South Texas State Rep Newsletter

Summer edition

 

 

As the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) enters the Summer season I thought

it would be a good time to catch up on recent news and happenings.

 

o  Elections and votes were held at the RRCA National Convention in Cincinnati earlier

    this month.  A special committee had completely rewritten the RRCA bylaws, and

    all updates were approved, except that proxy voting was retained.  The go-forward

    plan is to put in place a tested and proven means of electronic voting accessible by

    all RRCA clubs so that attendance at the RRCA Convention is not a prerequisite to

    voting, and to consider removing proxy voting from the bylaws at the RRCA Convention

    in San Francisco in March 2009.  (Oh, mark your calendars!)

 

    There were hastily assembled nominations from the floor for the RRCA Board Positions

    but as expected the candidates put forth by the RRCA Nominating Committee all won

    handily.  New RRCA board members are Brent Ayer (President), David Cotter (Vice President),

    Dennis Novak (Treasurer), Mark Grandonico (Eastern Region Director), and Mitch Garner

    (Central Region Director).  I actually have history with all five of these fine gentlemen and

    believe the RRCA will be very well-served by the new board.  Full information is available at

    http://www.rrca.org/news/index.php?article=2286 and http://www.rrca.org/rrca/board/.

 

o  The Cincinnati Convention was a blast, of course.  From a South Texas perspective, the

    highlight was the Awards Banquet where Sabra Harvey was presented with the RRCA

    Master Female Runner of the Year award, and I was presented with the e-Newsletter of

    the Year award.  Sabra's icing on the cake was winning the Female Grand Master category

    of the Flying Pig 5k, the RRCA 5k National Championship for 2008.  Sabra finished in 19:57

    and was the third female and first master to finish.  (The RRCA puts you firmly in your age

    category for national championships and Sabra is 59.)  Details available at

    http://www.rrca.org/news/index.php?article=2287.  I did take a couple of photographs which

    you can see on share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EbNmLRyybMuMshare.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EbNmLRyybMuM

 

    The amusing highlight of the Convention was that the RRCA organized two large posters.

    One was the cover of the RRCA 2008 Calendar, and the other was...my long time colleague

    Brett Riley finishing the 2006 Bayou City Classic 10k.  Brett was pleased to learn he had

    been able to make the convention afterall.

 

o  Future RRCA Conventions:  San Francisco, CA in 2009 and Lakeland FL in 2010.

 

o  Are you getting RRCA news delivered to your email address?  If not, it's so easy, just go to

    http://www.rrca.org/join/join/ and whack in your email address.

 

o  The Third Annual RRCA Run@Work Day is scheduled for Friday, September 19th.  Roger

    Boak and I will again be staging a Tour de Art Run here in Houston to celebrate.  This is

    so easy - if you'd like to put on a Run@Work event in your location I'll step you through it

    or take a look at http://www.rrca.org/programs/runatwork/.

 

o  Are you putting on a race 10k or longer in 2008 with at least 400 participants?  If so, are you

    getting Gatorade for the race for free?  No?  Then take 5 minutes to fill out the forms on

    www.rrca.org and become an RRCA South Texas State Championship for 2008.

 

o  Do you have the RRCA News Feed on your web site?  This is another 5 minute task - go to

    http://www.rrca.org/services/news/ and follow the instructions.

 

o  Want an easy way to learn all about RRCA services and programs in 5 easy minutes?  Check

    out the new RRCA promotional video on http://www.rrca.org/rrca/about/.

 

Regards,

Steve Shepard

RRCA South Texas State Rep