edinburgh rc cycling club

Monday 10th May
1 Kittle Yards

ERC Committee Meeting Minutes
Mon 10th May 2010 1 Kittle Yards 19:30

Present: Simon Bullock, Ken Whitson, Graham Jones, Jonny May, Colin Russell, Phil Darby, Peter Ness, Cliff White, Dougal Allan, Gareth George, Jennifer Lang

The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed and approved. CW noted that the action to consider a novice road race had been passed back to Tom Chrisp and Henry Thomson.

President’s report
Tim Bartlett had queried Border City Wheelers on their run leaders’ insurance. They lead rides under their CTC insurance. It may be that we change the wording on our website and literature to describe run leaders as ‘contacts’ rather than ‘leaders’.
Action: KW/CW/GJ to review wording in handbook and website in conjunction with our junior policy.
KW has investigated the option of holding a series of crits in August in Craigmillar. This would require a Temporary Road Closure Order from the Council at a cost of approximately £100 per order.

VP report
Scottish Cycling have agreed to sponsor Ingliston this year. Event renamed – Scottish Cycling Ingliston Series. Jen has already invoiced them for the cash!
Martin Currie – Bid submitted in January for Youth and Junior sponsorship. Trustees say they are very supportive but award needs to be split between their main sponsorship budget and the charitable foundation. They have requested lists of the additional benefits they could expect for this support. This information was sent to them early in April and the outcome now awaited.
7 potential sponsors, forwarded by Edinburgh Council, have been approached.

Secretary
37 riders competed in the McCulloch time trial and a new course record of 21:40 was set by Silas Goldsworthy.
A request was received from the Bethany Christian Trust for 85 signs. Agreed that this would be declined as we do not have enough signs.
A newsletter had been received from Edinburgh Cycle Speedway.
Invitations had been received from the organisers of the Ken Laidlaw Sportive and the Fresh’n’Lo sportive.
A follow up e mail was received from Action Medical Research re the Cross Border Challenge and the Trossachs Ton looking for volunteers. Agreed that this would be advertised on the forum.
Details of potential swim coaching were passed on to PN.

Membership Services
The Ingliston Youth Series had created a lot of extra work.
40 new members had joined this month.

Treasurer
There are large payments due for Ingliston and Super6 levies. The balance is also slightly inflated by early entries for the Lothian Flyer.
Sponsorship of Ingliston was received from Scottish Cycling.
Field and Lawn’s first sponsorship payment for the year was missed. I have followed this up and we will receive two payments in June.
Brynley Davies was re-imbursed in full for his level 3 track coaching.
Penny Rother was re-imbursed for 50% of her level 2 triathlon coaching. The other 50% was met by Triathlon Scotland.
The only other large payment was for the final Ingliston balance. This should be offset in full by the as yet unbanked Ingliston entries for the last three events.
All sections are well within their budgets for the year with the exception of Equipment and Members’ Services which is already overspent. This is due to the cost of the club handbook. Agreed that in future all spends greater than £250 would be approved in advance by the Treasurer and relevant Committee member(s).

Coaching
There has been a large turnover of club bikes.
Greig Walker is repairing the bike donated to the Club by Bob Cockburn.
Action: CR to investigate the purchasing of youth bikes through the Bike Station.

MTB
MTB forum created on ERC website
MB7 contacted re running mtb skills courses
MTB skills courses advertised throughout ERC
BC contacted re mtb leader insurance - reply suggests we have to:
•    train up more TCL's
•    organise first aid courses
•    look at the existing format of led rides

RTTT
Funding
Race Entry & Travel Expenses Refunded in last month:
•    RTTT Budget
•    Men’s RR Squad

Road Racing
2 of the Men’s RR Squad – Henry Bird and Tom Lettice - have had success racing down south and have now achieved their 3rd Cat licence.
A third member - Charlie Billington - is currently the top-ranked 4th Cat rider in Scotland.
The Squad is still without a Team Manager, the role effectively being filled by Calum MacLean, with assistance from myself and input from Colin and Ross Crook.
Jo Merritt is actively encouraging ladies to compete in a small number of Club Women’s Team target races:
•    Wed 19th May: ESCA 10
•    Thur 27th May: Spring Classic APR
•    Sat 19 June: Lothian Flyer Road Race
•    Sunday 22nd Aug: Womens Team TT
In order to help encourage ladies to take part I’ve offered to refund entry fees for those entering.

Track
Thanks to Ross Crook for organising a very successful Try the Track day on April 17th – an impressive total of 20 riders took part.

Time Trialling
ERC riders have consistently been getting amongst the results in the last month with some impressive performances in the MTT series and a strong showing in the McCulloch 10 – squad member Tom Lettice taking 2nd in only his second TT (and 1st 10 miler!).
Jessica Wilson-Young continues to perform well against some very strong opposition in the Rudy Project Series.
The Kirkliston TT Series rota is now finalised.  In order to make things slightly easier on the night I’ve added the role of Assistant Timekeeper to the rota.

Multisport
A multisport Sub-Committee Meeting took place in Dalry, 27th April 2010. The following are extracted minutes from this meeting:
Squad.  Martin confirmed that 10 people have accepted places on the squad.  Squad training is about to get underway with a regular Thursday evening cycle session at Silverknowes.  Martin is also trying to book the uni pool to do swim analysis. He also has the power beam equipment from Gareth and will book the squad members in for a session over the next couple of weeks. We discussed the best way to spend money on the squad and agreed that subsidising some races, probably national championships was a good idea.  Also, the possibility of purchasing a top branded with squad details to help market the concept.  It was also suggested that we use some of the budget to purchase something that could be used in future years – a helmet cam is an option. The feedback on the squad has been fantastic with several people aiming to be selected next year (this is all positive as helps with the broader goal of winning the club champs as all these extra people will be racing to achieve club points). 
Action: DA to forward rider agreement to PN
Action point: Martin and Linda to continue the good work around coaching the squad.  Ali C to look into clothing/other equipment.
Edinburgh Racing.  Elise and Oonagh O’Brien are co-ordinating marshals on behalf of Edinburgh Racing.  Numbers look a bit tight for Midlothian but hopefully we have enough time to get marshals for the other races. 
Action point: Elise to update at the next committee meeting.
Coaching Update.  After the success of race practice days, it was agreed that we should do something at Lochore, probably on 29th or 30th May.  The idea would be that the squad would do one session, coached by Martin (and Penny) with an open invite to the rest of the club which would be coached by Linda – possibly with a focus on skills (open water and transitions).
Action point: Martin and Linda to confirm dates and send an email to club.
General budget.  Other ideas for budget – summer social BBQ and buying wetsuits for hire (some suitable for kids).
Action point: Linda to speak to the tri centre re cost of wetsuits.
Tri kit and caps.  The tri-kit has been distributed to all those who ordered and the extra kit paid for by ERC has, by and large, been sold.  Given the time scales of ordering kit, it is unlikely we’ll do another order until the start of next year.  Swim caps, sponsored by Finishline Timing, look great and we have started handing out white latex to all ERC members and red silicone to TS race licence holders.  Thanks again to Finishline Timing.
Action point: Louise to sell remainder of kit and hand out caps.
Training Weekend.  The recent training weekend in Peebles was a huge success.  A big thanks must go to Martin, Linda and Penny for coaching.  The feedback from members was really positive with people really liking the skills sessions, as well as the race pace session.

Clothing and Youth
Youth paperwork is being updated for parental consent.
Morag Lamont has secured sponsorship from RBS for volunteering.
ERC juniors are participating in Track League.
There were several notable performances at Ingliston.
The main clothing order has been received and a subsidiary order is en route.
Action: PD to contact Impsport regarding large black strip down the side of the clothing.

ERC political agenda
Agreed that we would communicate the open cast mine plans to members and leave them to act as they see fit. In the future, each case will be reviewed on a case by case basis and the Committee will either decide to actively promote an issue or simply highlight the issue to members.
Action: CR to post open cast mine plans issue on the forum.

Club dinner
Agreed that this would not organised during the month it was taking place and a sub-committee would be formed to plan this.
The ceilidh venue, band and catering has been booked for November.

Super 6
Colin Baird (East Lothian Council Area Road Network Officer) has requested a meeting prior to each race taking part in the area.
Action: KW/DA/CR to meet Colin Baird prior to the Spring Classic.
Action: KW/CR to e mail a copy of the route to the Colin Baird.
Agreed that we should be seen to be demonstrating consideration for the local community that races pass through and race organisers should be encouraged to think of ways of demonstrating this by eg making a donation or clearing up litter.

Sponsorship
The current disclosure of sponsorship sources and the spending of the monies was discussed. It was agreed that the Committee were satisfied that the current levels of disclosure in the handbook were adequate and that the accounts and disclosure of the spending of the funds was readily available to any member at the AGM. The accounts are not published on the website because we do not wish other organisations or clubs to see them. JL pointed out that all budgets across all sub headings are discussed close to the start of the financial year and agreed at Committee level. Thereafter the spending across these sub headings is monitored and overspends highlighted and discussed at Committee level. Sponsorship monies are not allocated to specific sub-headings but rather are included in the entire available spend at the start of the year.

AOCB
CR reported to PN that John Whittaker, race referee at Midlothian, had commented that “the race was woefully short of marshals”.
Action: PN to follow this up and pass these comments on.
Agreed that J Johnstone should not be permitted to both commentate and drive at races and that if necessary a headset would be purchased for him.
Tunnel sprints at the Innocent Railway will be considered as a future event.
The club confined insurance has been clarified by SC. Only 1st claim members are covered.

For Next Agenda
Coaching pathway. Discuss paper submitted as part of CW’s May report.

n.b. It is committee policy not to publish details of club finances on the web - if you would like a full unabridged set of these minutes please contact club secretary Jonny May.