At its founding, NIRCA was a Midwest-centric organization. With each passing year, the Association gained more national flavor, with teams in the Northeast and Southeast regions climbing towards the top of rankings and filling up the members list. There has been, however, a exception to this trend: the West. There are only five member clubs in the West, only one club on of which, Oregon, attended Nationals before this year. These has never been a Western Regional Championship. In Ypsilanti, Texas joined Oregon as the second Western club to attend the meet.
As NIRCA becomes a truly national organization, it is necessary to begin filling in this gap. A new initiative led by the University of Oregon's club aims to do just that. While there are significant challenges, not the least of which is much larger distances between schools, we aim to have a Regional Championship in the West within the next two years.
This plan is designed to help new clubs get off the ground - first by finding the right people, then by keeping them. Under the guidance of seasoned club leaders, we hope to establish many new, thriving organizations.
While this plan is designed with the West in mind, the concepts contained herein apply just as well to clubs throughout the country. If you have friends at a school who might want to start a running club, if you're interested at starting a club at your own school, or even if you're just looking for new ideas for the club you already have, take a look and see if there's anything useful for you.
This plan is designed to help new clubs get off the ground - first by finding the right people, then by keeping them. Under the guidance of seasoned club leaders, we hope to establish many new, thriving organizations.