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VHTRC Board Apology to Stan Duobinis

The VHTRC Board of Directors would like to apologize to Stan Duobinis and the VHTRC membership for the manner in which his removal as the MMT race director was announced, simply as part of a call for candidates to replace him. It was insulting to him, and unfair to you. We fully understand the concern of many about this matter, and we are sorry for the way we handled this.

The VHTRC Board has ultimate responsibility for all of the club events, including MMT. Our goal has always been to improve and refine many things that have been part of this race, not to change the character of the race.

The Board believes Stan did a great job in managing the race all these past years. Since Ed Demoney recruited Stan to replace him as MMT's RD in 2004, Stan has devoted himself to delivering a quality race, overseeing the increase in the size of the fields so that lotteries and waiting lists were necessary to determine entrants, and other myriad changes this race has gone through as it has grown under Stan's leadership. No-one on the Board has found Stan wanting in his willingness to work to put on the MMT, and we thank him for all his hard work and dedication to the event. We were, however, seeking greater Board and club involvement in many important race planning decisions that had become concerns to some of our membership. There were serious differences between Stan and the Board about how the event should be planned and managed. Many of those differences were over style and process.

These concerns were discussed at length at two VHTRC Board meetings, one on June 9th and a second, with Stan in attendance for part of the discussion, on June 24th. Unfortunately, Stan and the Board could not come to an agreement on this issue. Therefore, four of the five Board members decided to find a new RD, who will want to work more closely with the Board.

But we screwed up in the way we presented the public announcement of our decision, and for this, we are truly sorry.

VHTRC Board
July 21, 2010

(Members with a question about this matter are urged to contact any Board member.)