Post by Admin on Oct 5, 2019 16:51:22 GMT
Minutes of 99th Annual General Meeting
Held on Tuesday 6th November 2018 at The Cooper Room, Shenstone.
Present: Matt Hinkley, Paul Griffiths, Julie Snook, Ian Bolton, Sue Perry, Paul McDonald,
Mick Noble, Dave Frost, Ros Llewellyn, Mike Fowler, Zita McDonald, Sue Jinks, Pam Green, John Griffin, Mervyn Green, Nigel Marshall, Alf Bowen, Brian Farrell, David Dilly, John Bedford, Ronald Tooze, Anthony Wilson, Roger Stroud, Val Jones, Gail Salt, Chris Jones, Brian Langdell, Alison Readman, John Llewellyn John Davis, Lynne Davenport, Mary Evans, Rob Davenport, Richard Firkin, Dennis Bowcott, Chris Mitton, Peter Goodman, Bob Freer, Terry Dwyer, Alasdair Innes, Sue Wright.
1. Apologies Nick Madeley, Lesley Pymm
2. Minutes: The minutes of the previous meeting were read and it was agree they were a true record.
3. Matters Arising: None
4. Annual Report:
For those of you who were here at the AGM last year you will be well aware that the post of secretary was unfilled and this can be confirmed if you have read the minutes of last year’s AGM.
I left the meeting wondering whether I should have put myself forward to fill the post. I was already very busy as an active volunteer with three other local organisations. Would I have enough time to devote to North Birmingham especially with all the flack that had been flying around over the past two years? Despite these fears a few days later I offered my services to Matt to take on the role of club secretary.
Cycling UK North Birmingham Member Group offers 16 rides each week with about one hundred participants. The rides cover a good range of speeds from the slow ride on a Saturday morning at about 9 mph average speed to the fast group at about 19 mph. There is still a shortage of volunteers to be ride leaders for these rides despite there being nearly ninety names on our Cycling UK registered ride leaders list. During the week there are three day rides on a Tuesday, a half day ride on Wednesday starting at 13:30, two day rides on Thursdays and two short rides on a Friday. Number of riders on a Sunday have dwindled in recent times. Perhaps a change of the type of ride on offer would be more attractive to some members.
During the past year a half day off road ride on the second Saturday of the month has been offered and has proved to be popular. Nick Madeley continues to organise off road rides monthly on a weekday to a variety of locations.
At last year’s AGM Chris Jones stood down after many years from compiling the quarterly rides list. This role has now been taken on by Paul Griffiths.
The Beast from the East bought a heavy fall of snow during the night of Friday 2nd March 2018 resulting in our Cycle Jumble event planned for the first Saturday in March to be cancelled. Many of our rides before and after the Beast from the East were cancelled due to the very inclement weather and near freezing temperatures
Roy Bishop and Terry Dwyer, who is always striving to do better, once again organised and managed our annual Audaxes on the last Sunday of April when record numbers of cyclists participated. This was despite the event clashing for a second year in a row with a St Giles Charity Ride starting from Chasewater. It must be mentioned here, of the excellent work performed by John Llewellyn and Martin Whitehouse in putting in a great amount of time and effort throughout the day keeping everything running smoothly and doing extremely well to feed and refresh all the cyclists who had completed their Audaxes.
Unfortunately after the event we received a letter of complaint from Mrs P Rock, organiser of bookings of the Richard Cooper Room in regard to the behaviour of some audax cyclists who used the Cenotaph, in front of the Richard Cooper Room, inappropriately. I replied to Mrs Rock apologising and pointed out that the event was open to cyclists from the local area most of whom who were not members of our group. I said the matter would be brought to their attention when we advertise the event in 2019. I also welcomed her suggestion of using the village hall as an alternative venue given the increasing numbers we are attracting to the event.
At the end of June Mike Eades organised another tour to the Dieppe Raid Cycling weekend; this time the party was eighteen strong. In July Ian Bolton organised another week of cycle touring in West Brittany. September saw five members having a long weekend away at Wellesbourne cycling the Warwickshire Lanes. Most recently eleven cyclists spent the last weekend of October in Gloucester exploring the local area.
Judging by the multitude of posts and photos posted on Facebook and Strava many of our members have experienced cycle touring over the summer months in places far and wide.
Friday 25th May 2018 was the date when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into operation. Interpretation of the regulation varies vastly between the different voluntary bodies with whom I am involved. The information I have received from Cycling UK this year is a list of 473 names with their membership number. Many of those names were just a surname with initials. Also on the list are 14 affiliated clubs who are attached to our group.
I am not sure how many active members the group has. When Matt sent out a request to members to opt in to receive the newsletter only 95 members responded. With no access to lots of members via emails Facebook and Strava have become the main conduit to communicate with many of the membership to inform them at short notice that a led ride is cancelled because the temperature at 10am at the ride meet up location is less than four degrees Celsius. The club’s social media sites are accessed regularly by over a 150 members.
At the beginning of August each year a good number of members accept the challenge to ride The Club One Hundred which has been organised and managed by Gale and Tony Tibbins. Unfortunately only two members indicated to Tony that they wanted to ride this event. Due to this poor response The 2018 Club One Hundred was cancelled.
On one Tuesday evening when the Cooper Room was unavailable ten regular attendees spent the evening clearing and tidying the area around the ‘Cyclists Bridge’ over the A38 near Weeford.
In September instead of their joint ride The Boldmere Bullets (one of our affiliated clubs) sent out an invitation to all local clubs to be involved in a fund raising event for their local charity of the year Acacia Mums. This charity support mums suffering from post-natal depression and has so far helped almost 10,000 mums. There was no charge for entry but a donation to the charity was expected. There were a range of courses to ride from 50k to 200k. Over 200 cyclists took part in the well organised event and raised in excess of £11,000.
The Cycling UK North Birmingham Members Group committee has met five times during the past year with an average attendance of 84%.
Here ended the 2018 Annual Report of Cycling UK North Birmingham Members Group.
Mike Fowler Esq. Hon. Sec. Cycling UK North Birmingham Group 20181106
Election of Officers:
The following officers agreed to continue their roles for another year. There were no objections.
Chair: Matt Hinkley
Treasurer: Paul Griffiths
Secretary: Mike Fowler
The following members agreed to do the following roles:
Sundays Rides Sue Jinks
Tuesdays Rides Julie Snook
Wednesdays Rides Sue Perry
Thursdays Rides Ian Bolton
Fridays Rides Paul Griffiths
Saturdays Rides Groups 1, 2 & 3 – Vacant
Saturdays Rides Groups 4, 5 & 6 – Dave Frost
Membership Sarah Hinkley
Social Julie Snook & Ros Llewellyn
Welfare Ros Llewellyn
Presentations:
Martin Whitehouse and John Llewellyn were both presented with trophies for the hard work they provided on more than one occasion at Charity Cafes and Refreshments at the 2018 Audax.
Any other Business
1. The Year 2020 will be the centenary of Cycling UK North Birmingham Members Group and there will a need to have a Steering Sub Committee to plan celebrations for this event.
2. John Bedford produced a list of concerns that he asked the committee to address at their next committee meeting. He didn’t think we should discuss them now as we may be here for a long time.
The meeting closed at 9:00 pm.