A summary of Tuesday's Central Dakota Cyclists meeting is appended
below.

Have a good weekend,

Mark

*************
Central Dakota Cyclists – Bike Advocacy Meeting
YMCA Community Room
October 26, 2010

In Attendance: Jason Doerr, Lynn Glock, Darin Hartl, Mark Liebig, Kyle
Lefebvre, Craig Schaaf.

MEETING SUMMARY:

1.      Minutes from the September 21, 2010 meeting were reviewed and
approved.

2.      Bylaws – The Bylaw prototype document was discussed and reviewed.
Comparisons of the proposed bylaws were compared with bylaws from the
Twin Cities Bicycle Club (TCBC) to see if ours contained some of the
features of another organization with a similar mission and goals.
While the TCBC bylaws were much more thorough & detailed, our proposed
bylaws appeared to contain all of the essential elements except for an
article on how future amendments to the bylaws were to be made. Craig
was to review the TCBC amendment & draft language to add to the
proposed CDC bylaws. Only one other item was discussed in regards to
the bylaws and that was to add to Article II Section 4 a. that the
Board of Directors has the authority to set dues. It was agreed to add
this item. It was also decided that no dues would be assessed at this
time.

3.      Adding the 3 foot statute to the ND Century Code – Jason Doerr
presented info on the Minnesota 3 foot statute. It was revealed that
the Minnesota 3 foot rule is contained as a separate item #3 in a
section regarding Motor Vehicle Driving rules and it was not in
specific Bicycle section of their code. It was noted that items #1 and
#2 in this same Minnesota section were exactly identical to the North
Dakota Century Code section in regards to overtaking a vehicle. While
the ND statutes clearly recognize that a bicycle is a vehicle subject
to traffic regulations, the 3 foot rule was suspiciously absent. It
was decided to approach Ben Kubischta at the ND-DOT to ascertain if
the Minnesota rule could be presented by the DOT in legislation to
amend the ND century code this winter. A secondary idea would be to
add 3 foot verbiage to existing Item #2 in the existing ND law in case
it may be more prudent to not specifically highlight cyclists and
pedestrians as an entire separate section would do. Jason was to
contact Ben while Mark was to contact existing cycling organizations
in Fargo and Minot to seek their input/support.

4.      Potential 2011 events – Discussion was held in regards to events
the CDC could sponsor/assist in 2011. One item forwarded to Mark from
Jamie Wetsch stated that “Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day” would be a
good event. The event is the first Saturday of October and all agreed
that this would be a natural for the CDC to sponsor. Marketing ideas
for this event were discussed such as contacting Boy Scout Troops and
getting Tribune press coverage. Another proposed item from Jamie was
to sponsor an “Opening Day” trail event at Harmon Lake. A trail naming
contest has been proposed by the Morton County Water Board, but has
yet to be announced to the public.

Also via a proxy, Marian Voeller proposed a long-distance (century)
road riding event. Discussion was held in regards to past road events
and it became apparent that participation in these events was low and
primarily consisted of experienced or “hard core” riders. Craig stated
that a better effort needed to be made to promote group cycling to new
or less experienced cyclists. There are currently cyclists who gather
for weekly rides but they tend to be high tempo rides and newer riders
tend to get discouraged when riding with these groups. Craig proposed
that the CDC organize a weekly evening ride and perhaps a weekend ride
that would be geared toward introducing less aggressive cyclists to
group riding and the rides would have a “no drop” policy. It was hoped
that this would provide a less intimidating format to increase road
riding participation and perhaps it could be geared to provide
training opportunities and motivation for more participants to enter a
CDC sponsored road event at the end of the summer. It was discussed
that a road event would make sense for a late summer weekend date,
perhaps after schools were back in session and the summer vacation
season was over. An organized late season ride to Almont was set up
the last two years by a local charity and perhaps the CDC could
strongly assist a local charity in promoting this event for the
upcoming year. Further discussion of these proposals will take place
at future CDC meetings.

5.      Marketing ideas were briefly addressed by the group. Efforts will
continue be made to promote the Facebook page and set up the CDC
website as a means of communicating with the interested cycling
community. Having a schedule of 2011 sponsored events on these sites
will be a goal to obtain before the 2011 season opens. Placing
information in Health Club Bulletin Boards and the local bike stores
was also a goal. Prices for CDC logo stickers were presented and it
was determined that these would be too high since we currently do not
have an operating budget. However, Jamie Wetsch received a T-shirt
proposal that was very reasonable. We will look at pursuing this in
that shirts could be procured at such a low rate that they would be
very easy to sell at a low, profitable price. They could then be worn/
sold at various events next summer that will help promote the
organization.

6.      Next meeting – The next meeting was set for December 2 at 6pm in
the YMCA Community Room and a tentative meeting was scheduled for
January 10, 2011 at the same time & place.