THE
WICKED
presidential perspective
Juny/July 2016 • Priceless
I’m enjoying a quiet, kid-free Sunday afternoon on my deck and catching up on my volunteer work with the Wicked Running Club. It’s July. I should be at the beach. Or taking advantage of a quiet house and reading a good book. Or meeting up with friends for a frozen drink somewhere. But I’m here, enjoying the breeze and doing my volunteer duties as your president. As a leader of the club, I’ve seen the incredible commitment from our volunteers that makes this club tick. In my position, I put in about 10-15 hours a week dedicated to club business whether it’s answering emails, putting out a running club fire, or just trying to squeeze a track workout into a busy week (which I’m failing miserably at so far this summer!). In my day job as a
Running Register
project manager for a nonprofit, I get paid to deal with crisis, plan events, and work with visitors to my museum. The payment is my obligation to “do” my job everyday. My obligation to the club is different and doesn’t come with the lure of pay or benefits. It’s simply about making as many members as possibly happy to be a part of what I feel is the greatest running club anywhere. Over the past few months, I’ve had the chance to watch the process for selecting the Club Challenge 26x1 relay team. I got to see the dedication, hard work, and strong opinions from Tennille, Mike, and Yvette to make sure that we had two phenomenal teams toe the line. I had the chance to discuss the growth of our club in terms of competition on a regional level--an area that I feel passionately about--but ensuring that no interested runner was
Est. Jan 2010
left behind regardless of age or pace. After weeks of debate and decision, I’m so proud of the work that the group did to put out a great event for our club. Helping to plan this also put me into TR’s shoes for a little while. Besides TR’s many volunteer duties with the club, he is also the guru who helps to select the team for the Lynn Woods Relay along with Kerry Phelan and the Mill Cities Relay along with a rotating volunteer over the past few seasons. His philosophy is not only to put out some team to compete, place, and even win, but to also bring together the depth and breadth of our runners on a selection of open teams to make sure that friends are made, running buddies find each other, and fun is had by the club. An incredible amount of time is dedicated to the relay selection process by our outstanding volcontinued on page 2