Saturday, October 30 by Ted Ingraham
Attended by: Brian Ramsey, Bob Iden, Becky Leidy, George Liolios, Denis Osowski, Doug Hale, Tricia Ingraham, Josh Blubaugh, Phil Esempio, Ed Korres, Chad Brown, Bob Grimm, Anastasia Birosh, Angelo Catalano, Jim Gilmore, and Ben Kuhlman.
State Time Trial: At the September meeting we discussed adding a new race. It has been decided the race will be the Ohio State USCF Time Trial Championship! We obtained approval from the USCF and have set a tentative date of June 5, 2005. George Liolios will be the promoter and the race team will be his race committee. Chad Brown mentioned a new bike shop in Solon was interested in working with our club. Since we already have a solid relationship with Marty's, it was decided to see if this shop would be interested in being a sponsor for the TT. George is already at work establishing the course, the race flyer, and other plans.
TOP: Phil Esempio reported he is working on establishing some new courses and doing the preliminary planning for the 2005 TOP series. There was discussion about having more than one race category or class for the races or going back to the old TOP format the club used about five years ago. Phil will consider the alternatives.
Uniforms: Ted reported that we obtained our uniform slot from Voler. The order is to be sent to Voler the first week of February and uniforms will be shipped the last week of March. Ted also reported that Tom (Marty's) is willing to provide a deal on helmets similar to what we got in 2004. Final pricing for the kit and helmets has not yet been determined. Order forms for the 2005 kit will be available in December. The uniform order will be available online and it will be mailed with the membership renewal in January. The uniform will keep the same basic color scheme. Shawn is in charge of putting the order together.
Sponsors: Angelo volunteered to be VP-Sponsors. Chad mentioned the potential for Solon Bike Shop to sponsor (see above). Ed Korres announced his massage practice, Advanced Healing Therapies, will be a 2005 sponsor. George announced the Mike Evan (Munroe Falls Dentistry) will renew their sponsorship for 2005. It was recommended that we do more to keep the sponsors in the loop and invite them to the yearend banquet.
Training: Denis will contact Steve Guldemen to see if we can get the Cuyahoga Falls FOP lodge again this year for at least two winter training sessions. Denis also offered to develop better-defined routes for training rides (summer rides) to help members avoid getting lost if they choose to trail off the main group. Mapped-out rides can be posted to the website and identified by name. George is working on some additional training ideas that will materialize when the season gets closer.
WEB: It was recommended by Bob Grimm and others that we have a members only page on the website. This could be used to post non-public info as well as easier way to post write-ups and racer bios. More discussion is planned to determine how such a site could be designed and managed and how it fits with current pages.
RATL: Tentative dates are April 23 and 30, and May 7 and 14. One category change planned for 2005 is the Cat 2/3 race will be Cat 1/2/3. Bob Grimm discussed ideas of additional category changes—ideas that can still be considered. The first RATL planning meeting will be in December. Anyone who wants to be involved, please contact Ted.
Yearend Banquet: Ted announced the banquet date of January 14, 2005 at 6:00 pm. Forget the restaurant mentioned at the meeting—Plans for that restaurant fell through. The banquet will be at Papa Joe's again, but they are giving us a larger room!
Club Name: (This discussion occurred after the main meeting) A couple of members expressed a desire to change the club's name. Those discussing the idea wanted to keep the Summit name but consider a variation that would drop Freewheelers. "Freewheeler" has always been a little cumbersome and that actual bike part is now out of date. On the other hand, the name has been around for a long time, is well known, and there likely are members who want to keep it. It was decided to have a "Name the Club" contest. It will be discussed at the next meeting and, if agreed upon, we will do some sort of email vote to permit members to vote for retaining the current name or suggesting alternatives. We will set it up in the next month or so
Officers for 2005: Ted discussed the fact that when general ideas about the direction of the club need debated, that the current race team members would act as a board of directors. Recommendations will then be presented at club meetings. (2004 team members are Angelo, Denis, Jim Gilmore, Jim Mullins, George, and Shawn). The following slate of club 2005 officers/directors was approved:
President: Ted Ingraham
President elect: Denis Osowski
Treasurer: Joanne Liolios
Membership: Doug Hale
Sponsors: Angelo Catalano
TOP: Phil Esempio
Uniforms: Shawn Adams
Publicity: Tricia Ingraham
Web: Bob Iden
Race Team(s): There was a general discussion about the club's race team—how it functioned last year and the many different alternatives we have to establish and support race team(s) in 2005. Qualification for adding new team members is a critical question. Repeating last year's system and using a tiered system seem to be the two most popular ideas. Additional work needs to be done before we have a final plan.
The next meeting will be Saturday, December 3, 2004, at Bruegger's (unless someone can suggest a better location.)