Meeting Minutes

Racing Program Committee Update August meeting 2009

Sunday, 04 October 2009 23:00

The August racing committee meeting largely focused on finalizing the racing calendar and special events for the upcoming season. We have most of the race dates finalized and will be distributing the calendar in the next few weeks and will be discussed in more detail at the parents meetings to be held:

R.R. (L2T): Oct. 6^th, Churchill Seniors Recreation Centre, 345 Richmond Rd. (07:30-9:30pm).

T2T & L2C: Oct. 13^th, Churchill Seniors Recreation Centre, 345 Richmond Rd. (07:30-9:30pm).

A summary of the racing committee structure and members, along with a description of some of the roles has been included in this update for your information. Please do not hesitate to contact any member of the racing committee if you have any question, concerns or suggestions for improvement in certain areas.

Role	Name	Responsibilities	Contact Information
Racing Director 2009- 2010 season	Judi Agnew	Coordinates Racing Committee Represents Racing Program at the Nakkertok Board of Directors Supervision of paid staff	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Racing Director 2010- TBD season	Jen Tomlinson	See description above	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Professional coach with administrative duties	Mike Vieira	Reports to Racing Program Committee re: coaching activities, liaison between Racing Program Committee & coaching group presenting plan for program activities to committee Assesses programs and makes suggestions for change to the committee for review and approval Liaison with parent safety rep.	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Learning to Train Lead Coach/Coaching Development	Sue Holloway/Geoff Tomlinson/Jan Downing	Coordination of the L2T/Racing Rabbit program Recruitment of volunteer coaches, organization of training & development opportunities	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Volunteer Coaches	Kevin Jones	Volunteer Coach Liason	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
L2T Parent Representative	Carolyn Johnson-Grall	Coordinate all activities of the training groups as identified in the sub-committees, Recruitment of and support for parent volunteers	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
T2T Parent Representative	Sabrina McTaggart	See description above	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
L2C Parent Representative	Rachel Williams	See description above	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Athlete Representative	Aidan Lennie	Represents all athletes in the program Communicates any concerns identified by the athletes Co-ordinates athlete social events in collaboration with parent volunteers	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Communication	Nathalie Gilbert	Coordinates Racing Team communications including: Race Team website; Nakkertalk contributions; monthly committee updates; parent information meetings & communication needs, records minutes of Racing Program Committee and distributes; communication support for coaching staff	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Financial Management	Peter Berkley	development and monitoring of Racing Program budget (100K +), approval of expenses, development of processes for financial control, review of trip revenue and expense documentation to ensure transparency and consistency, monthly reporting to Racing Program Committee).	This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Being the beginning of a new ski season, the committee thought it important to emphasize the role of your parent reps, since they play a key role in coordinating many of the activities and paper work necessary for a successful ski season. Carolyn, Sabrina and Rachel have taken on significant responsibilities in being the contact person for coaches, ensuring coaches have the support they need, collecting waivers, medical forms, maintaining an up to date email list and recruiting parent volunteers for various activities. These are significant responsibilities that can only be accomplished with the collaborative efforts of other parents assisting them. There are many ways that you can support them, for example, proactively contacting them and offering to coordinate one of the many special events planned for our skiers, volunteering to help out at special events and races, offering to recruit parent volunteers for certain activities, etc. Please show your support to their efforts by making their job easier and offering as much assistance as possible.

Below is a summary of the racing committee minutes:

1. The budget for 2009-2010 season was shared with the committee; no concerns were identified from committee members. A small surplus for unexpected expenses is forecasted for the 2009-2010 season.

2. The midget training day held Aug. 22^nd went well; skiers received a lot of individual coaching (10 skiers : 4 coaches). Areas to be improved for next year would be to improve communication with parents; email distribution lists were neither current nor accurate. To resolve this issue we are hoping the new Nakkertok administrator will be in a better position to keep an up to date email list of all programs. Nakkertok is also in the process of implementing new technology for managing email distribution lists that should provide a more efficient and accurate method of communicating with skiers and parents.

There was also some confusion about parents not being aware that the club had roller skis that could be borrowed for the camp, which could have had an impact on participation numbers. There will be another midget training day on Oct. 18^th with a similar format and all athletes will have roller skis at that point.

3. The racing committee decided to change the date for the Adirondack trip from September 26-27th to October 3-4th due to a conflict with the run being organized for Perianne Jones in Almont. Geoff shared that he did a quick informal email survey of the RRs regarding the change of date and there did not appear to be a large number of parents that opposed the change of date. The committee thought it important to support Peri, a Nakkertok athlete, to reach her goals to compete in the Olympics.

4. Ontario Winter Games will now only include athletes of the juvenile and older age groups.

5. The new racing program website developed by Philippe Everleigh in consultation with Peter Lloyd and Brian Morris will be launched as soon as possible, pending board approval in September. This website will allow a greater number of people to input information onto the website and will be less technically challenging than the current one.

6. Education session topics suggested for the fall include: Skier specific stretches; mental preparation and relaxation before races and how to prepare a sponsorship package. Coordinators for each of these sessions are needed; please contact Sabrina McTaggart if you can help out.

7. We have a fairly large stock of Nakkerwear that will be sold at very good prices in the fall.

8. A suggestion was made to have the Nakkertok Open House on October 24th and have the ski swap and trail clearing the same day. By consolidating these activities into one day, it reduces the number of weekends parents/athletes need to commit to activities and it will hopefully increase the number of people that can attend the Open House, ski swap, etc. It was suggested that the ski swap be held later in the day, i.e. 3pm.

9. Program Changes: LTC will be having small group technique sessions on alternate weeks.

10. Currently program documents indicate that for Canada Cup athletes the age requirement is 18; however, we do have some athletes that are members of this team that are 17 years of age. A decision was made to make the necessary changes to the document to accommodate certain athletes.

11. Wax: Last season we spent $10,000.00 on wax and only $4,500.00 had been budgeted. Every effort will be made to ensure that wax boxes are equitable and forecast program needs. The wax budget will be reviewed ASAP and wax will be purchased in the most economical way possible. Mike and Gilles will prepare an inventory of current wax and a plan for purchase and management of waxing expenses.

Last Updated on Thursday, 08 October 2009 08:04

Racing Program Committee Update July meeting 2009

Thursday, 09 July 2009 22:42

Racing Program Committee Update July meeting 2009

In an attempt to improve communication with skiers and families the racing committee has decided to post a summary of its monthly meetings on the Nakkertok website. The purpose of this summary is to strive for more open communication between the committee and racing families. We hope that this will give you a sense of some of the issues being addressed and decisions being made by the racing committee.

The first order of business has to be to thank Cindy Lyon for all the hard work that she did over the last few years as our Racing Director. During Cindy’s time as Racing Director, the program grew exponentially and much of that is as a result of her vision and devotion to the racing program over the last few years. We also would like to thank Judi Agnew for accepting to be our interim Racing Director for the 2009-2010 race season. We all know how much Judi has already given to the Nakkertok racing program over the years, so for Judi to accept this interim role is extremely generous of her. The racing committee is equally excited and appreciative of Jen Tomlinson’s willingness to take on the Racing Director role starting in the spring of 2010. Jen has many years of experience in the racing and will be a huge asset to the racing program.

With the help of Cindy, a new structure for the racing committee has been implemented in an attempt to distribute some of the work more evenly. A summary of that structure along with the new roles and those who are filling them will be included in our next update.

Finally, below you will find the summary of our committee minutes. As mentioned earlier, we are trying to improve communication with skiers and families, so if you have any questions, concerns or suggestions for improvement, please to do not hesitate to contact Judi Agnew via email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

NOTE: For athletes planning to attend Nationals 2010 please review #6 carefully.

Summary July 2009 meeting:

1. NCD Training Camp (August 6 - 9th) for juveniles and juniors is being coordinated by Sabrina McTaggart and Mike. Information was sent out to all eligible skiers, which included other clubs across Ontario and Quebec.

2. Midget Training Camp (August 22nd) is being planned; two parents have offered to coordinate the camp. All midget skiers, including stage 1 skiers, will be eligible to participate. Midget skiers from other clubs will also be invited to participate, with the condition that they provide some coaching and volunteer support. The adult to skier ratio will be 1 adult for every 5 skier. Training camp details and welcoming note for stage 1 skiers to the T2T program will be sent.

3. Adventure Race (Sept. 20th) at Lac Phillippe is being planned for RRs and T2T skiers. Kevin has traditionally coordinated this event, but I think we can all agree that he has done his fair share when it comes to this event.Two parents have offered to coordinate the race, but we will need more parents to help them out. Needed: A volunteer with orienteering experience to assist with marker set up and maps. If you can help, please send an email to Carolyn Johnson-Grall ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).

4. Adirondak weekend (October 3^rd-4^th) is a GO!! Despite the passport concerns, most parents and coaches want to proceed with the trip. Concerns were voiced regarding the 12-14 age group, i.e. some parents can't keep up with those skiers. Decision:Skiers old enough to hike in a group without a parent need to have a map, know the route and check-in and check-out before and after the hike. Coaches will meet with parents prior to the hike and discuss the rules, i.e. no one is left alone.

5. Racing Rabbit's Training Day (full day) is being planned for October; date to be confirmed next meeting.

6. Planning for Nationals in Whitehorse has begun. Denise has booked 15 condos with kitchens at the High Country Inn and 30 flights have been booked from Vancouver to Whitehorse on Air North. The plan is to make a group booking with Westjet in the early fall. The decision to utilize the group booking was made to reduce the costs for everyone participating in the trip (one free flight for every 15 bookings) and to ensure that all equipment can be transported to Whitehorse without additional charges.

7. Gwen Avery presented the updated Out of Town Trip Guidelines and the Consent to Terms and Conditions of Athlete Transportation Consent Formto be implemented as of September 2009, pending approval from Board of Directors.

8. Away Race and Trips Calendar for skiers Juvenile and older was circulated to the committee and coaches. Additional information will be added and the final document reviewed in August. The document will then be distributed and posted on the website.

The committee decided that this year mini-midget and midget skiers would be attending only one out of town race and that this year they would continue to attend the Quebec Midget Championships (Norams) rather than the Ontario Midget Championship. It was agreed that the three day Norams Race has traditionally been a very positive experience for our skiers.

9. Ian Lennie has offered to take on the role of Parkway Closure Coordinator for the season. Some parents were frustrated last year when they had to close the Parkway when practice was being held elsewhere. Every effort will be made to have Nakkertok practices in Gatineau Park when Nakkertok is responsible for closing the Parkway. Watch for an email from Ian and plan to sign up.

10. Suggestions were solicited by Nathalie to improve communication across the program. The following changes will be made:

· This Week at Nakkertok (TWAN) will be posted weekly on the Nakkertok website to provide more accessibility to weekly programs for skiers and parents.

· A monthly update of the racing committee meeting minutes will be posted on the Nakkertok website to inform parents of racing committee decisions and issues being addressed.

· Coaches and planners will enter any upcoming activity information being planned into the Google calendar; regardless of how much detail is known, details will be added as they are planned.

· Google link will be included on TWAN weekly, to encourage better use of calendar.

11. Fundraising: Committee approved a Nakkertok buff fundraiser coordinated by Debbie Davis. These buffs will be sold at various events, i.e. open house, races, etc. A number of ideas were suggested for fundraising at the club and racing team level, but it was determined that we will ask the Board of Directors for a framework or guidelines before we proceed.

12. Education and training: Sabrina asked the committee for any suggestions on education session topics for the skiers to be held this fall. To be discussed at the next meeting.

There will be a T2T dry land coaching course at Mooney’s Bay from August 28-30th. Contact Geoff Tomlinson for details.

13. Staffing: Mike was granted a request for a Leave of Absence for a High Performance Coaching Experience at the Dachstein Glacier with CNEPH. He will be away from Sept. 28th - Oct. 10th. Additional coaching support during his absence, will be provided by Peter, Lisa Patterson (CCC Eastern High Performance Coordinator) and Audrey.

Pavlina is off to the Yukon for 5 weeks and being replaced by Audrey.

The committee agreed that we ask our senior athletes who have taken the ICC coaching course if they would be interested in doing some technique sessions, during Mike’s absence or any other time we may need extra coaching support.

Next Meeting: August 24th

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 September 2009 20:42

Welcome to Nakkertok

Racing Program Committee Update August meeting 2009

Racing Program Committee Update July meeting 2009

Main Menu

Members Login

Weather Warnings

Grooming conditions

T2T, L2C, T2C Upcoming Activities & Events