The Grid - October 2010

This year our elections will be run electronically. This allows for anyone with an email address to log into the system and cast their votes for the candidates for the Board of Directors running this year.

Voting electronically will be quite simple. All current (2010) USARM members with an email address in our membership records will be sent an email that has a link that contains a token that corresponds to the status of your vote. You should be able to just click on that link and then vote. That token will also be listed separately along with the link to be able to manually enter the token and vote if you prefer to enter it manually. With the use of the tokens, there is only one vote per person allowed. Voting is anonymous and there's no way for the individual votes to be tracked to see what candidates you voted for.

If you want to verify that the correct email address is listed or change your email address in your membership information, just surf over to the USARM Members Network at www.usarm.net and log in. You can then verify all of your contact information to be sure that when we need to contact you about upcoming events, etc., we can. If you haven't yet registered to be able to login, just go to www.usarm.net and choose Register from the menu.

Those that don't have email and have been getting the Grid sent by mail, will be sent a paper ballot to return. If you have email but prefer to receive a paper ballot please contact either Ron Vlastelica or Jan Kaufman. Any requests for replacing electronic voting with a paper ballot MUST BE RECEIVED by 11/10/2010 in order to get a paper ballot sent.

An electronic ballot will count just as a regular ballot will count. There will be multiple people running for the open positions and you will need to choose the candidates you feel will best serve you as a member on the Board of Directors. We will have a deadline for the electronic balloting that will align with the deadline for receiving the paper ballots.

Happy Elections Everyone!

Now... to go along with the electronic voting we are looking for interested USARM Members who wish to serve on the Board of Directors. The position is for 2 years on the board. It involves monthly meetings and other meetings as required. As a Board Member we will take you through a training session to bring you up to date on Corporate Policy and Procedures.

Our current Board has been working very hard the last several years. We've had a unique and close relationship with each other focused on regaining proper corporate status for our club, addressing and resolving various issues, documenting policies and procedures, ensuring our tax status is set-up properly and filed in a timely manner and much more. All of that was to ensure our corporation was healthy. Each person on this Board actively participated and we’re thrilled to say our club has never been in such a good position to grow and thrive. So... are you interested in helping to continue the growth of our club? Please contact either Ron Vlastelica or Jan Kaufman and we will fill you in on the particulars. We need to hear from you by 11/10/2010.

First I want to again apologize for not getting information out to the members in a normal timeframe. This has been a very busy and crazy year for me. As many of you know I spent 7 months working in West Africa this last year. Shortly after I returned, and just a few days after the MotoGP weekend, I got extremely ill and was rushed to the hospital by my wife Chris. I was suffering from an extremely serious case of malaria that I brought back with me. It took over 2 months to recover from that episode and I am now as good as I ever was. I want to stress that the malaria I suffered is non-transferable to anyone because it was passed to me by a rare mosquito found in the general area where I was working in Guinea. As a precaution our board did contact Laguna Seca and the Center for Disease Control was involved in determining actions to be taken. An inspection of the frog pond area by authorities revealed no mosquito infestation.

While I was gone our VP, Ken Berri, took over running the club. I would try using Skype for the monthly board meetings, but, due to the random and inconsistent electricity and internet access , I'd be cut off if I tried to speak. Since I was so far from home (8500nm) and so out of touch due to the horrible communications I ended up unable to participate in most of our club activity this year although I did work several events early in 2010 and I have worked several events since returning to the United States.

Many people want to know what has happened to our club and the lack of track dates throughout this year. There are varying issues, some of which I do not want to go into at great length. The only thing I will say is that some members used their USARM resources to benefit themselves rather than make the opportunity available to our entire club. We've seen this when new groups have approached us and then we see it go another worker group originating from within our membership and utilizing our resources for their own benefit.

Price is also part of the problem. Overnight accommodations at venues in NV and AZ really add up. We, as a group, need to expand and get more local members at different venues across the United States in order to compete. We'd like to go national and work with other worker groups in the future and we are trying to make it happen. We lost our foothold at Infineon Raceway with Russell school when the track insisted that all events will be staffed by their own workers. The track is making 50% on the workers expertise and they built the worker activity into the track contracts, so we are left out. We had a long standing relationship with Russell School that spanned several decades so it was quite sad to lose that contract. Although that was a hard pill to swallow we have several opportunities in the works that will most likely surface for your working pleasure in the near future.

We voted on accepting our new by-laws at the MotoGP, and we had them up on the website for over 30 days prior to the voting as required by law. These policies and procedures have been a huge accomplishment for this board. Prior to this year there were no formal policies and procedures in place. Our Corporate counsel worked with us for many months in bi-weekly meetings and trainings to help us develop those procedures. Our by-laws require that a simple MAJORITY OF MEMBERS be present during the voting to pass something as significant as these policies and procedures. Due to the fact we have approximately 75% of our membership in attendance at the MotoGP we carried out that vote at the membership meeting on Friday night General Meeting. We had about 280 members present of which 162 cast their votes. We had 161 votes to accept the new by-laws and 1 No vote, probably someone trying to keep us honest. That's equals 58% of our membership voted to accept. The new By-laws and procedures are on the website for viewing. The by-laws shouldn't need change but the procedures used may need to be changed as required and the procedures can be changed without needing member approval. You comments are always welcomed and I do respond as members that have contacted me have seen.

As you have seen we have significantly cut down on the number of Grids and information sent out to the membership. The primary reason behind that decision was due to our own lack of information about upcoming events. However, our website continued to be updated at a minimum of twice a month with the minutes and website updates. The best place to find out what's happening is on our website at www.usarm.org

After thinking through this year I feel we, the Board, and especially I personally need to change our mindset about what information needs to be sent out to the members. 4 Grids per year may not be enough although we felt it was initially. I feel I/we let the club down when we don't get the information out. I also recognize that it is my responsibility, as your President, to ensure we have regular articles and a plethora of information sent to all of you to keep you up to date on all we do whether it is listed on our website or not. But you the members also have to be more active and look on our website www.usarm.org for updates and I know you have been doing that because we get great feedback from you about the updates. Printing Grids for members without an email address is not as extensive as it was in the past due to the reduced numbers of members without email and I/we will be focusing on improving our communications going forward.

Wishing everyone all the best,
Ron Vlastelica
USARM President 2010

USGP at Laguna Seca July 23-25th

I want to thank everyone for another great weekend. We passed all 3 inspections with an Excellent rating from the FIM. Great Job Guys and Gals. When we pass the Inspections like we did, that makes my job so much easier. Thank you to all the experienced workers this year. I put a lot of you with new workers and you did a great job of showing them what we do out there. Thank you to all the new workers, all 83 of you, for showing up and doing what was asked of you. Most of the new workers I spoke with had a great time and are planning on coming back next year. That just makes our USARM family bigger and stronger.

I got lots of positive reviews from the Turn Marshals about some of the new workers. Most comments were about increasing their responsibility next year. Lots of new workers got put in flagging positions and did a great job. I told a few of them who were worried that they never flagged before, was all they had to do was listen to the radio and follow instructions. "You're basically told what to do when". At the end of the day they came up to me and said I was right and they loved flagging, being on the radio, knowing what's going on in other turns.

No complaints from FIM, Dorna,or Laguna Seca. My kind of weekend. A few minor problems, like people not signing in each morning, leaving their stations when they were supposed to stay there during AMA events and some workers getting back late to check in after lunch. And some workers who drank too much the night before and didn't make it up to the morning meeting after sleeping in and had to get shuttled up the hill from camp and out to their turns. We'll work on those in house problems next year. For now everyone pat yourself on the back for a job well done and for a great weekend.

THANK YOU AGAIN.

HOPE TO SEE ALL OF YOU BACK NEXT YEAR

Ted

I tried to reach out to as many of you as I could at the event but I felt it best to drop an article into the GRID to say Thank you for an incredible Moto-GP. I got to meet many of the new members as you came up to get your flags or talk about equipment. It was great to see the members who came back again this year and I especially enjoyed meeting so many of the newer members who joined us at the event this year.

My job was to work on the equipment and I specifically focus on the flags. I would sign out the flags in the morning and sign them back in that evening. At the end of the night, when the flags were turned in, you would let me know if there were problems like a torn flag or a broken stick. That made it so much easier for me to get those problems resolved right away. That way the flags were ready to go in the morning and I didn't have to go through every flag to check it. It was obvious you all took great pride in your position at the track and I was proud to help support you. We had fewer problems with the flags this year than we did in previous years and that is due to YOU!

Thank you so much for joining us at this wonderful event. I truly enjoyed meeting so many of you and I hope I get to see you all again next year at Moto-GP if not sooner.

Ken Berri
2010 USARM Vice President

This was a crazy and extremely busy week at the track for me but that’s not unusual for a Moto-GP. I flew in from Florida directly to Monterey on Tuesday arriving at the track in the early afternoon just in time to move the gators so they could place the trailer for Ted and company at Turn 11. From that point on I don’t think I stopped for a minute that whole week. A big thanks to Jim Hileman for helping to move the rental trailer down to worker camping. The arrangements for the rental trailer were initially pretty crazy but dropping the trailer ended up much smoother when the Rental company changed the type of trailer on the morning it was to be delivered and thanks to Jim’s help. I spent the rest of the day on Tuesday running errands, meeting with people and getting things sorted out, put in place and arranged in preparation for Wednesday.

Wednesday was track set-up day. We had some unexpected help and that gave me some much needed breathing room to do lots of other things earlier than originally planned. It also meant I didn’t have to climb up and down across the air fencing, chain link fences as much as I usually do. Thursday was a whirlwind of activity trying to get things sorted out, meeting with just about everyone under the sun and running up and down the hill several times for various things. I truly don’t remember much of Wednesday or Thursday only because I was so busy but that’s so typical for this weekend. There is always so much to do and never enough time to get it all done no matter how much you prepare.

The MotoGP officials changed the time for the track inspection on Thursday to mid afternoon which gave us an additional 6 hours on Thursday. While that didn’t allow much wiggle room for adjustment if needed the good news is that there was barely anything to do after the inspection. I spent the whole rest of the day on Thursday getting everything finalized for an early Friday morning. We had a much earlier start time that weekend than before because they had crammed so much activity into the weekend. It made for some “interesting” juggling that continued through the weekend. I’m just blessed to have such an awesome team in Race Control who helped keep me sane over the weekend.

The best part of the weekend was when Claude Denis walked into Race Control after the very first inspection and gave us a “thumbs up”. To get that on the first inspection draped the weekend with a calm and friendly atmosphere with our MotoGP friends. It is a HUGE accomplishment to get that acknowledgement during the first inspection and is quite rare in the MotoGP world. This is the second year in a row that we’ve been able to accomplish that feat and I owe it to each one of you who worked the event. You checked on each other to make sure everyone was in place, made adjustments as needed and showed such professionalism that the MotoGP officials relaxed. That carries on throughout the weekend with each and every inspection. While it might seem a minor issue to you…. That is a huge element used by MotoGP to gauge the effectiveness and professionalism of our team and you passed with flying colors. Bravo to each and every one of you.

The incidents were rare but with each one the teams performed at the highest of standards. We had one transport for the rider who went down at Turn 11 who had a concussion. He was back at the track a few hours later. We got to experience the new “electric” bikes who were so quiet it was sometimes hard to tell where they were on track unless we looked at the monitors. We had a general membership meeting on Saturday night where we explained the new By-Laws, policies and procedures and a vote was taken. The new By-Laws passed with 58% of our membership casting positive votes and only 1 vote was No. We had 162 votes cast which wasn’t the entire membership but it was well over a simple majority of the membership.

My weekend was even more special because I got to see the grandkids when they came to visit and bring Grandma a birthday cake and flowers and a balloon. I got hugs and kisses and we ran around a bit during the lunch break on Sunday. As they waved Good-Bye on Sunday I was so sad knowing I wouldn’t see them again for a few months but I still have those hugs and kisses and smiles in my heart.

Sunday night was another whirlwind of activity visiting with everyone and packing to go home. I had a very early flight in the morning with a 4 am check-in time at the airport. I hardly got a chance to visit with anyone over the weekend but the time I did get to run around and visit was confirmation that we had the absolute BEST workers at the Moto-GP. From all over the US, Canada and a few from Europe… we were all there for the same reason – to enjoy the best motorcycle racing in the world here at Laguna Seca. Best Workers, Best Racing, Best Time! Thank you ALL for making this weekend run so smoothly on the track. I can’t wait to see you again next year!

And one more SPECIAL notice. Sean and Mary Finney were missed during MotoGP weekend but for good reasons. One of which was the birth of their second son Ian who was born just a few days prior to the race. Aiden is now a Big Brother and he’s taking good care of his little brother Ian. Congratulations Sean and Mary on your newest family addition.

Enjoy Livin’

Jan

The USARM Board Meeting minutes for March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October, 2010 are now available.

Download October 2010 Grid (PDF)

The USARM Board recently decided to go "Green" and thus a new era has begun for the USARM Grid. We do realize that there might be some that have internet access that still would like a printed version of the Grid. You will need Adobe Acrobat to be able to print the PDF files. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.

Download October 2010 Grid (PDF)

Ken Berri	Jan Kaufman (Weaver)	Jim Short
Vice President	Secretary	Director
Chris Vlastelica	Ron Vlastelica	Rosebud Vlastelica
Director	President	Treasurer