Greetings,

Ok, the word is officially out.

Marcel Blouin has asked me to help him assemble a committee to determine if we can host a half marathon here in the sanford area late this fall. We will be holding an exploratory meeting on Thursday, April 10 @ 11 am at the city hall, third floor annex - this date time and location was chosen to accommodate the SIS lunch special. Topics will include, level of interest, proposed routes, date of event, admission fees, cause to support, sponsors. We are just getting our feet wet. Who better to ask than the group here in town already dedicated to the cause of running. If you can only spare 15 minutes, we would appreciate your time and feedback.

Committed members include Bob Randall, Eric Gadbois, and Tim Cook.

Please let me know if you are coming, also if you can't make it but do want to be involved.

Thanks,

Gwen

I can't make that meeting but I'd be happy to be involved. As for causes to support, of course there are a million good ones. A certain non-profit organization that counts many of us as members comes to mind.

I can be there, and we can run the SIS special after the meeting.

I can't make 11:00 due to prior obligations but would definitley be interested in helping out wherever needed for this cause.  I can certainly try to attend other meetings, help out in planning and participating or volunteering in anything in preparation as long as I am home from work.

Some possible leads for help from Allycia are to connect with a group that may (use to be ) called "Strategies for a Stronger Sanford" and also hook up with Mike Gordon and Tipper (last name unkown) of the Sanford Police Dept. as they are the Sanford School Resource Officers. They run a police cadet program and the kids can use this as a community service event.

4/10 MEETING RESCHEDULED

I'm sorry but there seems to be a conflict with the time/space availability at city hall for tomorrow, Thursday, April 10 at 11am.

I really would like as much participation as I can get (I'm the newbie, you all have the experience), and I just assumed that if it fell right before a regular group run, that would be most convenient. I could be wrong, of course.

Next proposed date: Tuesday, April 15 @ 4pm, perhaps at the Y? We can take off at 5:15 for the run, then hit BSG.

If not, what about next Thursday, April 17 @ 11am at City Hall (again before SIS lunch special)?

Weigh in please...

Gwen unfortunately I can't do either of those.  I'll be prerunning Tuesday instead of the group run again because of Tuesday night commitments.  And next Thursday I won't be at the noontime special either.  Don't schedule the first meeting around me though - I'll be able to make other meetings I'm sure.

I'll say this - my first thoughts are hesitant.  Is this coming from you (the Y?) or from Marcel (parks and rec?).  What's the goal?  To get exposure to the town?  To raise money for something specific?  I'm hesitant because my first thought is it would be great to get out of town/state money to come here.  But the schedule is chock full of half marathons in the fall.  Maine people have Maine marathon half, Massholes have Baystate, there's Becky's Harvest half, does Smuttynose have a half? and there's the Seacoast half, all in the fall and all local.  There would have to be a specific draw to this race I think, especially to get the Massholes and NH people (with money) up here.

Of course I defer to Bob on all matters running and he could shoot all that down and say there's definitely a market for it.  I'm definitely interested in talking more about it, just wanted to throw my initial thoughts out there in case I'm not at the first meeting.

it could be billed as the perfect training race for your fall marathon