Mike Chin

My name is Mike Chin and I am running for the office of President. I have been a member of BRC since June of 2006. As a newer member I volunteered to help with boat repairs and have remained an active member of the repairs committee. I have been Co Regatta Director for the Great Baltimore Burn and helped with Charm City Sprints and Head of the Fort. This past year I have coached Novice Class and helped coach open rowing.

In addition to serving as the current club Vice President, I previously served on the boards of three other non profit organizations. These experiences have given me insight as to the nuances, challenges and rewards of serving as one of the leaders of a non profit organization. In particular this past year has given me a greater appreciation of the challenges that BRC faces.

I would welcome the opportunity to continue to serve the members of this club in the coming year as your president.

Kathy Nickel

My name is Kathy Nickel and I am seeking your support as President of the Baltimore Rowing Club. I have always worked hard for the BRC and want to see it continue to grow and move in a positive direction. Over the last 3 years as a BRC member, I have rowed or coxed in each of the adult programs, served on the board of the junior’s program, and have been Social Chair of the Executive Committee for the last 2.5 years. I served as a co-regatta director for each of our last 6 regattas and am currently planning a 7th, which will double as a fundraiser to benefit our club as well as the Johns Hopkins Children’s Burn Center and The Baltimore City Fire Fighter’s Widows and Orphans Fund. As social chair and as regatta director, I have worked with other rowing clubs, other community organizations and businesses in the Baltimore area to build relationships and to promote BRC in the best way possible. Outside of my role as social chair, I have taken on many other tasks including working with Parks & People and the Mayor’s office to run and participate in park and water clean-ups; held a corporate team-building event for the Nature Conservancy (which brought in money for the club); assisted in the maintenance, upkeep and purchases of new launches and motors; participated in multiple Learn to Row Days; planned many scratch regattas and breakfasts, and organized boathouse openings and closings. I have also planned and executed fundraisers for the club, as well as clothing and food drives for local charities. As President, I will continue to build and strengthen these relationships and to make sure that BRC is well publicized and viewed by the community in the best possible light.

As leader of the EC, I will ensure that all five of our programs have the coaching, equipment, and resources to grow and keep the membership satisfied and happy. I will hold monthly meetings to make sure each EC member is on track with his/her individual duties of office, allow them to raise concerns, and together discuss issues that affect the individual programs and club as a whole. I also plan to renegotiate our current lease with the City to keep our existing boathouse and to campaign for the construction of a newer, bigger and better one. If I get your vote, I promise I will not let you down. See you on the water ...

Emily Erbelding

I have been a member of BRC since 2004. I have experienced the club mostly from the perspective of a rower and volunteer, but over the past year have taken on more responsibility in overseeing the club's fundraising and development activities. In club fundraising, we had modest success in 2008: We raised internal donations for new launches, wrote a successful grant application in Nike's "Let Me Play!" competition to buy new Croker sweep oars designed for women rowers; got new local businesses to sponsor our regattas, and had conversations with a few bank presidents that ALMOST led to donations (it's a tough economy for fundraising!). I plan to build on these efforts and use contacts made in 2008 to make our club development more successful in 2009.

In my professional career within Johns Hopkins Medicine, I have served on and led a large number of committees, working groups, and task forces. I have taken executive leadership training courses and am experienced in the types of planning and communication activities that are required of a BRC Executive Committee member. As BRC Vice President, I would continue to recruit club members into our club fundraising activities to meet BRC's needs for 2009.

Adrian Breeman (incumbent)

My name is Adrian Breeman, and I am I running for secretary. I joined the Baltimore Rowing Club in April 2006 after brief college rowing career. A few months into my rowing here with the club, I jumped at the chance to help with the newsletter and website, and rolled these experiences into a successful campaign for secretary last fall. These tasks have led me to attend the majority of EC meetings the past year. I also row with the open program, sit in with the fundraising and development efforts, and help with minor repairs around the boathouse. I also help manage the club mailing lists.

For 2009, I look forward to a stronger, more informative, and more consistent newsletter. We took home a lot of gold medals throughout the year and our membership base needs to be kept in the loop; I will keep in close contact with our coaching staff for these events and reports. I look forward to handling and helping with a smoother, revamped website, and making sure that every club member is up-to-date with club happenings, through email, website, the whiteboard calendar, paper flyers in the boathouse ... whatever it takes. There still seems to be a gap between tasks needing work, and people looking to help; as secretary, I want to eliminate that gap.

To put food on the table, I develop web/database programs for a non-profit organization in Washington, DC, where I am responsible for supporting a diverse user base. I also assist with user training, documentation, and office social activies, as well as general IT maintenance and troubleshooting.

I feel I am qualified to handle the secretary duties for another year, and would like your vote. I freakishly enjoy filing, record keeping, and handling information. I have a good working relationship with all of the candidates up for election this year, and look forward to putting out solid work.

Paula Merkle (incumbent)

I have served as BRC's treasurer since June 2007, when I stepped down as vice-president to assume treasurer duties. I learned to row at BRC in the summer of 2000, and I row primarily with the competitive program. In the past I have also helped coach the sculling program and worked on safety matters. This year I worked with others to submit a grant application to Nike, which allowed the club to purchase twelve Croker sweep oars.

BRC's financial records are now maintained with QuickBooks software. As treasurer, I make sure the bank accounts balance, checks don't bounce, money is collected, and payroll taxes and bills are paid on time. I prepared the club's employer-related federal and state reports for 2007, the 2007 990 non-profit form for the IRS, and paperwork required by the State of Maryland for charitable organizations. I work with the Executive Committee to develop an annual budget and monitor BRC's actual expenses and income against the budget. I also work closely with BRC's growing juniors program to track its expenses and income.

Megan Sikora (incumbent)

Currently I am the incumbent Membership Chair for the Baltimore Rowing Club. I have only held this office for one year, but plan to continue to support the club by running for Membership Chair in 2009.

I have been part of BRC for 3 years now, starting in the Novice I program in April 2006. As most of you know, I am currently a member of Open, and have attended most of the volunteer and social events held by BRC.

During my tenure as Membership Chair, I attended all Executive Committee meetings and was an active member on the board. I made it a priority to answer all membership related emails within a timely period and ensured dues were paid. For each new member I sent out an introduction email about the club and made sure to introduce myself to all the novices from each class in hopes to retain new members in the club after the conclusion of their classes. I also have a good working relationship with those at Regatta Central, our current registration provider.

Outside of BRC, I work for the Federal government as an IT specialist in Financial Systems. I have a background in web development, which helps me in working with RC to work on improvements to the website.

I can assure that I will be available to answer questions about membership, making sure dues are paid, as well as being available for BRC EC meetings for the upcoming year. Overall, I hope to continue to be the "lovely membership chair" that the new and current members of BRC can come to for questions and a welcoming into our club for the upcoming year.

Jeff Ditter (incumbent)

My name is Jeff Ditter, and I'm running for boathouse manager. All jokes aside about having drawn the short straw at last year's election, I've enjoyed my time as boathouse manager, and I look forward to the challenges a new year will bring. It's been a priority of mine to support our hard working coaching staff by working to provide a reliable fleet of launches so that they can focus their time and efforts on rowers. I'd like to add here that my input in this area has been exclusively on the process of helping to decide what sort of launches would be best for BRC. The repair and maintenance of the launches has been the province of a number of members; Patrick Martin, Kathy Nickel, and Mike DeVera just to name a few.

I've also been involved in the repair of damaged boats as well as the acquisition of new shells and equipment. With so many new members looking for rack space for singles, I plan on working on a re-arrangement of the boathouse to allow for new space.

I hope to garner your support on election day.

Kathy Nickel (incumbent)