News

June 21, 2021 - Rob Widdick

2021 Q2 Club Updates

Hello everyone! First off, we’re sorry for the radio silence over the last few months! We’ve been keeping extremely busy (both personally and with the club) but we have some awesome news to share as we wrap up our second quarter of 2021. Please be sure to join our Facebook Group if you’re into social media – we have members who post in here quite often.

Club Charity Donations

I would like to thank everyone who has participated in our fundraisers over the past couple of years. With our member participation, and by board vote, the club has been able to donate a lot of money to organizations in need. As a club, we are very fortunate to be in a position to have as many caring members as we do – we couldn’t have donated without your participation! Likewise, we would like to thank all of our past business partnerships and donations of goods and services for events like the Holiday Raffle. Your gifts have raised more money than we could have anticipated. Year over year, the raffle turnout and prizes have been growing, and 2021 will not be any different!

A Brief Recap of Donations

In 2019, SCCNH had donated $2,250 to Concord Hospital during our 2019 Holiday Party raffle.

In 2020, SCCNH donated $1,255 to Harbor Care by raising funds during our 2020 Virtual Holiday Party while during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In 2021, in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, SCCNH decided to donate $300 for three months from February through August. Alongside our $300 monthly donation, SCCNH also raised additional funds solely through merchandise specific to our charitable donations. All-in-all, we were able to donate a grand total of $1,030 to the New Hampshire Food Bank

A Big THANK YOU to Our Business and Individual Prize Sponsors

36creative of Salem, NH

603 Performance and Maintenance of Londonderry, NH

Granite Subaru of Hudson, NH

Kinetic Motorworks of Hampstead, NH

Kisaki Japanese Cuisine of Manchester, NH

Team O’Neil of Dalton, NH

Chad Pittman

Scott Sauve

Trese Young

Ongoing Quarterly Charity Donations

The board has decided to setup a perpetual donation where $1 from every event entry will be donated at the end of every quarter. This perpetual donation has taken effect as of May 2021. At the end of Q2, we will be calculating the total number of event entries and donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We encourage our members and guests to recommend a new recipient for every quarter, so be sure to attend one of our business meetings to make a suggestion. The board and members will then vote on the suggestions – a simple majority wins.

Subaru Mt. Washington Hillclimb presented by Yokohama Tire – “Climb to the Clouds”

Yes! We’re back on for Climb to the Clouds on August 13-15. Be sure to check out the event details (including spectator tickets). This event is put on by volunteers – if you’re interested in helping, sign up as a volunteer! We could certainly use the help.

Our Growing Membership Base

2021 has been keeping us all very busy. In June, we have reported more members than ever (262 total)! This is an unprecedented number of members and excellent growth of the club, and we’re still growing.

As we are a grassroots club, completely volunteer based, this growth is exactly what we hope for. All board members, directors, and event chairs are volunteers. We are all brought together by our love of motorsports and a desire to support our local community.

With that being said, SCCNH is seeking volunteers for various board-level positions and event-level positions. Even if you have no experience, if you are interested in learning and growing with the club, speak up! This club is solely run by members who step up to help keep things running. We love having new ideas and thoughtful leadership to attract new members and grow the organization.

Technology Improvements

Over the last few years, SCCNH has been heavily investing time and money to improve many facets of the club. With many ideas of the past coming to fruition now, SCCNH and its members have been able to enjoy the fruits of the club’s labor for now and the foreseeable future.

Software/Digital Improvements

To help attract and reach new members, while keeping our existing members up-to-date, 36creative (a sponsor of SCCNH) has built and released a new website for SCCNH. In conjunction with leveraging MailChimp to send newsletter blasts out, we have been able to improve our overall efficiency in communicating with curious potential members and our existing members with the latest news and events that the club has. While there’s still plenty of room to improve, this transformation has pushed us forward in the right direction to continue growing the club. With more volunteers, we would love to achieve some additional goals that we simply cannot take on by ourselves.

To help SCCNH sell merchandise, the club has partnered with Shopify to host our online store. Here, users can browse and purchase merchandise that’s fulfilled by Printful. This allows the club to mitigate the risk and hassle of stock keeping and fulfillment and lets us spend more time elsewhere to benefit the club. With our Shopify partnership, SCCNH has also been able to accept on-site credit card payments for a few years now. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have stopped on-site registration but we do hope to start that back up when feasible. Please keep an eye out for news on when this happens so that you can arrive ‘n drive in the future!

Timing? Check. We’ve been keeping our timing software updated to ensure we have the latest features and bug patches. Thanks to Calvin Demerath and Rob Widdick, live timing through timing.sccnh.org during events now shows live timing results that’s branded with SCCNH’s branding. You do not need to be on the club’s WiFi network – you can simply use your mobile device’s connection!

Hardware Improvements

Timing, timing, timing. Over the last few years, SCCNH has been aggressively improving our timing equipment. We first started by changing our overall timing gear and acquiring new timing lights that operated wirelessly. This initial jump was a little worrisome, but it was soon met with reliability and outstanding results. We then invested in additional antennas for longer ranges – such as while we’re at Canaan. This equipment has been working flawlessly since its inception and has even resulted in driver fatigue from getting many runs in throughout the day.

But we didn’t stop there. Thanks to Calvin Demerath and Laura Surdek, and their love for the club, the registration and tech inspection process has also improved. Registration and check-in is now faster than ever. Helmets are now tech’d once per year and given a barcode sticker. The stickers are used to verify tech inspection and are also used to scan the driver in at the starting line! Yes, we have a wireless barcode scanner at the starting line that communicates with the timing trailer! Since we’ve helped mitigate human error, we’ve been able to achieve more runs at our events which means more seat time for our members!

Do you enjoy seeing your times at the end of each run on the timing board? This was made possible (and reliably so) thanks to Calvin Demerath. Using our WiFi access point and a micro computer, the timing board now displays times without the hassle of running a cable. As of 2021, it even runs without having to run a power cable!

Timing for Climb to the Clouds has also been revamped with a state-of-the-art timing system that’s been tested and it has already proven itself several times at hillclimb events. We have full faith and confidence that our timing equipment and team will be functioning without a hiccup at CTTC!

2021 Events

SCCNH is hosting many events in 2021 of primarily autocross and hillclimb races. With Climb to the Clouds consuming many of our members’ time, road rallies have been difficult to plan. If you would like to host a road rally for the club, please contact us and let us know. These road rallies can be fun scavenger hunts or time-speed-distance rallies!

SCCNH is hosting 10 autocross events, 1 rumble at Canaan, and 3 hillclimb events (including CTTC) for 2021. It’s an eventful year for us and we hope you’re able to attend! (By the way, first-time hillclimbers get $25 off their entry fee at Mt. Ascutney hill climbs!)

Check out our events calendar here.

2021 Business Meetings

Starting July 7th, SCCNH will now hold its monthly business meetings on an in-person basis at a local New Hampshire restaurant. Members and guests are welcome to arrive at 6pm to grab dinner before our 7pm meeting start time. Our meetings typically last anywhere from 60-90 minutes. SCCNH’s club meetings are important meetings that allow us to get together and discuss club news and initiatives. Most decisions made for the club are made by attending members at these meetings. Please be sure to follow our events calendar and our newsletter for notifications of when and where our club meetings are held as they may vary from month-to-month!

A Note From The President

Once again, I would like to thank every member and guest who has participated in our events through 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions.

While the temporary guidelines and restrictions that we had set were met with some resistance, the club was ultimately able to continue holding events in a responsible manner. By doing our best to follow guidelines put forth by the CDC, we were able to hold events without having any Covid cases linked back to the club (to the best of our knowledge). Thank you all for working with us to protect each other. These events helped many members “get out and about” during a strange and unfortunate time that has negatively affected so many – both physically and mentally. Our events brought some normalcy where it was much needed.

Our #1 goal as an organization is safety – and this isn’t limited to just motorsports.

I truly appreciate your understanding in the fact that we’re all human and not infallible. We all have good intentions but ultimately, safety is #1.

The club and its decisions are made by attending members and guests during our monthly business meetings. Please join us and contribute as the feedback helps shapes the future of the club.

Thank you again and we look forward to seeing you at an event soon!

Rob Widdick
President, SCCNH

PS: Our next event is THIS SUNDAY (6/27). Be sure to sign up!


Featured Image by Utsav Srestha on Unsplash