Salem Bicycle Club
Board Meeting Minutes
June 10, 2026
Call to order- Present- Tim Newman, Ken Freeman, Debbie Miller, Jim Miller, Hersch Sangster, Juan Lopez, Robin Robbins, Terry Robbins, Colin Benson, Robert Chandler, Steve Budde, Ben Fryback
Approval of Minutes- The May minutes were approved unanimously
Donation Requests:
Hersch Sangster spoke requesting an ABC donation of $500.00 for helmets. Hersch is the Vice Chair for the Multi model Safety Committee for the City of Keizer. He and his group have been providing helmets for primarily children since 1997. They estimate they have fitted about 6000 helmets in that time. Funding for the helmets varies with most funding from donations from places like the solid waste haulers in Keizer as well as Salem Health. Salem health is closing their program and not committed to further funding or support at this point. The group charges $5 per helmet and do not charge if the need is urgent or it is a title 1 school. Helmets are obtained from Helmets R Us in Tacoma for a cost of about $13 per helmet plus shipping, He estimates they will need about $900 to supply all the planned events until the end of the year.
Salem Bike Vision board member Ben Fryback attended, and they have put in two donation requests. Salem Bike Vision advocates for the creation of safe, direct, and protected bike infrastructure through the city for riders of all ages and skill levels to feel safe and comfortable.
SBV Tent- The first request is for a 10 x 10 branded canopy tent for a cost of $1336.73 to use for the festivals, events, and rides that they organize or attend. The tent is aluminum and there was discussion of perhaps trying a vendor that SBC has used and getting a more durable steel tent instead. SBV agreed that SBC would look into this and SBV would get us their logos and check out the SBC club tent at the Bike Bill event on the following day. SBV also agreed that the SBC logo could be put onto the tent and that SBC might need to borrow the tent at times, like for the Monster Cookie event in April.
Lane sweeper-The second SBV donation request is for a People Powered bike Lane sweeper for a cost of about $4800. One of the biggest complaints that SBV hears that impedes street cycling is the mess in the bike lanes. The City of Salem say that they don’t have enough staff to sweep as much as riders feel they need. Also, there are places where the city won’t sweep including some shared use paths.
In the follow-up discussion, the SBC board ultimately agreed to table the request at this time due to multiple concerns like the high cost, questions about man-power to use it effectively as well as transportation and storage. SBC agreed that it might be useful for the pre-Monster Cookie road sweep in the city.
Earth and Ocean Tour 2028- Robert Chandler came to the meeting asking for help especially volunteers in his proposed “Earth and Ocean” tour planned for 2028. It is to be done in support of men affected by prostate cancer and would have six stages that involve things like hiking across Europe, rowing on the North Sea, and Cycling across the Southern Tier route in the US. SBC agreed to get the word out and perhaps invite Rob to talk about this in person at the November in person meeting.
Membership Update- Robin Robbins reports current membership is 333 members but down 10 from last month. Overall, it is up 76% from last year.
Treasurer’s report – Tim Newman reports that current total club balance is $38, 740.72 including 3 separate $10,000 CDs. He calculated and overall net profit from the MC event at $20,929
Spokes update- Colin Benson reports that 612 emails of Spokes were sent out last month. Still some technical issues are coming up at times. He loves getting articles and ideas from club members. Debbie Miller mentioned how much she likes the new formatting of the newsletter.
Safe Routes to School Update- Debbie Miller reports that at the end of the 2025-26 school year, SRTS reached 8 schools with 1817 students. More than 50% of the kids were first time riders. There was a total of 9 SBC volunteers with 455 service hours. They also support lots of other activities like mobile classrooms, where Cherriots taught 100 5th graders the use of public transit. SRTS funded the Monster Cookie Mini-ride, making it free to all 20 riders. SRTS helped with the May bike Month Herritt School Bike Palooza. This was a great success, with over 200 participants and was supported by donations and a volunteer from SBC who helped with fitting 50 helmets that were donated to needy participants. The SRTS program is likely to be expanded next year to include more schools and the addition of another bike trailer. Volunteers are greatly needed and SRTS is working to streamline the volunteer process for next year.
Rides Committee Update-Terry Robbins reports that Independence start rides are scheduled every other Sunday Through August. Gravel rides are every Saturday and are also scheduled through August. He pointed out that more ride leaders are needed as well as more ride committee members. Tim and Colin will add something to Spokes to call for these positions. There was discussion about training for ride leaders, and it was concluded that we should put the new policy guidelines in an easy to find place for ride leaders to refer to. Also, new leaders should be provided with a link to guidelines. Terry wanted board input on their thoughts about riding philosophy – what the goals of club rides are whether it be just for fun and friendship and encouraging riding together or Improving conditioning etc. The board agreed to review and provide feedback on riding philosophy/guidelines document.
San Juan island tour- Steve Budde reports there are no changes in the plans currently. Maps have been updated by Doug Parrow, and it seems a similar number of participants are coming as last year.
End of Summer picnic – Steve Budde is again in charge of this event and brought up questions on timing and venue. Problems with yellow jackets have been an issue at the outside venues but it was felt that Minto Brown would still be a good location with more attention to controlling the yellow jacket population. The time should be towards the last part of September, like last year.
Iron Man Update- Juan Lopez reports that we have 23/30 volunteer spots filled so it is going well. The group agreed to putting in a $2,000 grant request to Iron Man focused on supporting local helmet programs serving children, youth, and families, rather than specific organizations like Safe Routes. Debbie confirmed she would handle volunteer food arrangements for Iron man volunteers using the same process as last year.
Weekly ride tracking- Juan reports this is going well. The transition to on-line registration is having some glitches with incongruities in manual entry vs on-line registration. The tracking can still be done accurately but sometimes requires more steps.
Art Fair- Jim Miller is taking this over this year and has many questions. He and Tim will get together to talk over the details. The event is September 11, 12, and 13th
Annual Dinner- This is held in January and Tim requested help planning the annual dinner and finding additional awards.
Annual Donation- The group discussed upcoming events and budget allocations.
They unanimously voted to increase the annual donation budget from $10,000 to $15,000 for 2026.
For Hersch's helmet program, they unanimously voted to provide the requested $500. They also offered to consider future requests as needed and potentially offer quarterly support of $250 to be discussed as needs may arise.
Regarding Salem Bike Vision's pop-up tent, they agreed to a $1,500 placeholder budget for further discussion with the organization.
The group expressed hesitation about fully funding the almost $5,000 powered bike sweeper proposal. Some of the concerns include the high cost compared with our total available funds, practicalities of people power to operate it, and storage. The board agreed that it could be useful for pre-Monster Cookie targeted sweeping and possibly volunteers to operate it for that could be found with club members. They decided a longer discussion was needed and also agreed that the possibility of partially funding or matching could be considered.
Water Bottle Restock and Planning
Tim brought up restocking club water bottles, with Tim proposing to order 36 more at $11.50 per bottle (in 2024) after selling out of the current supply. Tim will check into the current price and price point, but the board agreed that they should be re-ordered for a similar amount and kept on hand.
Board Members for 2027- Tim discussed that there may be 4 open positions on the board at the end of the year. He expressed his willingness to consider another year as President if others don’t want the position.
Fence Damage at McNary-Ken updated the group about a potential fence damage incident at McNary High School involving a U-Haul truck the same weekend as the Monster Cookie was held there. It appears the club was not responsible as Steve and Jim both were in the truck and weren’t even in the proposed area of fence damage.
Next Meeting: There are no meetings in July or August due to summer holiday.
Weds Sept 9th 6:30 PM is our next zoom meeting.