BBC March 2023 Meeting Minutes

James Thompson

President, Buffalo Bicycling Club

BBC March Monthly Meeting

3/13/2023

Buffalo Bicycling Club 2023 Foundation Sponsorship Levels 3.14.2023

Attendance:

• James, Alison, Erin, Emily, Rich, Frank, Chelsea, Max, Devin, Jon, Tom

Talking Point #1

• Sponsorship
  • We have a call for sponsors for the 2023 season. Erin presented our new sponsorship packet, which is different this year.  Last year, we asked for race-specific sponsors, but this year is asking for initiative-level sponsors.
  • We have 3 levels of sponsorship at the “Vision- $3000”, “Engage- $1500” and “Community- $500” levels. The top two are monetary donations that will help with the BBC’s 3 main initiatives of women’s cycling, event safety, and rider education.  The Community Level sponsorship can be monetary, products, or service worth approximately that amount
• Actionable items
  • Max Schneider Photography will donate $500
  • James will approach UBNS for returning sponsorship
  • Erin will approach Eaton Brothers and Kanberra for returning sponsorship
  • James will approach Nickel City Athletics for community sponsorship
  • Deadline is the first/second week of April so the sponsorship banner can be ready by the end of April
  • The Club will get the full document to help us connect with cyclists who own businesses or other businesses willing to donate to the BBC

Talking Point #2

• Buffalo Ohio St Crit at Resurgence Brewery
  • Rich presented that the Crit planning has hit some barriers
    • The city is becoming more stringent on the requirements to close down roads than in previous years. Every business and residence on course needs to be contacted and sign off on their approval.
    • We are in the process of submitting a detour plan and contracting with a vendor that will do barriers and detour signage.
    • Rich was made aware that there will be construction on the Michigan Ave bridge as early as April and could be closed for several months the same way that the Ohio St bridge was closed for months last year. This could limit our abilities to detour traffic.
      • First option of Ohio St Bridge through the neighborhood to Hamburg St not viable because it is not a truck route
      • Second option of Ganson St to Michigan Ave bridge (like how it was the past year) not an option if it’s closed
      • Third option, which the city is mandating, is a longer detour from Fuhrmann Blvd to Tifft to Hopkins to South Park.
    • We are working on how to effectively implement this detour according to city code.  The large detour could be prohibitively expensive ($10,000+ potentially) so we will pursue all options before making a decision if we can proceed with the race at all
  • Alison presented some workflow suggestions including tapping into Resurgence and local businesses to lobby on our behalf to allow the race, and provided names of traffic engineers who contract with GoBike who can help us draft a professional plan
• Actionable Items
  • James will reach out to Resurgence Brewing to get them to write a letter to the city
  • Rich will reach out to the consulting traffic engineers for continued plan development and advocacy of our race
  • Rich will assemble a team to go around and get the required approvals from local businesses
  • Steve Rupp will help us get a letter of approval from the Buffalo River Rowing Club on Ohio St

Talking Point #3

• Skills Clinics
  • Ideas for skills clinics that lead into our club or sanctioned races and/or are taught by certified skills clinic instructors
  • If we have a certified instructor, we can sanction the clinic and Cat 4 riders can get upgrade points for attending
  • Leslie Schenck, the announcer for races like the Rochester Twilight Crit was brought up as a possible instructor. Could do this as a pair up with the Hamburg Road Race
  • Todd Scheske and Peter Cummings are local and certified instructors
  • Emily brought up doing a very basic clinic for new riders around how to change a tube, what you should bring on a ride, etc. This clinic may be good to facilitate in June as the regional cycling community gears up for the Ride for Roswell
• Actionable Items
  • Chelsea will reach out to Leslie
  • Erin will reach out to Peter
  • Frank will reach out to Todd

Other talking points:

• Call for Mentors
  • We have 7 new riders signed up as Mentees. We have 2 mentors so far signed up.  Frank will reach out to potential members with at least 2-3 years of experience in the club to be mentors.  The main goal of a mentor is to talk with your mentee, get them acclimated to the club, ride with them a few times, answer questions about how to sign up for races and what to expect, and get them coming to BBC events
• Way to engage Canadian competitors by offering a kind of US vs Canada trophy or medal. Details to be determined if we can make this happen at our sanctioned races.  Any other way to encourage Canadian participation at our sanctioned events is welcome