USA Track & Field - New England Association

Board of Governors Meeting

Association Office

March 4, 2013

Attendance:

Tom Derderian

Lisa Doucett

Steve Viegas

Eric Narcisi

Will Feldman

Joe Hagan

Jason Cakouros

Stephen Peckiconis

Jim Burgoyne

Victoria Barnaby

Yvonne Green

John Oleski

Mike Travers

Justin Kuo

Steve Vaitones

On the phone:

Joe Navas

Jason Ayr

Jim Garcia

Paul Kirsch

Tom started off with big picture comments, including:

- Thinks that the entire board is getting overzealous by trying to discuss what should be decided in committees and committees are not presenting complete packages to the entire board for votes thus making meetings take too long.

- The date of the NE Track Championships is not mentioned, June 23 at Regis, but the date is not secured.

 - Need to train officials. Each state has an officials association. Need to figure out how to spread officials to all events. Important for sports chairs to have good communication with officials working events. Encourage all officials to get certified. Athlete reps should act as liaisons between officials and meets.

Tom submitted Gary Circosta’s resignation to the Secretary, for the records. There was an LDR meeting where they came up with a nominee to take over for Gary.

Track recruitment: According to Tom, Eric Ashe heard Chris Barnicle would be at a mini-meet, served as a recruiter for the meet. People want to be asked. They can in turn talk to others. Need to do a better job of recruiting overall.

Laurie Boemker selected to RI track coaches hall of fame.

Question of policy for board members: proposed policy: board members can apply for reimbursement to travel to any association event in which they are not participating. For mileage only (.53 cents/mi). There is a $20 flat fee policy in place for the monthly meeting for those over 50 miles away. Discussed but not settled.

Lisa introduced/nominated for board position for voting purposes: Joe Hagan, runs for BAA, lives in Reading, MA. Joe spoke briefly about how he ran competitively in college in mid-80’s for a couple of association clubs.  Has some experience at small, unsanctioned town races.

Steve Viegas nominated Joe, seconded. Joe stepped out briefly for the board to discuss. Joe was brought back in so Travers could ask him about whether he’d be willing to forgo competing at future events in order to administrate. Joe expressed an understanding and was fine with it.

All present voted affirmative.  All on phone voted yes.

Secretary’s Report (minutes)

Eric read the Feb minutes aloud. Jan & Feb minutes were approved.

Treasurer’s Report

Report to be sent to board ahead. Feb showing $12 surplus vs $9k last yr, primarily due to large check for membership renewals. Got paid for awards banquet. Almost $18k deposit on March 1st, dated Feb 28th for accounting purposes. In line with last year, membership a little higher. Expenses the same as they have been for the last couple of years. Banquet lost $2-3k, net.

Balanced Investment Policy - Vanguard investment completed at end of month. $60,000 invested, rest will be invested at end of March. Purposely staggered.  All invested in S&P Index fund, very low investment fees. Each investment has a five letter code, any of us could easily look up the value of the fund. SP will reprice each month for the BS reports, more for informational purposes.

Dividends will be automatically reinvested. SP guesses about 2%  (or $2k per year) in dividends at current market value.

Move to accept, seconded. Vote: unanimous acceptance. Garcia abstains due to not having seen the report yet.

Managing Director Review

John Oleski explained the Managing Director review, as per the by-laws. In the past it’s been done as a board discussion. Tom has asked for an executive committee to initiate the review, with a meeting with Steve Vaitones, prior to the formal board review. It’s a chance to ask questions, understand the position and his role better, etc. It’s an information gathering phase.

Board needs to understand the original idea (of the job), the current idea, and the future idea (needs) of the job, and then see how the current director handles it. Tom is pushing for a more complete job description for the position. This meeting will allow for information gathering, bring in any questions the board may have, take it from there (possibly expand the scope).

Facebook/Social Media policy

Tom proposes the need, look for volunteer to draft up a Facebook policy. Victoria Barnaby has already drafted a best practices policy. Steve Vaitones suggested that people who can currently post on FB be included on it. Included: Peckiconis, Kuo, Derderian, Travers, Kirsch, Viegas, Vaitones, and Barnaby.

Website

Victoria presented some ideas for improving the website, including suggestions for altering the layout to a more user-friendly format, and offered links to other association sites as an example.

Tom stated the need for site as a recruiting tool.

Next steps: people interested in examining templates meet offline. Sports committees start thinking about their content and how they want to manage it.

Recent college grads are a great potential source for the association. Need to find a way to reach them, possibly use the site as a mechanism to do so.

Long Distance Running

Amherst – people ranting on social media about the weather and the status of the race. Organizers pushed back the start time. Late start prevented some from showing, but only 100 less overall compared to year prior.

Bay State Games has not secured a booth at the BAA expo. If they do then the association will share space with them. Lisa to email the club contacts about team registration.

Tom requested the timing company include team name before town name in the results to promote that aspect of the competition.

Question raised about Grand Prix results to get posted on the website.

Track & Field

Yvonne ran through the highlights of the recent indoor championships – Joanna Murphy qualified in 3k. Pretty decent turnout despite the bad weather. Only one team didn’t show (due to weather). Events started pretty close to on time. High number of entrants to due Valentine Meet being cancelled.

Post meet social was well attended and appreciated by the athletes. Awards from the meet announced at the social.

Prize money offered to DMR’s this year (none last year). Big increase from last year, in terms of number of teams.

Issue: Collegiate and manual entries not included in online entry status.

Club team winners: GBTC (men) and NBB (women).

Yvonne mentions 4 proposals, which were sent to the board in advance. Brief discussion ensued.

Motion for outdoor champs prize money - $1k, seconded. Unanimous. PASS

Motion for budget for field event practice facility - $2200, seconded. PASS

Motion for recruiter aspect – TABLED

Motion for $3k budget for volunteer reward system. Seconded. Phone was all unanimous, 4-0 in favor. There were five nays in person. Feldman, Burgoyne, Kuo, Viegas and Vaitones all against. PASS.

Cross Country

Bringing XC Nationals to the area is a top priority. Dirigo guys are very excited about hosting it in Maine. Jason is looking for any input to help in the process.

There are four confirmed/likely GP races, another 6 in consideration.

Mayor’s Cup coming back for 2013.

Budget discussion tabled for next month

Move to adjourn at 9:44. Seconded, approved.