CRCA Board Call- Mon March 8, 2021  12pm EST

On the Call: Jane, Patrick, Jenn, Tessa, Liz, Ted, Monica, Lori, Derek, Meg, Sheila, Jamie

Unable to attend: Maddie, Mike, Kate

1. Liz Tuppen called the meeting to order 
2. Committee Updates:
   1. Sustainability Committee – Lori
      1. No new updates, they met with Meg about Strategic planning and really excited about strategizing with them. What it would take to have the President of the CRCA be a paid, CEO “type” position. They haven’t discussed details beyond that.
      2. Are looking at combining Sustainability and Strategic Planning Committee in the future. 
   2. DEI Committee – Liz
      1. Will reschedule resume dropbox mtg for this week-
         1. Not a ton to update on
         2. With changes Liz talked about – Paula and Gulliver are still meeting with committees and will work to reach out and start to work more together on all our efforts. 
   1. Legislative Committee – Jenn Langzettel
      1. We have a meeting next week
      2. ERG LENDING: Just heard from Julia at NCAA on Friday – sent along a few options for erg lending legislation- quickest, for short term- is having someone (INSTITUTION) submit a waiver for the summer. Any proposal we submit likely won’t go through before the summer.  – would need it to then be a blanket waiver- not specific to that waiver— so we need to ask if institutions can put in for a blanket waiver.
         1. 2nd option- asking the school that triggered this to ask for an appeal. ( we don’t think is favorable) – there is no timeline on that. 
         2. 3rd- submitting a proposal to SA advisory committee- getting erg switched to rowing specific equipment. Then we have to submit an exception for using the erg for conditioning . ( also brings up issue of erg competition..etc)
      3. Bill had the idea of just looking for an exception of rowing- for “lending conditioning equipment” – Jenn mentioned it to Julie, but she didn’t know. 
         1. Have been thinking if it matters who we have propose the waiver- we don’t think it makes too much of a difference, but need to make sure that it is a blanket waiver, not just for that specific institution. 
      4. Dead Period- no current updated. Will be revisited before Apr 15th. Will have to start having discussions of how we will want to shift out of dead period when the time comes.  
      5. TESSA – D3 – currrent mode of counting time is 19 weeks, COVID allowed switching to 114 days of “in season” – which is allowing HUGE amounts of flexibility. (baseball is first sport to push it-  JENN, will email NCAA to let them know all programs are on board with this change. )
         1. There is the desire to have support from the Board to help move this legislation forward. 
   2. Strategic Planning Committee – Meg Conan
      1. Was very informative to sit in on sustainability committee – in retrospect, we probably should have had some of those committees involved – but will do so moving forward. 
      2. Hope is to bring 1 representative from that committee to our group, and move more to lending ideas, philosophy, etc. Working on getting a time to get everyone together. 
      3. The Executive Director position has come up before, but continuing to explore this idea eventually. 
   3. ICAC Meeting- “next steps” – Greg is going to put together a 1 pager for  “next steps”  and what the costs would be, most of the voices on that call felt like there is a lot of value from the collective voice. ( will attach his information to this doc.)
   4. Polling – Derek Copeland
      1. Emailed all D1 coaches, heard back from all but about 11 (WCC schools) ~ asked if you are racing, planning on 3 races, trying for NCAA’s. 
      2. Ivies are not poll-able until they race. Princeton and Brown are working hard to try to make racing work. At some point they will be racing – and will be poll eligible. Cornell, Penn and _ also trying.
      3. If a team decided to stop competing – Derek will confirm with that coach, and then will have them taken out from the polls.
      4. Next Week-  first official 2021 poll. 
      5. D2 and D3– sent out emails- but only 2-3 responses from each division.  
         1. D3 – had a crca coaches mtg- it looks like ( waiting from NESAC conference to see if racing or not)  NW all racing, MARC and MidAtlantic majority still racing, )
            1. First regular season poll – Tessa will figure out if its everyone or who would be racing. Potential delayed start of polling for week 1.
            2. Jamie – as of recently- he can race, some schools in conference- may be able to race but cant boat an 8 and 4…. Sounds like most of NE region is racing. West Coast (includes Oklahoma) – everyone is up for racing- but no venues available- will be end of the month before they know what they will be able to do.  – Look to delay polls for this Division as well ? and maybe start polls Apr 1?

? Do we want to post name of pollsters on website? Will check with pollsters

7. COVID Survey Summary– quick summary to send out with Kayleigh’s report/summary
8. Lightweight Committee – Lori Dauphiny
   1. Any luck forming a sub-committee? No, but one new member , assistant coach at Harvard – she will also help Ted out with Lightweight Awards. 
9. Sponsorship- Jamie 
   1. ARI announcement?  Do they want a call with membership?
      1. Yes, they do want to do a call with the membership, but not until after a full announcement- which they are waiting for timing from their board from that. ( will be announced through their blog)
10. Hall of Fame – Jane -7 ppl on Hall of Fame Committee- have had a discussion on what they think Hall of Fame means. 
11. Any Additional Business / Questions
    1. “We are planning a webinar to introduce the new results reporting system around mid-March – while we know this process is different than in the past, and likely more work on the front end, we believe the process should allow for more consistency in reporting.”
       1. Sheila emailed Committee- Kelly said she will let us know when it is, and will record it for others to watch. Sounds like its NCAA’s own system, and no longer using Row2k???? need to look into this to be sure.

PARKING LOT ITEMS:

1.  DUES FOR next year’s membership fee ( part of strategic plan, need to look at benefits we “promised” and what else we want to provide) – will be 1 fee per program.

2. Current membership dues- do we let everyone off the hook for the rest of the year, or continue to track down?
3. Structure for committees to submit proposal for funding for projects.