Meeting Minutes

CRBC Meeting 1/9/2012
Present: Paul Rito, President
Chuck Anderson, Vice President 
Lynda Bullard, Treasurer
Mike Shamalla, Secretary
Roy Greenfield, Executive Committee Member 
Cliff Kanz
Terri Rudy, Nittany Mountain Biking Association (NMBA)
Dave Pontzer, NMBA
Jim Serene, Executive Committee Member
Brian Dempsey, Executive Committee Member
Joan Potter
Jean Bemis 
Sue Barsom, Executive Committee Member
Blanca Villa
Joyce Eveleth
Cliff Kanz

Sue Barsom gave a quick review of the Kallari Bikes Project, introducing Blanca Villa, a member of Students Consulting for Non-Profit Organizations (SCNO). SCNO is helping CRBC with logistics of collecting and shipping the bikes to the Kallari Coop in Ecuador. SCNO is also spearheading a move to get area property management groups to collect abandoned bikes from their bike racks to give to the effort. 

Joyce Eveleth, AmeriCorps volunteer for State College Borough, gave an overview of the borough’s Bicycle Ambassador program. In addition to education and promotion of bicycle use, planning is progressing for the program to have the area’s first diversion program. Any cyclist cited for a violation of traffic laws can have the ticket expunged by participating in a bicycling education class. CRBC hopes to assist in presenting the classes. 

Jim Serene reviewed progress and issues relating to the January 26 presentation of “Bicycle Dreams” at the State Theatre. The CRBC is presenting this movie in cooperation with the producers to benefit our education programs. We have six co-sponsors: RBR Recumbent Bicycles, Matson & Associates, Freeze Thaw Cycles, Videon Central, and the Nittany Mountain Biking Association. Commercial sponsors paid $100 to participate and will receive 4 tickets and table space in the lobby of the State before the movie. Non-profits paid $60 for the same benefits. The State Theatre will take care of printing posters and will distribute them to local businesses and on campus. We will also distribute to non-core area businesses and remote locations.  

Discussed expenditures for promoting “Bicycle Dreams”. Sue Barsom moved and Lynda Bullard seconded a motion to spend up to $200 on posters for the movie presentation, and another $240 on tickets for the sponsors. The motion passed unanimously.* 

The last order of business for the evening was election of officers for 2012. Paul Rito, Chuck Anderson, and Lynda Bullard agreed to continue serving. Mike Shamalla said he would continue as Secretary but would give it up if someone stepped forward. Joan Potter volunteered to serve as Secretary for 2012. Sue Barsom motioned to accept the slate of officers and Brian Dempsey seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

*-post meeting update. Poster printing cost expected to be approx $85, and an additional sponsor, The Bicycle Shop, signed on.

11/8 Meeting Summary

In attendance: Paul Rito, Chuck Anderson, Lynda Bullard, Jim Serene, Brucie Serene, Kate Marshall-Chase, David Chase, Beverly Crow, Pat ???  (one other)

1) As further background about the award for Trish, Chuck suggested that we establish a “CRBC Hero” award with Trish to be our first recipient. The hero award will be given on an “as-befits” basis rather than doing one a year or on some other schedule. When something good is accomplished in the area for cycling, the award would go to the one(s) responsible. (I can see Joe Lundberg as a future recipient, F-T and the Bicycle Shop for their community involvement — Eddies, too, but less so, and RBR is here, but services out-of-towners mostly).

2) Freeze-Thaw’s raffle at their UK night function earned us $180 and a new membership. Jordyn, please pass along our thanks to all involved.

3) We signed up for a paypal account to accept donations for the Kallari bicycle collection project.

4) Lynda Bullard reported that our bank balance is approx. $3100 ($800 of that is committed to the Kallari project).

5) Membership. It was decided that we will maintain an annual membership with May (bike month) being the designated renewal month. Lynda Bullard reported that we have 20 current members including one business (Videon Central). Missing from that list is the most everyone, including myself. We have 198 people on the CRBC-L mailing list (but few participants in activities outside our core group).

To make signing up and renewing easier, I will add a paypal option and interactive form to our website. It is hoped that once that is active, all current executives and board members will help test the system by making their memberships current (including myself). Once the system is tested, I will make a post to the CRBC-L announcing it and will make a similar request to make themselves current for the year. That post will include a summary of CRBC “benefits” — things like the rumble strip removal, bike month, other advocacy things, etc., etc.

6) We discussed creating a new, unmoderated mailing list for cycling related discussions (or sending folks to our existing forums), and changing CRBC-L to a moderated “announcement” list. The reason for this is to encourage people to stay on CRBC-L — I have had multiple people tell me they signed off of CRBC-L after various flame wars or rants. We need to keep those folks on the list to keep them informed, and hopefully involved.

7) Discussed ways to become a clearinghouse for local rides. There are multiple activities going on, but people visiting or new to the area have no place to go to find late-breaking info on rides.  I will look at the technical aspects of have such a clearinghouse and how it might work. Joe Lundberg is definitely interested and I think we could get the NMBA and the Creamery ride groups to join in, too.

That’s all I’ve got,

Paul

CRBC Meeting Minutes |  3/15/2011 @ SC Municipal Building | Bike Summit Review | Rumble Strips Update | How Houghton Mich became a Bicycle Friendly Community.

Bike Summit Report from Jordyn Drayton and Eddie Magulick

Jordyn, Carrol, Eddie, and Frank all went to the 2011 Bike Summit held in Washington, DC, recently and reported their findings to the CRBC group present at the meeting. This included talking with representatives and their aids. On Thursday morning Senator Casey has a breakfast that anyone can attend. Don’t go for the food.. You get to shake hands with the senator, and say a few words. Bike folks were the majority in the room that day. Casey traditionally votes up on multi-modal bills and his aid, Ed Stodard? is on the ball when it comes to cycling issues. The group commented that Ed was well informed about what cyclists want.

The groups message, and the message of the Summit was focused on the economic impacts of cycling.

At congressman Thompson’s office the group spoke with a Mr. Crist? who was not as versed as Casey’s aid. The group commented that he didn’t make eye contact and seemed to be a little despondent.  Jordyn commented that Thompson seemed to be a nice guy.  The message that day was economic impacts and the group sited Huntingdon, PA.  The Allegripis Trails have had a 4 million dollar impact on the local economy. And, they have only been around for a year. Thompson said during the brief discussion that rising gas prices equals more bike riding. Thompson votes in lockstep with Schuster who votes bike related issues up, which is good. “we are in a weird position with funding” Jordyn said, bikes are a cheap way to get around. Currently there are not any funding bills related to bikes moving through the house right now.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign was really awesome.

National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is trying to bring the rules of European roads to North America. They have had a positive effect on the roads in NYC. Click Here for more.  The group thought that looking into this for the Center Region would be awesome.

PennDOT and the Rumble Strips

There were a couple of CRBC folks, Paul and Chuck, who met with PennDOT officials about the rumble strip issue. A couple of years ago there was some money that was allocated federally for the states to put in rumble strips. There was some stipulations, like there had to be a 4’ median. This problem was not isolated to the Center Region, it is national.

CRBC would like to thank the Center Region COG for helping to keep this issue on the hot button.

PennDOT is now fixing the issue. Go to the web article somewhere on this website to find out more about this issue.

How Houghton Michigan Became Bike Friendly

Ann (didn’t get her last name, sorry ann) spoke to the attendees at the CRBC meeting about her recent involvement in getting Houghton Michigan honored as Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC). Ann, a recent transplant to SC, commented that Houghton is similar to SC in that it has a university, Michigan Tech (6,000) located in the downtown, and lots of students riding to work.  There are also a lot of IMBA action close to town like here in SC. A task force formed with a lot of different people on it, these folks put together a survey (survey monkey) and some maps of bike routes (both of which we already have), and started to shop the idea of BFC around to elected officials. They developed a bike route map, that turned into a bike plan that incorporated students, faculty and staff of Mich Tech. The plan was assembled by the regional transportation planner and paid for through her salary.

Bike to work day tripled in numbers as awareness rose in the community, people began to own the idea of living in a bike friendly community.

2. Policy | Houghton was a little light on community involvement. At first, Ann commented that officials weren’t sure of the benefits of becoming a BFC. Eventually came around and felt moved to put some paint on the road, bike lanes and such.  Events became a part of the process, and had a positive effect on the number of folks out riding.

The Health Department was all for the BFC initiative, knowing how this would positively affect the overall health of the community.

They used Madison’s bike parking stuff, which is excellent. Now every new building has to address bike parking (why can’t we do that here?). They got the Mayor to sign on to the idea of BFC.

There are 2 state highways that go through Houghton, and M-DOT was not pleasant to deal with.

Ann commented that Houghton is not as nice a place to ride as the Center Region…and why are we not a BFC?

Read more about Houghton’s Win here

Breakout Sessions

 The group then split into two groups, the special event group and the BFC group.