Minutes of the RDC Board of Directors meeting held February 17th, 2011 in Lafayette, California. President Fred Peterson called the meeting to order at 7:14 PM.
Members attending: Fred Peterson, President, Enduro Chair, Trophy Chair , Scholarship Chair, SanF Board Liason; Rod Simmons, Vice-President, News letter Chair, Drivers Points Keeper; Dave Jalen, Secretary; Lois Liedjecker-Ott, member and George Ott, member.
1) Approval of previous meetings minutes: Fred moved the minutes be approved as corrected. Rod seconded the motion. The motion to approve the corrected minutes was passed unanimously.
2) Membership Report: The updated statistics are that the RDC currently has 49 members, 5 life members and 2 associate members.
3) Treasurers Report: Fred reporting: The RDC is solvent at this time as income exceeds expenses. Lois delivered the checkbooks, ledgers and computer disks to Fred. A discussion occurred regarding file type and techniques. Currently, the officers able to sign RDC’s checks include Fred, Rod and Dave J.
4) Website: Tony: Nothing to report
5) Illgen Enduro: Fred: George will be giving his notes, handbook and other information to Fred on conducting the Enduro. This year will mark the 52nd year of the RDC enduro.
6) Mentoring Program: Fred: Fred has spoken with Tony Tabacco and Lisa Diamond. Lisa will match last years SFR Driver’s School Graduates with the incoming driver’s school candidates. After graduation, she will match the recent grads with mentors.
7) SCCA Liaison Report: The meeting started at about 8:45am and was held in the Blackhawk Museum Board Room (which is a very nice setting).
a) Editing and publishing of the Wheel has changed hands and you will probably have seen this change by the time you read this. All of those involved with contributing to the Wheel are pleased with the improvements. Much if not all of the editing and contributions are done online using a program/site that makes it easy for all parties involved to review and comment on submissions. The Wheel will be more compact, less costly, and still look very good.
b) Driver’s School has a Sanction number and as of this meeting date, 14 students had signed up. Apparently this is about normal.
c) 2 new PCs have been purchased and placed in the Regional Office to replace the current “antiques”. Michael Smith spent several hours installing the necessary software and setting up the operating systems.
d) The Region Volunteering Coordinator, Lisa Diamond, has experience with event planning and has put together a Meet & Greet on 2/5 in Concord for prospective volunteers to meet with the various Chief’s of Specialties to get acquainted prior to Training Day on 2/19.
e) Recruiting at the San Jose Auto Show was organized by Lisa and the AutoX group and it all went very well.
f) Flag Stations at Thunderhill are being upgraded. There was input from F&C and the Thunderhill staff is responding to those recommendations.
g) Evaluation is underway on assessing the needs/improvements/changes that would need to be made to the current Thunderhill course to allow clockwise (backwards) use. One of the primary issues is the current turn 1 which does not allow safe run-out at the exit when run in the clockwise direction. There are no current plans for using this configuration but it was recognized as something that needed preparation should the need/desire to use this configuration arise.
h) Draft Supps for 2011 were reviewed. The plan is to not change the entry fees for 2011 from those of 2010 and only other minor changes in the Supps are anticipated.
i) I am constantly impressed with the level of detail used in the financial planning of the region and concern shown by the SFR Board for the best interests of the road racing competitors and volunteers. The 2010 expenses will apparently be within 3% of expectation which is impressively close. Expenses should come in about 3% in excess of income and both expenses and income are very close to projection. The changes for 2011 (all double race weekends for the regional events) are expected to bring the region back into financial balance although it causes additional burden on the volunteers. This change was not incorporated until the volunteers were polled to determine that the change was acceptable.
j) Several changes have been made to the “Pro” schedule and all of these were accepted after consulting with the volunteers.
i) The Ferrari Challenge was expanded to 3 days from 2
ii) Wine Country – no change
iii) Grand Am was shortened to 2 days – Grand Am does not run on Sunday in conflict with Sprint Cup races and no fill has been found.
iv) Pre-Reunion and Reunion – no change – they are back to back weekends
v) Porsche/Rennsport 10/14-16 added to Laguna Seca. It is the weekend prior to the Enduro at Thunderhill and only two weeks after the last Double Regional at Laguna Seca.
8) Will Pool RDC Memorial Scholarship: Fred: The updating of the scholarship forms on the RDC website was discussed.
9) Old Business
a) 2012 Membership Dues: Tabled
b) RDC’s bank account signature cards: See Treasurer’s report above.
c) RDC logo imprinted beer cups: It was decided to not get the beer cups with the RDC logo due to the cost.
d) Newsletter: Rod: Rod would like to use MS Office Publisher for the RDC Newsletter. He currently does not have a copy of Publisher. The next issue will be sent out the first of next week. Fred and Dave J will proof read the document first.
10) New Business:
a) Donations to SFR Social and WAF from 2011: Fred:
a. It was decided to donate $50 per event in 2011 (including the Double National and Driver’s School). This will increase the RDC’s number of donations from 6 in 2010 to 9 in 2011.
b. The RDC will also help partially sponsor the Socials at the three double regionals at Thunderhill, at a rate of $400 per event for a total of $1200.
b) A new site for the RDC Board meetings was discussed. Two board members live on the west side of the Caldecott Tunnel and two live on the east side. The discussion involved a rotation to other side of the tunnel every other month.
The next meeting’s date and location will be determined by e-mail. A new location and date were not decided upon by the end of the current meeting.
President Fred Peterson adjourned the meeting at 9:05 PM.
Dave Jalen, Secretary, respectfully submits these minutes.
