Colchester Rovers Cycling Club
Committee Meeting Minutes
Monday 13th November, 2023
At Stanway Village Hall
1. Committee Members Present:
Nick Swainston, Malcolm Hargreaves, Margaret Hargreaves, Justin Smith, Helen Arnold, Colin White, Paul Meadows, Matt Haigh, Ray Robins, Tom Starmer, Simon Wilson, Peter Hall, Jonathan Whall, Jackie Mortlock
2. Apologies for Absence:
Nick Rowley, Elaine Rowley, Nicky Swainston, Greg Andrews, Kelly Phillips
3. Approval of Previous Minutes
Proposed by Paul Meadows
Seconded by Colin White
4. Matters Arising from previous Minutes
None
5. Treasurers Report
Maggie presented the Club accounts. The balance is sitting at £41,032.29. Total monies paid in this month was £1264.68 and withdrawn £2254.19. The monies paid in were club Membership fees, Eventbrite monies, Dragon race and TT payment from Colin plus other miscellaneous items. Expenditure this month was mainly Levies for the Centurion races, Rider Leaders course, CBC for Northern Gateway, CTT signs, ECCA renewals.
Tom asked about the Youth Account and how we move this across to the main account. We are still awaiting the hand over from Robert Wood to Jonathan Whall and then hopefully we can move things forward. Peter said that he had about £350 profit from the cyclo X and would let Maggie know as soon as he has finished the accounts. Peter asked if there was any way that we would could get a better rate of interest on the savings account and perhaps transfer across some more money from the main account. Maggie said that she is looking into this at the moment and report back.
6. AGM
With the AGM only a few days away Nick decided to change the agenda a little and discuss this now. The main thing being that of the Secretary’s role as we have had no nominations for this role. Nick said that in light of this we have to have a plan in place and suggested that we rotate this on a monthly basis with all Committee members. Some of the Secretary’s role will be picked up by the Treasurer. The chairman will pick up the Secretary’s emails.
Nick then went on to talk about the Chairman’s role and that there were 2 members standing and as this has not happened before he proposed the following: Each person standing will present to the membership at the AGM as to why they think they are the person for the role. The presentation will not be less than 5 minutes and no more than 10 minutes. There will be a vote at the end of the AGM and Nicky has very kindly offered to count the votes. The name of the new Chairman will be announced at the end of the meeting.
Malcolm mentioned about the recent survey and Nick went through some of the replies. It was agreed that we would have this as an agenda item at the AGM to discuss it further.
7. Membership
The Committee welcomed the following new members. Alan West, Barnaby Burgoyne and David Williams. We had a total of 5 Renewals.
8. Road/Circuit
Greg sent his apologies but did say that he is hoping to hold The Tony Asplin Memorial Road Race on the Abberton circuit in June. This will be a Ladies race. Nick said that he has booked Layer Village hall for the Jock Wadley Road Race on the 10th March 2024. Maggie has contacted Andy Blower the Regions Race Coordinator and he has confirmed that there will not be a date fixing meeting this year.
9. TT
Matt said that he had seen that CTT do not accept 20mph limits and that this will not affect most of our courses but will course problems for TTs being held in Wales etc.
Nick (Chairman) said that he and Nick (Rowley) would be looking at putting the TT calendar for 2024 together very soon.
Paul said that he had a date for the diary of 21st April for the Reliability Ride. Simon said that he had 30th June for the National Grass Track and has provisional dates of 5th and 12th August for the summer Cyclo X.
10. Cyclo X
Simon said that in previous years we have been relying on Hilly Fields for our Cyclo X but Peter had been trying for some time now looking for an alternative venue. Peter has very recently organised and run a very successful Cyclo X event at Northern Gateway. Simon previous to the meeting had distributed the course details of the Northern Gateway and the way he would like to progress this. The course is being used at the moment on Saturday mornings for the youth. Northern Gateway are willing to have us use the land for our Cyclo X and is happy at the proposal to build the course that Simon has planned. Simon asked if the club was willing to support his plan. The Committee took a vote and agreed unanimously for Simon to proceed with this.
Colin said that we should not put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to not using Hilly Fields. Nick (Chairman) said that Hilly Fields is very restrictive and that no events can be run on parts of the fields. We need to look at alternatives and Northern Gateway is a great opportunity.
Jacqui said had we thought of perhaps using Mersea Outdoors as a possible future venue. The Committee took a vote and agreed unanimously for Simon to proceed with this. Perhaps we could also apply to BC and other streams for some funding. We would also like a buy in from Northern Gateway and have some promotion of the club (i.e. A board advertising The club)
11. Funding for Isaac
Tom put forward his costings for the rounds that Isaac was wanting to compete in. This is National level Cyclo X and they are held at Derby, Torbay, Bradford. Tom outlined the costs of approximately £500.00. It is written in the club rules that we will help and support riders if they compete at a National Level. The Committee sent Tom out of the room so that we could discuss it further. The Committee agreed the funding and Maggie was asked to organise the funds. Going forward the club need to have a set criteria for the funding and publish it to the membership so that we can go on to help all our youngsters. ( Maggie has since obtained £250 from the Eastern
Counties Cycling Association (The Bolton Fund) towards Isaac expenses going forward) We are very grateful for this.
12. A.O.B.
Nick (Chairman) informed the Committee that he had been told that Jo Lifford (who was a member
of Colchester Rovers) has now taken on the role of National Volunteer Officer at BC.
Date of next meeting is Monday 11th December.
The meeting closed at 9.15pm
Margaret Hargreaves
Club Secretary