All five elected officers and six appointed chairs attended. We especially recognized Andrew Dingman, new chair of safety, education, and outreach.
Minutes of the previous meeting were approved as prepared by secretary Kathy Cummins.
Treasurer Jerry Arveson reported that the club finances are in solid shape, with almost all expenses for RAIN paid, leaving us with a strong balance sheet going into the fall when we will entertain applications for our community grants program.
Advocacy chair Ron Brown discussed several issues he is working on: the Cascades hill side path, which is very unsafe for cyclists; need for a stop sign on Rock East along a standard BBC ride route; expectations of reworking some club routes related to the planned i-69 interchange at Sample Road. He reported that 164 out of 173 dangerous drainage grates have been replace over the last few years.
Andrew Dingman discussed several issues related to Safety, Education and Outreach. Family rides have had limited but clear success, providing a good way to reach out to non-members who want to involve kids in cycling. Andrew has completed the League of American Bicyclist training course and now needs to offer classes in town We discussed a few ideas for that.
Ride coordinator John Bassett reported that the I69 closure of the Tapp Road crossing has played havoc with several standard club rides. He noted that Ron Brown has been updating club maps with minor alterations to reflect current road conditions and practices. John has tried to keep his GPS maps consistent with these club maps as much as possible. He noted that the midweek rides have been especially successful with 8 to 15 riders out for iRides, 15-20 for OWLS rides, and continuing good representation at Beginner’s Rides (led by Tammy Thompson) and Sunday Nice ’n’ Easy rides (led by Ron Brown). Jim noted that the Trailhead Pizza place at Pine Grove offers a 10% discount to folks showing up on bikes. Also he mentioned that Jeremy Schott is promoting the idea of a club velodrome ride at Marian University in Indianapolis.
Warren Smith reported on Mountain Biking in the absence of chair Dan Hickey, who is still convalescing. Often the group goes to Wapehani or Brown County State Park. Interest continues to increase within the club. They have a separate email list for announcing mountain bike rides.
We discussed the club picnic, which took place the evening before. By all reports it was a great success, with the largest turnout in recent history, of about 60 people.
Grant program chair Brett Nelson reported in absentia that he wants to get the application process started very soon, so that it can be completed in a more timely manner.
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RAIN coordinator John Connell reported that everything went well. The RAIN committee has met for debriefing and discussed various small improvements that might be made.
Membership chair Tammy Berger reported that things have been relatively quiet, with most joining and renewing having taken place earlier in the summer.
Media/blog/Facebook chair Allan Edmonds hopes to do more blogs and would like to have another person to work with. There was discussion of having a BBC page in addition to our FB group that would have more of an outreach/advertising character. He may implement that idea later in the fall.
There was discussion of the new City/County bike route maps that are now available in bike shops, at city government, etc., as well as online. It was noted that there are a few mistakes with gravel roads indicated as good for cyclists. Since we are sponsors of the maps we should be pointing out corrections and updates for the online version and later printings. There are instructions at the link above for submitting comments.
Under the heading of new business Jim Schoeder announced that there would be another Open Streets event this fall, scheduled for Sunday, October 5, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. We need something participatory. Best suggestion was some bicycles on trainers. In the afternoon there will be documentary on pro women riders; Jim will lead a Breaking Away ride, with registration via the Buskirk-Chumley. In the evening there will be more bicycling shorts shown, followed by a screening of the movie Breaking Away. Follow links at the Open Streets page for more details.
There being no further business the meeting adjourned around 8 p.m.