February’s weather was certainly a challenge, especially as we had to postpone Winter Flight twice, something never before done with an SRR race.  As I write this on February 27^th, more rain has fallen for two days, and it is still chilly. The overwhelmed weather forecasters are still calling for a nice day as we look forward to the Will Run for Food 5K tomorrow.

    From my point of view, we made the best of Winter Flight planning and replanning and then planning again. Wonderful cooperation from Catawba College and the City of Salisbury made rescheduling much easier than it could have been. SRR and these two organizations were on the same page throughout.

    Let’s look back at the SRR Annual Meeting next. For close to a month, board members had been seeking a good headcount of those attending by contacting every single active member. Active means someone in good standing on the club membership roster. That is somewhere between 170 and 180 people for the last several months. Some are families and can easily be contacted where one call should be good for multiple members. Still, eight board members made an effort to contact each SRR member. Some required multiple contacts and quite a few never responded. Not responding is hard for me to understand, but there is a way to make it worse.

     With only one rescheduling of the Annual Meeting, including a pasta dinner, a keynote speaker and other activities, we had to recontact most of the ones who said they were coming. We had a count of just over 100 people, some finally contacted within the last two days before the meeting on February 15^th. Most significant are those who confirmed their attendance within the last week and even the last two days. Serious expense and effort went into the gathering. Board members arranged a nice location, an amazing meal, a motivating speaker and fantastic awards including those for the largest mileage club yet. Extremely disappointing to me was the poor attendance of this group, those that had worked hard all year to reach their goals. The day before, we had a good shot at perfect attendance with the mileage club. Yet today, I am still waiting to hear from six of those members who confirmed annual meeting attendance but didn’t show. Not cool in any manner!

     Two volunteer requests went out by constant contact for the confirmed Winter Flight race day of February 22^nd. The first got no response. The second, with a sense of emergency urgency, did bring together a good group of members who were able to fill every volunteer need for the day. And I applaud you for that! This club has a lot of talent, but it does little good when mixed with apathy. At one point, there was a danger of cancellation for the race altogether if we could not cover the need for at least 50 volunteers and especially the course monitors. This would have been the first cancellation for lack of volunteers in the 43 years of the event. And finally, it would almost certainly have been the end of Winter Flight in the future.

    I constantly ask members to be active. Still only about one-third of the membership can be considered active. I had the distinct pleasure to visit with Judy Zirt this week. Judy, in my opinion, is the reason SRR and all its good work exists. Early membership was small, but Judy was the driving force to do things right! And as we reminisced, Judy was the reason that I became president of SRR 30 years ago. And the large group of volunteers who made Winter Flight 2026 happen warmed my heart in a huge way. The final result of your help will result in a payment of $17,000 from SRR to Rowan Helping Ministries.

    When you receive this newsletter on March 5^th, you will again have many activities to choose from. There truly is something for everyone! Our Rowan Helping Ministries Walk Club kicks off on March 9^th and the BRC class at the PD the next evening on March 10^th. Soon we will be asked to serve lunch again. We have two Special Olympics celebrations coming up soon and 29 more races the rest of the year and all have room for walkers. Two races highlight March with the Wipe Out Colorectal Cancer 5K on March 21^st and Will Run for Food 5K on March 28^th. Both have fun runs.

     Participate, give back and simply care!

See you on the roads!

David