ECCC Winter Planning Meeting 2010

This year's ECCC Winter Planning Meeting will be held Saturday, February 20th, at Yale. Major topics will include:

• Overview of ongoing general initiatives.
• Review the status of the road season, as well as going over and clarifying changes and additions.
• MTB scheduling and significant rules and policy changes.
• CX general discussion, potential season shifts.

Date/Place

The meeting will be held Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010. Location is:

This is the same room as last year. When looking on Yale maps, note that the meeting is in the Bass Center, not the Bass Library.

The meeting will begin promptly at 9:30am. Conference leadership will be present before 9 to answer questions, load slide decks, etc.

Agenda

The plan for the meeting is as follows:

09:30  Open Discussion: How could teams be supported better?
         - Super-quick overview of in-progress website updates
         - Super-quick overview of revised promoter's guide
         - Super-quick overview of strengthened Intro Road+MTB programs
         - Open forum to brainstorm and collect input on things that
           could be addressed conference wide to really help teams and
           promoters grow, stabilize, and be even more awesome
           + Documentation, equipment, sponsored activities...


10:30  Program Overview
         - General ECCC updates, review of ongoing general initiatives
           + Website
           + Non-profit incorporation, budgetary notes
           + Social: News site, Twitter, Facebook groups, Blogosphere


11:00  Road Season Discussion, Updates
         - Overview of recent rules (aero, women's categories, etc)
         - Status updates from promoters
         - Host Housing program, w00t!!!
         - Advance warning for 2011: Mandatory course criteria
           + More stringent requirements for length, parking, etc
           + Putting notice out there, collecting input on requirements


11:30  Women's Cycling
         - Road outreach efforts
         - How to (re-grow) women's MTB, CX?


12:00  Volunteers
         - Discussion of open roles ECCC needs to fill, to be put out
           to teams to look for people
         - Critical: Track Season Coordinator
         - Upcoming NCCA Board of Trustees election


12:30  Lunch


13:00  CX Season
         - 2009 season review
         - Open issues?
         - Potential directions
         - Season plans, format
           + Should CX be allowed to overlap MTB?
             * Should pre-season races simply be made part of season?


14:30  MTB Season
         - 2009 season review
           + New events: Intro Clinics, Team Relay, Super D, ClusterHuck
         - Rule change proposals
           + Modified self-sustainment rules (allowing wheel swaps, etc)
           + Decoupled Downhill/Dual Slalom categories
         - Gravity fee caps (lift ticket price limits)
         - Scoring service call
         - Event proposals and scheduling


16:00  Finish line

MTB Proposals

Potential MTB promoters will have to propose their race at the meeting. They need not prepare a presentation, but may present one if they wish and are strongly encouraged to do so. Presentations will be held strictly to 10 minutes; presentation decks should be at most 4 slides. Any such promoter should arrive early so we can load slides onto a single computer (PPT or PDF format). Representatives should be prepared to talk about:

• Host schools
• Proposed venues
• Potential and preferred dates
• Planned events

Directions

Meeting location is:

The Bass Center is located at the intersection of Whitney Avenue and Humphrey Street in New Haven, CT. Easiest directions are:

• From the South: Take I-95 to I-91 North. Take I-91 Exit 3 Trumbull Street, its an almost immediate exit after you get on I-91 North from I-95. Left at the light at tend of ramp. Take a left at the next set of lights, this is Humphrey Street. One set of lights later follow Humphrey Street into parking lot of Science Hill. At stop sign go left and park in the lot, the gates will be open. The Bass Center is the brick building at the Parking Lots. Go up the stairs between the green and brick buildings; the brick building is the Bass Center. The entrance to the Bass Center is under the Walkway across the stairs. The entrance to Bass 305 is in the foyer at that entrance.
• From the North: Take I-91 South to Exit 3, and follow directions above, the North/South exits Merge.

Conclusion

Lunch will be Thai, same as last February.

Thanks to Chris Ritacco and the Yale team for handling the local arrangements!