This is a PowerPoint presentation created by Randy Hutchison for the September club meeting. Due to technical issues, it could not be shown. Please click PhysicsOfCycling to see the presentation.

Meetings

Well, our first meeting of the new year was held on January 12^th at Coffee Underground and it was a great success. 51 people showed up and from the very beginning everyone got a chance to meet and mingle.

Once everyone was settled, Jay Mappus, our illustrious President and fearless leader called the meeting to order. Jay shared his thoughts and vision of the upcoming year and what his role is as the President. He is in charge of ensuring the other Board members and Committee members are provided with the tools and funds needed to do their jobs. He also gets the pleasure of presiding over the Board meetings and monthly club meetings. He then started introducing the Board members and Committee members.

First up was Bill Dingledine, our Vice President, who is the right hand to Jay. Bill not only is our V.P. but is also in charge of Rides. Bill stated that he is here to help Jay in any manner needed as the V.P. and as Rides Chair he works with the group to ensure we have great identifiable and mapped rides, trained leaders to lead these rides and other support as needed to makes the organized rides successful.

Duke Spinelli, Secretary, explained that he is tasked with keeping minutes at the Board meetings, communicating with the members of upcoming member meetings and any other correspondence that needs to get out to the group. If you have any suggestions to what you would like to see or hear at a meeting, he is the guy to send it to.

Our Treasurer, Sally Nicholson then spoke about her position as the keeper of the purse strings. She manages the finances and ensures that bills are paid and any other moneys that are earmarked are properly done so. She also talked about the areas where the Spinners are active in sponsorship such as the Palmetto Cycling Coalition.

Scott McCrary is in charge of Advocacy and talked about his goals and needs. His goals include increasing membership by 100 new members, get the novice and non lycra riders involved and continue to work to make Greenville a Bike Friendly city.

Our Member at Large, Charles Lyles talked about his “easy” role as a “do all” kind of guy. Charles is a jack of all trades and is here to help any of the other Board members and Committee members if need be. Besides being able to do it all, he gets the award for the most bicycle themed jacket of the night.

Danielle Gori is our Membership leader and shared with us that we have close to 600 members and that over 150 have offered their assistance in one way or another over the past year. 

Our Mountain Biking committee leader is Ric Ramos. He shared with us the fact that many of the riders are unaware that we have some amazing trails right in our back yard. Especially with Paris Mountain State Park right up the raod. Ric also stated that classes are provided to help those new to mountain biking and talked about one that was geared to the women. Ric’s mountain bike skills have definitely carried over as he delivered his talk while balanced upon a sack of beans! How is that for multi-tasking?

Public Relations is led by Steve Baker. Steve shared with us that as members, we all have a story to tell. He is responsible in working with the media, both print and video. Steve also brought up that if we come across something that we might feel is a great story that involves any member of the Spinners that we should let him know. He is just one guy in a sea of close to 400 so anytime we can help him we should.

Racing is chaired by two people, Bo Campbell and Randy Hutchison. Randy talked about how easy it is to get involved in racing and that his goal is to make sure the Spinners not only support the seasoned veteran but also those new to the sport. One such great example is the time trails at Donaldson Center. If you want to race or are just interested in what it would take to start racing you definitely need to contact either Randy or Bo.

The Greenville Spinners Safety Foundation continues to be a point of great pride. In total we have passed out over 8600 helmets, over 500 last year alone!!!  The Spinners have spent countless hours working with the schools and other organizations promoting safety.

Ken Drescher and Steve Yetman are our Touring leaders. They are responsible for all these great rides you hear about. In fact, they started off the year with the Furman First 50 in which we had 171 riders! You will see notices sent out from these guys about rides throughout the year, including the Sunday Paris Mountain ride. Ken and Steve will make sure no one is left behind and you can bet that anytime you do one of their rides, you will have fun. Besides the normal rides, Steve and Ken are looking to possibly add some new and exciting ones. Rides that will take you to different cities with overnight layovers. Keep looking for more information in the future.

As you can tell, The Greenville Spinners relies on our Web site, www.greenvillespinners.org to keep you all up to date. Rides, meeting info, pictures and other exciting info can be found there. But, in order for this to work, we need David Carter. He is our Web Master. He makes sure we have a great web site to provide tons of info to all our members. Anytime you have info that you feel needs to be on the site just let him know. He especially likes pictures taken by you guys. Just remember to send them as small pictures so that he can work with them.

Women on Wheels, “WOW”, is led by Caroline Mills. Caroline provides a venue for the women, by the women. She will be providing rides for women only, at a leisurely pace and for any woman with any kind of bike. If your new to riding or have been riding for a while but just want to ride with “the girls”, this is an opportunity to do so. The rides last year left from Furman and were quite a success. This year, Caroline promises more great rides and social interaction. She even pulled at our sensitive side by reading several comments from not only women who benefited from these rides by even one from a grateful husband whose wife participated. Way to go Caroline.

Our last speaker of the night was Tim St. Clair. Tim is our past President and is here to help in any way needed. Tim and Michelle have recently met with SCTAC, which is the Donaldson management group, and found out that the SCTAC group is as excited about the Spinners being out at Donaldson as we are being there. Tim gets the award for “Best Dressed Male” for his casual arrival in a power suit as well. Makes us glad that he is on our side.

Last but not least, Duke Spinelli talked about the next two meetings. Rachael Kefalos, Executive Director, Palmetto Cycling Coalition will be our guest speaker in February. This is a meeting not to be missed. And in March we will be showing the movie, A Sunday in Hell. This is a great movie about the toughest Spring Classic, the Paris Roubaix race. For those of you who do not know, this race is one tough race as the riders have to negotiate several sections of cobblestone roads which are used only by horse and carriages except during this race.

We look forward in seeing you at the next meeting and on the road or trails!

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