President & Treasurer Report 2010 AGM

[geoff m]

Hi all - further to updated minutes AGM minutes just posted up now, here is the content of the President & Treasurers Report which was handed and read out at the AGM. Any questions, feel free to PM me or approach an exec committee member any time. Regards
Geoff Martin

Presidents Report – Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club AGM 22nd April 2010

Our Stated Club Goals:

• Capitalise on building our membership base especially juniors and women
• Build upon the fellowship the club offers and social cycling, and not solely focused on competition
• To build a stronger training and racing culture for our competitive riders, including track, road and penny-farthing events
• To build a juniors program
• Manage club finances to ensure health surplus to achieve strategic objectives
• Enhance links with and contribute to the community and be advocates for cycling
• Attract female cyclists
• Celebrate and commemorate our centenary year in style
• Grow club membership and participation faster than the CNSW average of 12%

Again, I’ve highlighted our stated goals we’ve agreed and published in the past, and used in documents for council grants, sponsorship etc. When we review the past year, it’s always good to check and see how we rate ourselves against these goals, and how are we travelling going forward. Let’s just recap on the past year.

Membership

Our varied options and staggered starts continues to draw new members of all experiences and varied interests. This is what defines our club. People don’t feel intimidated by testosterone fueled drive-train peletons. Everyone can find a group to suit their ability. Social chit chat, and friendship, invariably over a coffee at our great sponsor Marrickville Road Café, helps cement these great relationships.

So what does our member composition look like and what does that tell us about our club?

Thanks to Stuart Hickson who recently procured the latest April 2010 list from Cycling Australian, I am proud to outlay our membership breakdown on the next page:

Member Category Number % Male % Female %

Juniors 6 5% 5 83% 1 17%
Under 23s 2 2% 2 100% 0 0%
Elite 22 19% 19 86% 3 14%
Masters 46 39% 42 91% 4 9%
Recreational 41 35% 34 83% 7 17%
Total 117 100% 102 87% 15 13%

Clearly our club is attractive to Masters aged members who like to compete sometimes to regularly.

This is then followed by a large recreational segment which is well represented on Saturday Slowies as well as our Cruisers Groups on Sundays.

Our Under 23s will ultimately grow as we nurture juniors which has had a great kick off year (more later).

Absolute women numbers are growing, but so does the club with more guys. Whilst women numbers are still at the low end, those who do attend are much more active on average to their male counterparts providing a much needed balance and diversity in what is traditionally a male sport. It would be great to give the same report this time next year and know we have one in five members being girls and women.

Its fantastic to have Marian Lee as Treasurer and Camilla Norman as Secretary this year, ensuring a much more diverse Committee. These roles are also probably the most time consuming on the Committee and their contributions this year have been a plus.

Fellowship

This is our club culture – its not all about racing. Racing is very important – but so is fellowship. The great atmosphere after our rides at our sponsors premises the Marrickville Road Café, get togethers, adhoc weekends away, and day and weekend trips to track, criterium , country road and even penny farthing events is all part of the experience.

Our website and online forum is still a key part of fellowship and club information for a big cross section of our membership. Thanks to Stuart Hickson and James Cheetham, you are seeing updates with our Forum, and more importantly Stuart is getting our website being rebuilt to a more modern and user-friendly website.

When launched shortly, the new website will house official club business, and the Forum will be more for members’ fellowship and personal discussions. This helps divide what is sometimes confusing between official club and personal business. Simon Sharwood will also launch a Code of Conduct for the Forum to ensure friendly, constructive discussion – sometimes a bit of clarity can help all of us navigate those areas of ‘grey’.

Training and Racing

We now have 4 regular Sunday rides – Cruisers 25s, Cruisers 28, Middies and Fasties. Once a month we even have the Adventure Ride bringing our Sunday rides to a total of 5 – an enviable feat for any club in Sydney.

Our Middies/Fasties fortnightly ride into Royal National Park has languished somewhat, and given ‘Hills Are Our Friends’ philosophy, I believe its important we continue to keep this ride viable – I’ll leave it to those interested to reinvigorate this ride, which forms a part of our official ride calendar.

Our investment 12 months ago to add another 11 Cycle Skills coaches has been valuable to help support our growing number of diverse membership. Whilst Dulwich Hill cannot guarantee to provide a coach with every group, our intention is to accommodate this support as much as practical – again thanking volunteers for providing their time and energy, where they can.

Hats off to Simon Llewellyn pulling together a regular Dulwich Hill Criterium out at Dunc Grey. Its been fun and successful and our Sponsor Friends at Marrickville Road Café have provided an impressive hamper prize for the winner. Our growth also highlights our weakness of resourcing to match the demand and we’ve had to commence training another five individuals as Commissaires to ensure we can manage these events on a more regular basis.

WE ARE THE RACE ALL WINTER (aka RAW) CHAMPIONS! This is the stunning achievement of 2009 and 2010 lead by Track Captain Simon Llewellyn and other cohorts. What a fantastic turnout, and outcomes, as well as female participation – we are the talk of the town. What’s 2010/11 going to bring?

Amongst a host of other achievements on the track, we also managed to win Bronze at the State titles for Team Sprint (Elite) and Team pursuit. Our track is having a renaissance which would make our members of the 1930s proud.

Masters represent 39% of the club and Matt Wallman taking out the Individual Pursuit in his category at the State Masters, and Joanne Troutman taking Silver in the Individual Time Trial and Bronze in the Scratch Race.

At international level, Shaun Colley bagged a Bronze in the Sprint event at the World Masters.

RAW was a significant event last year – but sentimentally so was the World Cup Track with International selection for Simon and Timothy Llewellyn for the Republic of Ireland, which happens to be my second nationality since 2005. These guys created a bit of a stir back in Ireland on the forum sites, and provided great track side and elevator discussion reports rubbing shoulders and racing against the best in the world, and reporting on the Belgium women’s team. Congrats Tim and Simon – again a great track year for DHBC!!!! Wow – what an experience most of us will only ever watch on TV.

Omnium and BBQs are now regular words in the DHBC vernacular.

Turning to the road, its great to see a surge in participation in a whole mixture of criterium events, whether its me down at Nowra Velo Club, or all or you at Heffron Park, or out at Oatley, Beaumont Road, Macarthur, or out near West Head, the Tennis Centre, Sutherland, Lansdown Park, and Eastern Creek, DHBC IS OUT THERE IN FORCE getting great road skills experience.

Probably our weakest link is participation and results at country road racing events. We need numbers and experience so I encourage everyone this year with a licence and a road bike to give it a go. Having said that, it will be a great start at Ken Dinnerville Memorial Race with about 10% of the starting line in Red.

Well done again to Tim Llewellyn for taking 5th place, coming in with the professional Drapac team at Cootamundra last August. This was one of our better results over the past half decade.

Not only do we have a third year reigning champion of the Men’s Penny Farthing Championship Huw Morgan, he is joined by Amy Vesty for the women’s category. Great result guys.

Let’s talk about Amy. From winning her first ever race in E Grade last year down at Nowra, Amy has come a long way and achieved consistent and solid growth in her results in track and criterium. Amy will take on the Road Racing circuit for the first time this year and we wish her luck.

Juniors

Last year we launched our strategy to start juniors training, and this year we achieved this dream. Ex-junior member (and rejoined member) Michelle Brown has been instrumental in taking this forward working with Lindsay Munks and Phil from Southern Cross to make this happen. We look forward to Juniors such as Hugo Venville being the Adam Hansen drive train of the Tour De France peleton in another 10 years or so.

The program is conducted every Wednesday at Canterbury Veledrome and already there have been excursions to Dunc Grey. Numbers are growing.

Thanks again to Sponsors Marrickville Road Café which provides $1000 per annum to this program, as did Woolworths Marrickville Metro with a kick start $1400 grant.

Finances

Finances are stable and healthy – we saw $39,181 drawn out of the account, and $41,543 put through the club. We just managed to cover track rental costs, and the same with merchandise, but with a considerable inventory waiting to be converted into cash. Our cash bank balance is $13,100 up $2,362. We are also now proud owners of a new PA system and Premium Gazebo.

Thank you to Weiyun Yu and Mike Clements for organizing the unenviable task of procuring and distributing jerseys. Gee – how good does the all RED look, look like all the way along Taren Point Rd on Sundays!!!

Thanks also to Christian for organizing DHBC branded bottles. These work wonderfully and those who haven’t got one, should consider a very moderate purchase.

Community

Simon Sharwood has made sure we feature regularly in the local press. Thankyou Simon. Our members continue to represent all segments of the community and provide a lot of support. As a club, we’ve donated membership to David Bonne and Scott Gilbertson, and actively support their development, so they can achieve their goal of raising $200,000 in August for the Coast to Coast For Kids charity (http://www.c2c4kids.com.au). It’s a 3000km ride, so no doubt you will hear more about how we can help further.

Special Mentions

We lost a member this year - Lionel Cox - to pneumonia on 9th March 2010. Lionel took great delight in racing against Dulwich Hill as a member of Marrickville Cycling Club and won a gold medal at Helsinki Olympics on the Tandem Track Event, following by an individual Silver within a few minutes of the medal ceremony. Lionel ended up in DHBC when demographics forced cycle clubs like Marrickville to fold. Both Lionel and in latter years, his son Brad, contributed so much to junior development for all kids of all clubs.

I think there would be almost 117 members of the club who can attribute their most positive experiences of the club to the voluntary support and encouragement of Lindsay Munks. I can attest to that personally. Lindsay has supported so many of us getting established. Lindsay has decided not to run again this year for ‘official duties’ and no doubt will continue to contribute ‘unofficially’ as only Lindsay can do. Thankyou Lindsay for executing your official duties for so many years, and we look forward to you continuing as part of the ‘brand’ of DHBC.

Lastly, we remember those fellow cyclists who have come to some form of grief this year, whether in Melbourne or LACC on the M4 so tragically. Some of us have an attraction to taxis as well. It’s a sober reminder of the risks of cycling we face every minute, but that of which we accept, and what we wish to change. I am proud how DHBC has become a leader in the peleton in obeying road rules and leading by example, with members actively campaigning for improved safety and facilities. Whether training on the road, or commuting to work, don’t forget, pull up fellow riders who give us a bad name, and pressure them to also take the moral high ground, so we can gain real credibility on the road, and effect change.

Geoff Martin
Club President 2009/10