Presidents Report for 2010/2011

Club News and Announcements
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geoff m
Posts: 1072
Joined: 13 Nov 2006, 20:41

Postby geoff m » 16 May 2011, 13:20

Hi, here is a record of the President's Report for 2010/2011 for the past year. Congratulation to Simon for taking on this role for 2011/2012 - well deserved and we look forward to the club going from strength to strength.



Presidents Report – Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club AGM 5th May 2011
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
• Grow club membership and participation faster than the CNSW average of 12%

The core strategy of the club remains solid, sound and unchanged. We’ve managed to continue with steady progress against these, with some significant advancements in some areas over the past 12 months.

Membership

This time last year we had 117. This year it is about to break the 200 barrier – we are currently at 195. That’s a whopping 66.6% increase in membership in just 12 months. It confirms that our strategy of inclusiveness for members is attracting more people in the community, to ride, and socialise through DHBC.

Membership is as follows:

Member Category Number % Male % Female %

Juniors (all categories) 18 9% 14 77% 4 22%
Under 23s 3 2% 3 100% 0 0%
Elite 27 15% 22 81% 5 19%
Masters 65 33% 56 86% 9 14%
Recreational 82 42% 65 79% 17 17%
Total 195 100% 160 82% 35 18%

Our club continues to be attractive to Masters and but we’ve seen an absolute relative growth in recreational riders, as we would expect through our popular Saturday slowies rides as well as Waterfall training rides.

Importantly, our focus on juniors and women are starting to show signs of momentum. One year on, our juniors are three times the size in numbers, half of whom have full racing licences. And our women numbers have grown 133% to represent 18% of club numbers, up from 13%.

Fellowship

Its not all about racing. In fact for many, its not about racing at all. Having healthy fun with others on bikes, topped off with coffee and good company, is equally appealing to many of our members.

Much fellowship is mixed with racing and charity rides – over 18 members participated in the Alpine Classic, and enjoyed evenings together carbo loading. We had 12 tour Tasmania in the lead up to the (washed out) Penny Farthing Championships. And, up to 30 people took over the town of Bundanoon for the Fixie Century ride.

Thank you to the 80 plus members who came to the Club Christmas party at the Newington Inn – it was a huge success.

Training and Racing

Our regular 4 Sunday rides – Cruisers 25s, Cruisers 28, Middies and Fasties continue successfully. I do think there are some 28s who do need to move up to the Middies.

Last year we had a the launch of the Dulwich Hill Criterium out at Dunc Grey and this format has been relaunched for this year as a 7 part series. This racing has necessitated us to train up four to five more commissaires to officiate at these and other racing events.

For two years running we have taken out the RACE ALL WINTER (aka RAW) Championships thanks 40 or so racing participants. In addition, we took out several State and Australian medals on the track, including Masters and women categories.

We are proud to again announce achievement at the international level, this time in the taking of two medals on the road at the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne

Lastly, our Juniors have launched on the competitive scene just missing a medal in their first team sprint on the track. They have also participated in criteriums at Heffron Park and Sutherland.

We’ve moved from first place at the Women’s C Grade at the Tour of Canberra last year, up to 3rd place in B Grade just two weeks ago.

Dulwich Hill again attended Australia’s oldest and dearest classics – the Grafton to Inverell and the Melbourne to Warrnambool.

And mountain biking boasts much more in 2011 than its own link on our forum site – 3rd place in the Female Open at the Dirt Works 100k Mountain bike race, and 13th for the mens team out of 196. How impressive is that!

Our holding of the National Men and Women’s Penny Farthing Championships top honour is safe for another year thanks to some terrible rain which washed out the event for the first time in about 30 years.

And its good to see widespread participation in criterium and club races and not just at one or two venues – this past year Dulwich Hill has been represented at Sutherland, Heffron Park, Macarthur, Nowra, Beaumont Road, West Head, Sydney Tennis Centre, Lansdown Park and Eastern Creek.

Juniors

Congratulations again to Michelle Brown, who, with the support of Phil Kelly from the Southern Cross Cycling Club, and many of the parents, has created a sustainable junior’s program. With trebled numbers of juniors we are seeing more and more venture out beyond the track – this includes road training to Centennial Park and Waterfall as well as the abovementioned racing above.

Women

Like the juniors development, I’m very proud of the work various members have been involved with (particularly Jessica Llewellyn) in promoting women’s cycling. The Club recently launched the Women’s Introduction to Veledrome Cycling Program, and has seen 3 of 8 programs delivered. From as many as 8 women turning up on the first wet rainy day, to 19 at the most recent event, we are seeing recreational members of the club giving the veledrome a go. We’ve also attracted 5 new members to the club, specifically for this training, just through word of mouth and our reputation. Its clear that we will continue to grow our female numbers, both recreational and racing, and have some further achievements to celebrate this time next year.

Finances

Finances are stable and healthy – we saw $24,344 drawn out of the account, and $24,431 put through the club. We just managed to cover track rental costs, and spent about $2,500 more on stock than we’ve sold, but have build up reasonable stock waiting to be converted into cash. Our cash bank balance is $13,168 – similar to last year.

Apparel

Christian is also to be thanked for his patient procurement and administration of various new club kit – bib nicks, hats, socks and long sleave jerseys, in addition to our regular jerseys and skin suits.

We’ve now become a big club, and thankfully, a good looking club.

Community

Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club continues to represent all segments of the community and provide a lot of support. Last year we supported club members David Bonne and Scott Gilbertson in their charity ride Coast to Coast For Kids charity (http://www.c2c4kids.com.au). This was mainly through helping build their skills on our training rides and through financial donations by members. They finished their 3000km ride into Centennial Park, flanked by a number of DHBC riders, and subsequently announced raising over $200,000 for their cause.

DHBC is now recognised as a leading community organization – in 2010 we were awarded Winner of the Community Contribution Award at the Inner West Courier 2010 Business Achiever Awards. In some ways this is more satisfying than some of the prestigious cycling awards we’ve taken out – as this demonstrates our point of differentiation as a cycling club which makes a real difference in the community we live. Well done to all.


In closing

The Club relies on the hard work of our volunteering members and there are some more people to thank.

One is Ron Webster who who has held the role of Public Office for many, many years, up until tonight. Ron was one of the few regular members in the club back in 2005 when I joined and I certainly remember how Ron provided me with support and protection in those early scary days riding out to Waterfall.

And we also lose a Treasurer of the past two years, Marian Lee, who has helped introduced greater rigour to our cash management, and improved our cashflow management. Thank you Marian.

When I joined the club 6 years ago, we only had one training ride of 5 to 9 regulars to Waterfall and maybe 20 or so members. Much of the organisation fell upon the shoulders of Lindsay Munks, and it wasn’t long before Lindsay decided to ‘train up’ a few new members to share the load, and help expand the club. Before I knew it, Lindsay had me nominated as Club President in 2006 and 5 years later I can say that, with great satisfaction, the club has continued to rapidly expand and grow, with a great heart and soul. Most of you will know I’m not the most talented competitive cyclist, but I do enjoy a good ride, and everything else this Club stands for, and I have also enjoyed bringing some of my organisation skills to running of this club, working with many of you here today. We’ve got some great talented members active in this Club so it’s the right time for me not to accept another year’s nomination, and for someone else to steer the club forward – with the support of the committee and members. I’m still hoping to continue to contribute through other committee roles, and I know you will join me in supporting the next Club President.

Geoff Martin
Club President 2010/11

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Karzie
Posts: 709
Joined: 03 Nov 2008, 17:14

Postby Karzie » 16 May 2011, 16:46

Thanks for for all your effort on the front Geoff. Time for a wheel suck!


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