Club Meeting Minutes
Sun, August 2, 2020

(approved Aug 30, 2020)

4:00 p.m. at South Park with social distancing measures

Present: Molly Wood, Becky McClure, Gene Wee, Dee Boeck, John Huchingson, Lori Cackler, Don Cackler, Matt O’Reilly, Karen Hyde, Brenda Groskinsky, Kara Baden, and Steve Riley

The July minutes were reviewed and unanimously approved.

Gene and Matt started the meeting with a treasury update. The club has spent $155.88 for our annual website fee. We are expected to have some income come in for the timer rental use from the Lawrence Trail Hawks that we should see next month. Current balance of the club is $17,992.37.

Becky announced one of the recipients of the Outstanding Club Volunteer of the Year award to Gene Wee. Her are a few words from Becky:

“Gene demonstrates outstanding leadership to the club.  These past few years he has been the treasurer and has given us guidance on how much money can be spent for certain projects like marathon clubs, national convention attendance, annual picnic, club insurance, etc. He has helped keep the club a good financial position.

Gene has done a wonderful job at keeping the RunLawrence website up to date. He is well connected in the community and is able to keep the race schedule as well as the Kansas State records correct on the website. His photography skills and pertinent articles on running really add the exceptional job he does on the website.

One of the goals of RunLawrence is to provide community well-being.  It is sad we had to cancel the 2020 RunLawrence Thanksgiving Day 5K, but Gene had an idea to have a “no-frills” race to give community members an opportunity to break a state record at an “odd” distance, 12K and 8K races.  He will be helping to organize this race for 2020. 

Gene has also done an exceptional job helping with the organization of the RunLawrence 5K T-Day race. He gets the race brochure ready and printed, he organizes the volunteers and sends out a detailed map of the course, he works with the timing people and addresses potential problems that may occur. 

Gene is an outstanding member of RunLawrence!! Thanks Gene for all you do to make our club successful.”

Congrats Gene! We have selected another member of the club for the Outstanding Club Volunteer of the Year award who was not present but hope to give the award to at our next meeting. 

Gene proposed a couple of race ideas for those who would like to set Kansas State Records and Honor Roll. The race would be a time trial state based on registered runner’s predicted times on the levee. The idea is to cap the race at 45 people to meet local gathering guidelines. The first race is the 8K on Oct. 4 and the second race is a 12K on Nov. 8.  These races are just for those that are looking to set the Kansas State Records or Honor Roll and will be very scaled back from traditional races in order to keep people safe. There will not be an aid station and there will be staggered starts to give people the chance to spread out. Gene was given the green light to proceeds with permitting and setting up the race for registration.

Dee mentioned the passing of Ed Payne, one of the founders of runLawrence. If you have memories to share about Ed, please email Dee at boeckdee@gmail.com so we can put a memorial for him on our web page.

Next meeting is scheduled for August 30 at 4 p.m. in South Park.

Meeting was adjourned at 5:29 p.m.

Submitted by current Secretary Kara Baden