2020 Sierra Century Deadline
To hold the 2020 Sierra Century, we need club members to step up to fill two critical positions before September 27th. One is the Co-Director of the Sierra Century and the other is the IT Technician.
Co-Director
The Co-Director is someone Tom Adams will mentor. Co-Directors are expected to take over as Director the following year and serve as Director for 2 years. If you are interested in the position and have questions, please contact Tom Adams (tompeggyadams@att.net).
Sierra Century IT Technician (Michael Goble’s position)
Michael will mentor the person (or persons) who volunteers to take over the IT duties. Michael does all the technical work involved with registration, which includes creating new Sierra Century web pages with vital links to the registration web site and jersey purchases. Contact Michael Goble (mgoble75@gmail.com) for additional information. The IT duties include:
• Updating the Sierra Century web pages
• Working with our web-based registration company BikeReg
• Sending batch emails with artwork through BikeReg to former riders
• Day of event registration
• Sending batch emails (not on BikeReg) with artwork through MailChimp
Due to the expertise needed to fill this position, we may need to make this a paid position.
2019 Sierra Century
At the August 14th club meeting, Tom Adams gave a report of the 2019 Sierra Century. One of the amazing results of the 2019 Sierra Century was how few repeat riders we had, despite a rather massive effort to entice them to come back through an email campaign. Many of the riders in 2019 were first-timers. We don’t know how they found us, but we did pay Cycle California magazine to notify people through their extensive email notices, and we also reached out to other bike clubs in the region and asked them to notify their members. We lost elite riders who were not satisfied with a route less than 100 miles or who were unhappy without Slug Gulch. For those who showed up, the most serious complaint was the need to mark up the dangerous potholes on Fiddletown Road. Other than that, participants enjoyed everything about the 2019 event. Perhaps this is something to build on. It would take time to grow the event, and it might not grow, given all the competing events which now are being held in the greater region. A lot of organizations have gotten into the bicycling-event-as-fundraiser market. Do we want to be among them? That’s a question we will answer at the September 27th meeting.
The 2019 Sierra Century, after all expenses, raised more than $6,000, which is remarkable given we were down about 100 registered participants from the year before. Putting on a smaller event did not save money with regard to CHP costs, but we saved money by going with two food trucks and $10 vouchers, and by eliminating the routes into El Dorado County, limiting the 2019 event to a metric century and half-metric, both within Amador County. The smaller event required fewer volunteers and we also spent a little less on encroachment and rental fees.
Discontinuing the Sierra Century
If we vote to discontinue the Sierra Century, the club may need to find other ways to raise funds. Other ways the club can raise funds may include: charging more for the Oregon tour, charging more for Zodiacs, raising membership dues. We can also save $2,000 a year by going from two storage lockers to one. These ideas were mentioned at the August meeting, as was the need to focus on building up club membership which has been slipping recently.
September 27th Meeting
The meeting on September 27 will be held at REI from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. To step forward and volunteer for either of the critical positions, contact Ron Davies (rjdavies@frontiernet.net) or Tom Adams (tompeggyadams@att.net).