Letter submitted to BOT, BOG, and media yesterday by Karen Edler and the parents group who have been working hard on our cause. Board of Trustees meet this Friday and will likely at least unofficially discuss our situation. OPEN LETTER TO UNCW BOARD OF TRUSTEES, UNC BOARD OF GOVERNORS AND THE MEDIA We are a group of UNCW Track parents, students, coaches, and alumni and a variety of community supporters who want to ensure the long term survival of the UNCWs Mens and Womens Track and Field and Cross Country teams. You should have heard our voices and the voices of the UNCW Mens and Womens Track and Field and Cross Country teams student-athletes many times over by now. We are SAVE UNCW TRACK. We created a website: saveuncwtrack to raise awareness and money to evidence our commitment to raising the funds to save this program, now and in the future. In one month we raised $141,143.00 in one time pledges, which sum is near 3/4s of the $200,000.00 operating budget shortfall for 2015-2016. We are committed to raising the funds necessary to ensure at least one more year of UNCW Track before the end of spring semester. Our goal is not “just one more year”. Our goal is to see this model program live on in indefinitely for the good of the entire community. To that end we recently started a 5 Year Pledge campaign and, in a short period of time, we have $19,250.00 in 5 year pledges. Our goal is to reach $50,000.00. We are proposing a series of events that should generate at least $112,000.00 in income. Although our teams practice and hold meets on the current NCAA track facility we recognize that ultimately a new facility is needed. We are committed to locating the funding for this facility and we are actively working with large donors to that end. We are asking UNCW to partner with Save UNCW Track to achieve our collective goal to maintain men’s and women’s cross-country and track and field teams moving forward. We are proposing that UNCW allow us to contribute the one time pledges made to Save UNCW Track to the track operating budget for 2015-2016 and to agree to partner with us through the end of Spring 2016 so that we may implement the long term proposals to “right size” the track budget so that it is sustainable well into the future. If we do not succeed, at least then all involved will have been given plenty of notice of the potential elimination of the program. The chairs of Save UNCW Track met with Interim Chancellor Sederburg, Athletic Director Jimmy Bass, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Michael B. Shivar and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees H. Carlton Fisher on January 13, 2015, to give a full presentation of our efforts and our proposal to Save UNCW Track. Unfortunately the statements from Interim Chancellor Sederburg following this meeting indicated that nothing done to date impressed him and that his mind remained 99% made up to terminate the track program. We are asking that you urge him to reconsider and that you take into account the positive impact of this Olympic sport on the UNCW and Wilmington communities as a whole. We hope that our partnership with UNCW will lead to the creation of a fundraising model that will be able to be used by all UNCW sports and allow UNCW to keep the commitments made to all its student-athletes. We hope to strengthen UNCW Athletics as a whole. Please partner with us to SAVE UNCW Track!!
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 19:05:01 +0000
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