Board Meeting in February

Club secretary Kathy Cummins provides a nice summary of this week's board meeting. 

The board meets every one to two months and meetings are posted in advance on the calendar. Recently meetings have been 6:00 pm to 7:30 or 8:00, in the backroom of Crazy Horse Restaurant on Kirkwood. Any club member is welcome to attend. 

Currently the board consists of the elected officers Jim Schroeder (President), Warren Smith (VP), Stan Ellis (At Large), John Kalill (Treasurer), and Kathy Cummins (Secretary), plus committee chairs Ron Brown (Advocacy), Allan Edmonds (Media), John Bassett (Ride Coordinator), Dan Hickey (Mountain Biking), Brett Nelson (Grants), Tammy Berger (Membership), Yusuf Nur (Marketing), John Connell (RAIN), and Andrew Dingman (Education).

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While summer riding is still to come for the 2016 season, the first BBC board meeting of the year was held on Monday, February 15.

            Ride chair John Bassett noted at the meeting that the club does have winter gravel rides on the calendar and that a handful or more riders have been coming out with their lights to ride on Tuesday and Thursday evenings or during the day on Saturdays. John has scheduled the annual ride planning meeting for March 5 at 7:00 pm at Peppergrass Clubhouse. Interested members are encouraged to attend or to contact John with route ideas—or to volunteer as a ride leader for their favorite ride.

            Mountain biking is also ongoing during these winter months. Some good snow riding has occurred, although lately the warmish weather has made for some poor conditions.  Warren Smith reported that the club continues to be working in conjunction with the Hoosier Mountain Bike Association on trail building and upkeep, especially in Yellowwood.

            Ron Brown reported that Monroe County has finally (at his request) replaced the dangerous grate on Fairfax Road in Smithville. Thanks to Ron for helping eliminate one more hazard on our regular riding routes! As part of Ron's thorough advocacy work, he also attended a recent Town Hall meeting (along with Jim Schroeder) at which he and city Planning and Transportation Department director Tom Micuda discussed ways to avoid "dooring" of cyclists using bike lanes in the city. Ron has also been in contact with county councilman Geoff McKim and city planner Scott Robinson about the Crescent Road route from Vernal Pike to the B-Line, which could be extended one block west to Vernal Pike. Additionally, an upgrade of Tunnel Road from Riddle Point to Robinson Road, with eventual bike lane upgrades all the way to Griffey Lake, is in the planning stages and has been endorsed by the club through Ron and Jim after they requested a special meeting on the subject with county officials.

            Andrew Dingman, our Safety and Education chair, is planning some road safety classes for us before the riding season begins. Marketing chair Yusuf Nur is busy planning a special club award presentation for this year's Annual Meeting and Banquet, which will be held February 27 at the Convention Center. Thanks go to Membership chair Tammy Berger for planning the banquet, as she has in years past.

            John Connell, head of the RAIN committee, has reported that 950 riders took advantage of our low January sign-up fee this year: 30 days of $30 to celebrate the 30^th year of RAIN.

            Two final topics filled out the remainder of the board meeting's agenda: website updating and awarding of our annual grants. You probably have noticed that both the BBC website and our RAIN ride website have changed looks. A professional web designer was hired to revamp the RAIN site, and the board has been discussing how to finalize changes to our main site as well, while maintaining, among other things, our extensive online map database, club records, and our important ride calendar.

            Brett Nelson, chair of the small grants committee, reported that his committee received six applications for grants up to $2,000 and recommended approval of five of them. The board voted to approve these five as well as one additional grant request that came in at the last minute; support for an IUPD program to increase bike safety among university students was also approved. Details about these grants will be presented at the Annual Meeting.

            Full meeting minutes are posted in the Members Only portion of our website after they are approved at the subsequent board meeting.