March Board Meeting

Overview of BBC Board Meeting of March 21, 2019

President Andrew Houlne ran a tight meeting. All elected members were present as well as almost all committee chairs. Discussions centered around the reports of committee chairs. What follows is a brief unofficial summary. The highlight of the meeting was the approval of grants to a number of local groups to promote bicycling and education and advocacy.

Minutes: Secretary Kathy Cummins’s minutes from the December board meeting and February annual meeting were approved and will be posted in the members-only portion of the club web site.

Treasurer: Jim Powers gave the treasurer’s report. There was discussion of RAIN income, plans for filing income taxes and sales tax.

Mountain Biking: Warren Smith reported on mountain biking activities, which have ended for the season as routes are soft and messy and the road season has begun.

Membership: Tammy Thompson gave the membership report and dealt with waivers for club officers.

Ride Committee: Coordinator John Bassett discussed plans for the current riding season. One change is to try harder to alternate easy and more difficult rides especially in the latter half of the season. Tammy Madsen-Thomposon is hoping to start up Beginner rides again, perhaps including some gravel and/or mountain biking at Wapehani. Evening rides are off to a good start, although participation is naturally smaller on cold or wet days. OWLS and iRide both had at least one ride with 14-15 and one with 2-3. The initial Nice and Easy had 6 riders out for the traditional Waterworks ride.

Safety and Education: New chair Craig Medlyn reported on his work with City and county identifying and ameliorating poor road conditions along standard club routes. He is pushing ways to educate club riders about basic safety, emphasizing safety discussion at ride meet-ups. He has a safe practices slide presentation from IU, especially focused on commuting, that we might be able to post on our web site. He is also working on some short radio spots that might involve short statements from selected club members. At board urging he will work on a short bullet point list of key safety points.

Advocacy: Ron Brown reported that he attended a county planning meeting in February looking at improvements to the Woodyard/Smith/Curry pike intersection in NW Bloomington. He was able to provide good feedback that removed a particularly bad choice for bicyclists that required a left turn in traffic. The preferred alternative now is a kind of “doggone roundabout”.

He also attended a March meeting where he advocated for a better crossing of Highway 45 at Bunger/Daphne Roads, which we usually take as part of  rides that go by the airport. His proposal of a side path on Highway 45 between Ison and Bunger was favorably received.

In both cases Ron was able to provide important feedback from the point of view of cyclist safety and his recommendations have helped to eliminate some undesirable options from consideration.

Media. Allan Edmonds discussed issues related to our Facebook group and a goal to post more information there and on the web page blog about board activities.

Marketing: Yusuf Nur mentioned that volunteers will be needed for helping out with a children’s event to be held in Bloomington on June 15. As the time gets closer and details get firmed up he will be calling for club volunteers. The hope is that it will be easier to recruit volunteers with the event being in Bloomington rather than Bedford, where it’s been in recent years.

Grants. Chair Jennifer Miers reported the recommendations of the grant committee to fund. The board approved the committee’s funding recommendations for 9 of 17 applications for a total of just over $20,000. More information will be forthcoming once grant applicants have been informed.