Notes from team leader's meeting in Cedar Falls

[Megan Kelly]

Hi everyone,

Apologies for the delay on this. Here are my notes from the meeting in Cedar Falls - feel free to e-mail back with anything you think I missed (looking back, these are woefully... concise...)

The meeting agenda, loosely applying the term, was to get your feedback on how things went this year, ideas for what we can do in the future, and get an exchange of ideas and experiences regarding management/recruitment/etc going among the teams.

-Neutral starts were praised. Race directors take note.

-A track weekend was brought up, to include 1-2 days of education and practice and 1-2 days of competition. This would take place at the National Sports Center Velodrome in Blaine, MN (a suburb of the Twin Cities). Folks interested in seeing this happen should throw out some dates for late summer or early fall that would work for their teams.

-Noted that it was harder to find help/officials/etc. at Lindenwood than at in-conference races. This might be due to familiarity, or overall size of the events.

-It was requested that there be more opportunities to race the individual time trial. Again, race directors take note. ITT's would be scored the same way RR's are on an individual and team basis. The ITT made its debut at nationals this year, so having an opportunity to race it in advance of nationals would be beneficial for A riders. It might also be beneficial points-wise for teams with good relationships with their schools' tri teams (in case anybody's wondering, that's NOT Minnesota...) As the schedule gets worked out for next road season, this is something to consider - a balance of ITTs and TTTs would be good. Offering an ITT and TTT 

-Fall racing discussion (MTB and CX). If your school wants to host a MTB or CX race, now is the time to schedule it! Let me or Mark know ASAP what date you're thinking, and get in touch with the venue to start working out the details.

--One challenge with CX is that collegiate CX occurs during the same general timeframe as USAC CX, which is local and has prizelists. We had a reasonably robust CX season last fall, but to my knowledge, no schools attended any other school's event.

--MTB can get around that challenge because the local seasons (that I'm aware of) are over by about the time school starts, or, at least with a little bit of time before collegiate nationals. 

--MTB is a huge opportunity for recruitment - MN High School League started last year with 150 kids in its first year, and WI is starting this year, *very* well supported. WI isn't in our conference, but it's nearby enough that we can expect to see some transfer from both high school leagues. These students will be arriving on campus with an idea already in their brain that racing for your school is a thing you can do, so we need to put a season together to make it *actually* a thing you can do.

-At this point, we got into the exchange of ideas among teams and I started listening to you and not taking notes. Crap.

Finally, in case you're not aware, I've taken a faculty job in Sault Sainte Marie, MI. So, if you're interested in getting involved in the conference in a leadership position, let me or Mark know! I can think of a few "titles" that could use filling:

1. Assistant Conference Director (most general)

2. MTB Coordinator

3. Scoring Czar

If you're interested in one or more of those titles or have an idea for another title we should have, let one of us know.

Good luck on all your finals and other semester wrap-up!

-Megan