2015 Arkansas RRCA Meeting and Awards

[dmeroney]

** new time and location **

2015 Arkansas RRCA Meeting and Awards
December 12, Noon to 2:00 pm
Harbor Oaks Club House
Pine Bluff's Regional Park

This follows the CASA Half Marathon. The event is free and open to everyone and food and beverages will be provided.

Please help spread the word.

[David Samuel]

If you favor bringing our RRCA State Meeting back to Hot Springs National Park in November, 2016, please add a comment of support!

Thanks,

David J. Samuel
former Arkansas RRCA State Rep

[Davy Insell]

Let's see how it goes at Pine Bluff before we start a mutiny. It makes far more sense to have this after the final race than arbitrarily late in the season just because of some "tradition" nonsense.

[Bill Torrey]

"tradition nonsense" Davey I think you might not understand the number of years and hard work that other State Reps put into the meeting in Hot Springs. Also the LDRC committee should have been consulted on this before a decision was made. I agree at this point it will be hard to change this.

[David H. Williams]

Changing an annual meeting is a big deal. It can kill the success of the meeting, and the season, and leave members feeling disenfranchised and un-invested. The "unique in the country" success of the ArkRRCA Grand Prix has been due to it being a democratic, member-driven organization, where fairness and the opportunity to be heard is our hallmark, and the runners make the rules. Many years ago, we decided this meant that if the runners voted to run all the races backwards, then that is what we would do.

But, a big decision like this has to be vetted and voted on, and everyone feel like they had a fair opportunity to particpate. Instead, members of the Long Distance Running Committee, which has this duty and responsibility per our by-laws to make this decision feels strongly that they have not been allowed to do their job.

The State Rep is the executive director of this nonprofit. We have an executive committee, the Long Distance Running Committee, that makes these decisions, and then the State Rep/exec director implements those decisions made by the LDRC. That's what you, the runners, voted on as to how you wanted this organization to be run.

Unless we follow our own rules, runners are going to feel like they have no say so in the governing of the Grand Prix; that someone is arbitrarily telling them what to do; basically dictating. And, that will eventually lead to people dropping out and just doing their own thing.

We need this Annual Meeting change submitted to the LDRC, with proper, timely, and appropriate notice and the rules followed, and adequate time for comment from the clubs, and then for a discussion and vote. That's the way we do things and have always done things. It has kept us together and this State a model for the rest of the country on how a Grand Prix and RRCA organization should be run.

[kimhoward]

I agree with David and Bill. It wasn't all about tradition, but just following the rules we have made. I just feel the LDRC should have been consulted. We have the best Grand Prix Series in the United States. You can ask any board member of the RRCA. Let's keep it that way.

[sidewinder1]

Since we have a predicament can we not use both venues....1(Hot Springs) like we always have had, and 2 (Pine Bluff) adjust our LDRC membership and re-emphasize our duties and responsibilities.... just saying.... we could do with these 2 meetings....it would just make us a stronger organization in the long run... plus we need to spend more time as friends too... (so what it wouldn't hurt us to meet twice!!) Sometimes in an organization such as ours we get a jolt, a wake up call...if you want to call it that....let adjust and move on....thanks