About 15 Freewheelers attended the October meeting at Bruegger's Bagels. Officers for 2002 were elected (see membership), and numerous topics and plans for 2002 were discussed. Following are some of the key topics:
Sponsors: Denis will head-up the sponsor drive. Angelo and Ted will both assist. A revised brochure is being done. Sponsors are key to our financial success. It is a big and important job. Any help or suggestions members can provide will be appreciated.
Races: We discussed 2002 race plans. RATL will remain similar to recent years and will be run by Rick Schwarz & Dick Lott. TOP will again be run by Tom Collier. The Fall Race will be the responsibility of Denis Osowski and it may be expanded to a "series" of 2 or 3 races. Ted is going to try to organize a new crit in downtown Akron.
A discussion of possible races and courses focused on the fact that it is very difficult to find suitable courses, get permission, control traffic, and find marshals. It would be ideal to promote a race in conjunction with an event like a town festival. Anyone with ideas, please contact Ted.
Also, the concept of having TOP, or other races, at the same time and day each week was discussed. Course availability, other races, and other events in the valley make a regular schedule difficult but the TOP scheduling is still pending.
Race Team/Coach: Joel was kind enough to volunteer his brother Dave Cockley as Club "Coach" for 2002! The Club will again field a competitive +3 "team." Last year the team was very loosely organized. We hope to have more structure next year and closer coordination to race together. The same for racers other than the +3 team. We hope to have more structured training sessions and more specific race plans for those who are racing. We continue to look for ways to get more members racing regularly.
Membership: Angelo is going to head our membership efforts this year. Primary focus will be to get Club info and applications into local bike stores. We are always interested in adding new members, especially younger racers.
Web: Bob Iden has begun working on the website and is making progress. He plans to set it up so a number of members can post info on the site. Joel also discussed some additional attractive ideas to take advantage of the site.
Uniform: Joel is handling the design and supplier selection for the 2002 uniforms. He plans to make some changes for next year. Uniforms often produce varying opinions. If you have input on what you want for the uniform, be sure to relay it to Joel.
Points Program: George will run this program again in 2002. He put a lot of effort into updating and improving the program for 2002. Members at the meeting reviewed and agreed upon the new system George proposed.
Banquet: The 2001 year-end Awards Banquet will be Friday, November 2, 2001, 6:30 pm at the Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Akron. Awards for the season TOP and Points Programs will be presented.
Additionally, the current treasury balance was discussed. It was decided to use the unspent money from the 2001 reimbursement program for next year. The 2001 TOP and Points Program winners were announced. The next meeting will be Saturday, November 10th, at 8:00am at Bruegger's Bagels in the valley.