Minutes of October 3, 2006 NVRC Meeting.

The regular meeting of the Nittany Valley Running Club was held on Tuesday, October 3  at the HiWay Pizza  on Westerly Parkway. Attendance looked like it might be low, but suddenly at 6:45 people started showing up. We ended up with a big crowd: Jerry Steffy, Dave Eggler, Marty Mazur, Mike Casper and centerpiece Evan, Curt Louder, Ron Saluga, Tara Murray, Mike Connelly, Kim Gasper, Bob, Christine, and Kelly Rice, Mike and Zack Packard, Kim Daniels, and Pam Scott all took seats at the table. Marty ordered the traditional fare (though there were no green olives for the NVRC special!) and the meeting got under way.

First, Curtis dropped off some flyers for the Jingle Bell Run for Arthritis. This year's race will be moved from Bald Eagle State Park to the Campus Loop 5K course. The race will be held on November 4, a non-football weekend. Curt is hoping for a big turnout. Next, Mike Casper gave a quick status report on this weekend's mOUnTaiNBACK Relay. Things are looking pretty good . As always, he could use a few more volunteers, and would like help with packet stuffing tomorrow afternoon (10/4).

Dave Eggler needs some help with the Half-Marathon. Co-Director Morgan Wasikonis can't help this year, so Dave needs a Coordinator of Volunteers. Contact Dave at eggler@GEOSC.PSU.EDU if you can help.

Kim Gasper is the running coach at Bellefonte Area High School. She is looking to grow the sport of running in that area and would like to set up a "Bellefonte Chapter" of the NVRC. Specifically, she wants to see if she can get a regular running group started, similar to the Weekend Group Runs, or the Beginner's Group that we have here in State College. She'd like to get this going in the Spring. Christine Rice has offered to help. Maybe the Club will have some of its Weekend Runs in Bellefonte come Spring.

Marty gave a status report on the Knights of Columbus Race, which will be held this year on October 15. The race has a new course this year. He's still looking for runners, and will put out a call for volunteers later in the week. Marty also gave a report on the status of the Club's Centre Daily Times web log (blog) and the regular running column. Both are a go. The blog is up and running and is called "THe Runaround". Marty, Tara Murray, and Mike Casper are authors. They will gladly take feedback, suggestions, and ideas for posts. Check out the blog at http://community.centredaily.com/?q=blog/43 . Tara Murray is writing a regular monthly column on running for the CDT. The column will appear on the first Thursday of each month, beginning this month. Keep an eye out for the first of these columns, which will be a plug for the Knights Race.

Jerry mentioned that starting next year there will be an open cross country race as part of the State High Cross-Country Invitational. The run will be open to individuals and teams. It will be an "econo-race" with no shirts or awards. Just a few bucks entry fee to help boost the State High running teams. Jerry also mentioned that discussion about new NVRC singlets are on hold until after the next couple of Fall races, a busy time for us. The singlets will cost the Club about $20 apiece. We'd be willing to sell them at cost. In order not to be stuck with a lot of inventory, we may take a big order by email and only have made enough to cover the order. Finally, Jerry got approval from the State College Spikes to have next year's Arts Fest Kids Races held at the Spikes' home at Medlar Field, across Porter Rd from Beaver Stadium. Since we would like to have the Kids Races near the finish line of the Arts Fest races, this would require at least a small redesign of the AF courses. After a small discussion, we agreed that it at least seems doable, especially if the PSU golf courses are going to give us a hard time about running on the Clubhouse roads next year. In any case, we'd like to talk over the whole thing with next year's AF Race Director. (Amy, is that you? You did such a great job last year!)

After all the business was done, we barely had energy to finish the pizza.

Next Meeting: December 5.

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