Monthly Minutes of the Circus City Cyclists

Place: First Christian Church, Peru, Indiana

Time: 7:30 p.m.

Leader: Bill Click, acting President

Absent: Not addressed

Attendance: Mike Donaldson, Miles Straly, Rich Holler, Bob Blong, Bill Click, Chris Betzner, and Gary Thomas (new member).

Secretary’s report (Bill): Sent by e-mail to members. Approved as published.

Treasurer’s report (Chris): Report approved as presented.

Discussion:

Metric Century (Chris): We have been listed on the Bike Event Calendar for the Indiana Bike Coalition. Upcoming tasks will include sending out letters to various agencies in Jan, checking out all ride routes in Feb (Bill will do.), preparing and sending out flyers in Mar, and securing all sponsors in Mar. New sponsors already committed to support the ride are the Rochester Sentinel, McClure’s Orchard, and the Potter’s Bench. Dave Sullivan has agreed to provide musical entertainment at one of the SAGs again this year.

Web Site (Mike): The new web site is up and running. The address is www.circuscitycyclists.org. It contains 50 megabytes of web space. It contains a home page, news page, club bylaws, a Metric Century application, a bike shop page, and various links. Mike will add more to the web site as things further develop. The site carries five mailing lists and five mailing addresses. Expenses in developing it thus far are about $170.

Nickel Plate Trail (Bill): No grants were given to the trail from Miami County in 2002, although Fulton County may have approved a small grant (information incomplete at this time). We missed the deadline for the Spring 2003 grant cycle, but will redouble efforts to make the next cycle. The next Nickel Plate Trail meeting will be at the Bunker Hill Community Center, Weds, Jan 29 at 7:00 p.m. All members are encouraged to attend.

Secretary’s Position: Mike Donaldson graciously volunteered to be the secretary. This job will mesh nicely with the Web Site maintenance job, which he is currently doing. The offer was unanimously approved.

Membership Renewals (Bill): Running ahead of last year.

Miscellaneous: The club explored many options and ideas for the upcoming ride year. Gary presented some ideas from his eleven years experience with the Akron (Ohio) Bike Club. Ideas included promoting Indiana Bicycling Law in the local newspaper, better promotion of the club locally, a night ride, a ride across Indiana, and riding the Wabash County Trail. Chris will be sponsoring the Saturday rides this season. They will begin at 8 a.m. at Breakaway Bike Shop and a member of the Bike Shop staff will be the ride leader. Rich and Bill will co-lead the Sunday rides, which will depart from the Owens Marathon Station in Mexico at 2 p.m. The ride season will start in April, weather permitting. Other weekly rides will be discussed at the next meeting.

The meeting concluded at 8:50 p.m.

Submitted by,

Miles Straly