Crew Meeting

We had our crew meeting last evening and everyone was present except for our one island crew member, Tim, that lives in St Croix.  Three members attended using Skype, which worked well, but does place a bit of an inconvenience spanning the country's time zones. Two were in Idaho, Al and Mary, and one in Arizona, Connie.

Al started us off with the medical presentation...stressing the importance of full disclosure on the medical waiver forms, as his role is the chief medical officer and reminding everyone of the physical and mental demands that are required to be on the crew.

We took a quick pause for chili, corn bread, Louisiana gumbo, crab dip and an assortment of other goodies.  All compliments of our crew members.  While folks were eating I followed up with a quick update on my training and plans moving forward.  Training was at 82% after a 365 mile week.

Dave Meridith took over with a recap of his RAAM races from '90 and '93.  He had a very successful race in '90, finishing in 10 days and 4 hours.  Much of his success due to his crews ability to keep the drama in the vehicles and hidden from him.  '93 proved to be a disappointment with many crew complications and a change in nourishment.  He would DNF in Texas after extreme dehydration from intestinal problems.

Edgar covered the crews roles and shifts, Susie gave an update on the fund raising efforts and her pursuit to work with a charitable organization (Habitat for Humanity), and Troy finished up with a brief summary of how food preparation would work.

All in all a very successful meeting though our next meeting will be less formal and handled via email.  We established a weekend in May to familiarize ourselves with the RV.  So we will rent an RV for the weekend to test everything out in RAAM fashion.

I think we are getting everything dialed in for the team.  Now all I need to do is ride my bike.  Sounds easy!