burton—no report.
• Kris Kringle 5 Miler—Polly Corvaia—the transition to virtual went well. She had a few people call with suggestions that were helpful. Hoodies and swag were picked up and about 50 were mailed to out of towners. About 70% of the entrants posted a time. Income for the race exceeded expenses, due to the not having to pay some of the operational costs. Polly proposes that a donation of $1000 (suggested) be given to each of three groups: the cross country coaches (as per the usual donation), the ‘I AM Able’ charitable organization, and, possibly, the Schuylkill River Greenways National Heritage Area, of which the Schuylkill River Trail is a part.
• Shiver by the River 5K and 10K—Sue Jackson—December’s race was canceled. The January race was virtual. An additional race date on April 11^th has been added. Sue has spent a lot of time tracking the participant adjustments. Some runners from December have switched to April, and some have switched to other races. They are counting on an in-person race in February. Everyone has been good about everything. For the January event, the course was marked, in case anyone wanted to run it on the scheduled Sunday. Some people did chose to run the course on their own, while Sue, Georgine, and Tiffany handed out the swag at the pavilion. Thanks to Donna Hey for the potato chip deliveries. And a shout out to Sue’s dog, Molly, who did not take advantage of the situation and eat the snacks for the swag bags. On February 14, the next race is scheduled to be in-person. The start of the 5k is at 10:00 a.m., followed by the 10K at 10:10. Mike Whalen will assist with the trailer.
• Jr. High Cross Country Fall Invitational—Tom Chobot—winter track right now is week to week, due to COVID cases. In the fall, it will depend on what the schools are doing. He has the date reserved, but won’t know until around Labor Day what a glimpse of the situation will be.

Committee Reports

Social Committee: The GoggleWorks is renting their theatre for limited entry movie showings—if we want to try a social event there and spread out. March/April—Polly will look into this.

Communications Committee—Jon Durand—considering doing a feature once a week of the trails in Berks County, and even may make it a ‘where am I’ spot, so that he can have the benefit of getting out, and also get some club virtual participation.

• Newsletter—Matt Brophy is going to ask Fleet Feet and/or Chester County Running to see if they want to contribute some content into the newsletter.

Membership committee: A few new members have joined. Reminder: all members of good standing as of last year had their 2021 dues credited. The next dues collection is planned for December 2021. There is a membership list on the Web site under the ‘membership’ tab.

Old business: None

New business

• The donations, as noted above, from the proceeds of the Kris Kringle race, will be voted on next month.
• Donna Hey—She attends the Friends of Nolde meetings, and that group has asked the Pacers to consider paying for some trail marking discs in the Forest to replace the older markers, and to replace some of the corner posts. The cost is $530 for posts. The markers are 4-inch round, color-coded discs, to be put in place of the current hash marks, and can be placed on trees, for a cost of $850. They are requesting a total of $1400 donation. Does the club want to make a contribution towards this trail-improvement project? Steve McGuire suggests the club cover the $1400 to make these improvements. Can we get a sign or ‘giant check’ donation photo to acknowledge our contribution? We will make a motion to donate next month. (FYI—Nolde is now fining people for any dogs off leash–$250, and fining for being in the park after dark.)