Annual Meeting and Winter Banquet

A spring-like evening in late February brought out a great group for the BBC annual meeting and banquet. About 65 members and guests were in attendance and there was not an empty seat to be found.

Gathering

The evening began with fruits and veggies and mingling at 6 pm at the Convention Center. 

Business

Then we had the business meeting required by our by-laws, chaired by club president Jim Schroeder. This included (re-)election of President Jim Schroeder and Secretary Kathy Cummins to new two-year terms. 

Brett Nelson, chair of our small grants committee, announced this year's awards to regional groups for the promotion of biking and/or bike safety: Becky's Place (Lawrence County), Boys and Girls Clubs of Bloomington, deCycles, Bloomington High School South Solar Bike Team, IU Police Department, Hoosier Mountain Bike Association (HMBA), and the Columbus Bike Co-op. In addition to these we also donate to towns or counties along the route of the Ride Across Indiana and to the statewide advocacy group Bicycle Indiana.

Treasurer John Kalill reported on our finances. Short version: Healthy, maybe even robust. 

RAIN chair John Connell reported on planning for the Ride Across Indiana in July (check it out at www.rainride.org). It's our 30th anniversary of the ride! A special registration deal of $30 during the first 30 days of January brought in almost a thousand registrants. We're now at approximately 1,050 riders. Last year we didn't hit that mark until sometime in May. Merchandise sales are proceeding similarly apace. It's both exciting and scary!

Ride Coordinator John Bassett reported on plans for the upcoming riding season.

Dinner

Once the business meeting was concluded we queued up for a nice buffet dinner. A special thanks to Tammy Berger, membership chair, for making all banquet arrangements!

Awards and Presentations

After dinner we finished out the evening with a round of "Razzies"; presentations of special awards; a presentation by past president Paul Arlinghaus of HMBA; and a slideshow about RAGBRAI, part of an effort to recruit a substantial BBC contingent for this famous week-long party on wheels in Iowa.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the formal awards. The board has created this new program of awards to recognize a range of club members for their various contributions. Yusuf Nur, chair of the Awards Committee, oversaw development of the awards. The following club members received an engraved desk-top plaque for their achievements: 

• Lifetime Biking Achievement Award presented to Joe Anderson (in absentia) by Dana Marsh.
• Most Improved Cyclist Award presented to Judy Akhras by Tammy Thompson.
• Outreach/Advocacy Award presented to Ron Brown by Jim Schroeder.
• Volunteer Award presented to Susan Bassett by Sylvia Schroeder.
• Service Award presented to Jennifer Miers by Ben Ekloff.
• Good Samaritan Award presented to Steve Galvin (in absentia) by Gail Morell.
• Mileage Maximus award presented to Dave Tanner by Warren Smith.

These "serious" awards were preceded by "Razzie" awards presented by Jim Schroeder, which were more than slightly tongue-in-cheek. The "Hostess-with-the-Mostest Award" to outgoing membership chair Tammy Berger deserves special mention as being more serious than the others. The more in-fun awards included "Best-Dressed Award" to Stan Ellis, "n+1 Award" to Warren Smith (for owning the most bikes), "Yellow Pages Award" to secretary Kathy Cummins (for fingers walking across a keyboard). Other Razzies included the "AlkaSeltzer I Can't Believe I Hit the Whole Thing Award" (for unfortunately getting all of a trail ballast) to John Boshears; the "Lance Armstrong Livestrong Award" (for coming back strong from illness) to Mike Finger; the "Moses Award" (for literally riding through water) to Yusuf Nur; and the "Persistent Bike Award" to Yusuf's bike. You really needed to be there!

Thanks to Kathy Cummins for help with this report.

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.