| In the last issue of the newsletter, I announced that after having edited the CMS newsletter for seventeen out of the last twenty years, it was time for someone else to assume the role of editor. Fortunately, Kevin Beck of Concord, New Hampshire has stepped forward to volunteer his services. | Kevin Beck, is the new CMS Newsletter Editor |
| Just as the newsletter over the past few years was becoming quite predictable in content, so too has the CMS schedule of races. This is changing dramatically. As most CMS members already know, two long established races - Tweed's 5K and the Central Mass Health Classic 10M/5K - have passed into history. | The CMS race schedule changes... |
| CMS involvement in road races is done on two levels: (1) timing and scoring only; and (2) full organization. For the past seven or eight years, CMS has been contracted to time and score Tweed's 5K. Tweed's has always been a difficult race to time and score for the following reasons: (1) it has always attracted a large number of "once-a-year" runners who simply do not understand race protocol - these are the runners who are apt to come through the finish line chute as bandits, duck out of the chute before being scored or come through the chute a second time while accompanying a slower running friend; and (2) registration has been done at one location and the finish at a second location . This is particularly difficult in a 5K race. Nevertheless, thanks always to a small, but talented, contingent of volunteers, CMS has managed to time and score Tweed's with a minimum of problems. | Bandits? We don't need no stinkin' bandits! |
| When CMS times and scores a race, it is the most visible entity at that race. As a result, when something goes wrong, even if CMS had no part in what went wrong, the club often is faulted. After the 1997 running of Tweed's, CMS received a fair number of complaints for three different occurrences that had nothing to do with CMS, but rather were the fault of the race organizers: (1) runners were sent the wrong way with the result that the race turned out to be less than 5K; (2) there were no mile markers or splits; and (3) the prizes were reduced - unbeknownst to CMS - to virtually nothing. | Ahh...the story |
| Given all this, the CMS board of directors voted not to time and score Tweed's this year. Apparently, the race organizers were unable to find an alternative to having CMS do the timing and scoring and, as a result, the race was canceled. | |
| In response to those who have expressed how much they miss a local St. Patrick's Day race, CMS will fully organize one in 1999. It will be a 5K hosted by and run out of the Wachusett Village Inn & Conference Center in Westminster. Full details will be released later this year. |
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| The demise of the Central Mass Health Care 10M/5K (formerly Charlie's Surplus 10M) presents a much more complicated story. For the past ten years, the race had been sponsored by Central Mass Health Care. During that time, CMHC poured a tremendous amount of funding and energy into the races. Unfortunately, two occurrences conspired to bring the sponsorship to an end. First, CMHC which was a locally owned and operated entity was bought out by Healthsource of New Hampshire. Healthsource, in turn, was taken over by Cigna, a nationally owned health care provider. Secondly, for whatever reasons, participation in both the 10-miler and the 5K dropped drastically during the past three years. With the races attracting less than 400 runners each in 1997, CMHC simply could not justify the huge expenses involved in putting on the races in Worcester. What expenses? In 1997, the cost of police alone exceeded the amount taken in from race entry fees. | a much more complicated story... |
| About a month after CMHC informed CMS last October that it would no longer sponsor the races, the Telegram & Gazette Sports Department was kind enough to run an article about the impending demise of the race. Within twenty-four hours CMS received four inquiries from potential sponsors. Unfortunately, CMS entered into an agreement in late November with the one of the four it felt would be best for the races. It was the clear understanding of CMS that the company in question would be responsible for both sponsorship and advertising, while CMS would undertake the full organization of both races. | |
| In early January, while planning for this year's events, CMS received an inquiry from yet another potential sponsor. The club, of course, informed the company that sponsorship of the race was closed. | |
| To shorten a story, the details of which would fill several pages of this issue, on or about February 2nd, CMS was informed by the new sponsor that they had not been able to put together the funding as they had assumed they could and, consequently, they could not sponsor the race. At that point in time, even if anyone in the club had the time and the energy to do so, it was too late to try to find new sponsorship. Thus, after twenty-two years, what had alternately been the Charlie's Surplus 10-Miler, the Telegram & Gazette 10-Miler and the Central Mass Health Care 10M/5K no longer exists. | |
| Plans are underway, however, to bring back the 10-miler in 1999 as the Ric Buxton Memorial 10 Mile Road Race. If you can help with this effort in any way, please contact me at rrne@ultranet.com or 978-464-2608. | Ric Buxton Memorial 10 Mile Road Race. |
| So much for the negative aspects of this year's CMS schedule. On the first Sunday of May, the traditional date of the CMHC races, the first ever Mayfly 3.5 Mile Run will be held in West Boylston. Check the entry form included with this mailing. In conjunction with what proved to be a phantom sponsor, CMS had decided to move the date of the 10-miler/5K to the third Sunday in May - the 17th. That date will now be filled by the new Health In Motion 4M to be run in Worcester. Again, see the enclosed entry form. Tentative plans call for the Health in Motion 4M to switch to another date in 1999, perhaps the second Sunday in February once occupied by Joe Cohen's Heart Sunday 5M (I Love Henry's Wallpaper 5M). The Ric Buxton Memorial will then move into the third Sunday in May slot. | Mayfly 3.5 Mile Run |
| Finally, also included with this mailing is the entry form for a race - the July 18th Wachusett to Wachusett 5M - which CMS hopes, along with Stu's 30K, will become a flagship race for the club. Note: many of the larger races on the CMS schedule, such as the Fallon Five and Slattery's Turkey Trot, are merely timed and scored by CMS, while organized by the sponsoring entity. Both Stu's and the new Wachusett to Wachusett are fully organized by CMS. These are the races which are needed to keep the CMS general treasury at a healthy level. (The total amount of yearly revenue received from CMS dues does not even cover the costs associated with the newsletter.) | July 18th Wachusett to Wachusett 5M |
Yes!