I have retitled this discussion thread and moved the 2012 Race Schedule to it's own new thread. It seemed more appropriate to me to have the input and discussions be distinctly separate from the Official Published Season Schedule page.
As you read down, you will find lots of interesting info and suggestions, as well as some posts from me which are animated and perhaps even outwardly defensive... This is primarily because, while we desperately need interest and participation in the molding of the MRA, I find it incredibly frustrating and irritating that people establish and then defend positions regarding the direction or management of the club without any factual basis or information.
Please understand the business model and learn the facts before you put a bunch of effort suggesting "what the MRA should do". We churn approximately $280,000 - $340,000 in and out of the club each year. This is a real, legitimate business - not a bake sale. We can't simply impose changes because someone "thinks it would be great if..." to do so might very well put us out of business.
Running the MRA is a full-time commitment from a board of 11 who work very hard to ensure the success of the organization. Indeed I often work harder at my "MRA job" than I do my "real job" - because the MRA is much more difficult to manage. We on the Board are quite intelligent and competent, and many of us have high-level jobs outside of the MRA - we are not simply "willing volunteers", we are actually "qualified" to run the MRA or even other, much bigger companies.
The MRA is built around a very unique business model, which gets harder and harder to succeed at with every passing year - primarily because of two things:
1) The cost to put the events on continues to go up
2) The numbers of participants, and dollars spent per participant continue to go down
We are constantly working to address these issues, and have had considerable success in doing so the last two years. We're far from where we want to be, but we have good data and we have a game plan to get us there. The next generation of Board Members is about to get a taste of what it really takes to pull this off, and I hope they bring the same amount of enthusiasm and work-ethic to the Board as their predecessors.
There have been thousands and thousands of hours put into the current configuration of the MRA since we converted it to a two-day race schedule. It has been tweaked and modified slightly every year since then - and has been massively reworked and restructured since 2009 - which quite honestly is the ONLY reason the MRA still exists today.
Making changes to the MRA business model is neither simple nor clear-cut in most cases. There is always a down-side to any change we might make, so determining whether the pro's outweigh the con's adequately is paramount in each decision, even down to the actual order of races on the raceday schedule. We don't just toss this stuff out there, it is expertly crafted to assure maximum enjoyment of the racers and maximum financial benefit to the organization.
As you participate in this discussion, please let this be my request...
Understand that making changes to the structure of the MRA is not like deciding whether the boy scout troop should "hike today and swim tomorrow", or "swim today and hike tomorrow". It's more like "if we do this, we'll lose our insurance" or "if we do that, the club will go bankrupt", but "if we do this, we'll add $24,000 to the coffers" and "if we do that we can bring in new racers". The stakes are much higher than you could possibly imagine, and each of us on the Board have a fiduciary (and ultimately PERSONAL) responsibility to ensure the success of the MRA.
Ask questions, get facts (our books are OPEN to all members), collect data - and THEN make suggestions if you believe your idea still has merit. Merit = has benefit to BOTH the riders and the organization, as one can't survive without the other.
Cheers!