With The Lake District and The Yorkshire Dales on our doorstep - KDCS offers an exciting selection of cycle rides throughout the local area and beyond. There are social gatherings including slide shows, talks and supper evenings and members are kept up to date with cycling news and issues through this web site, emails and our Facebook pages. KDCS are an affiliated group of Cycling UK.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Ideas for the website/blog anyone?

Our committee get-together in March started with a bit of a discussion about the website - how we could keep the website more uptodate, how we could integrate it better with the blog and so on - but we quickly realised that we don't really know what KDCS members want. Is it the rides information that you come to the website for? Or the latest on campaigns (in which case you'll end up on the blog)? Or links to local gear shops? Or photos and reports of past expeditions? Or recommended routes in the local area? Or something that we haven't thought of yet? If you use other cycle websites, have you seen something that you think we could be doing better, on a more local basis (eg the CTC's pothole-reporting service - 'fill that hole')?

If you have any thoughts at all about how we could best use the website and the blog to encourage, inspire and support local cyclists - please let us know and we'll do our best to take all ideas into consideration as we develop.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Andrew Judson - influence in high places?

Kendal members will no doubt have noticed that the cycleway has recently been resurfaced. This work was carried out a couple of days after Andrew Judson accepted the position of KDCS Chairperson, so he obviously has influence in high places to get he work done and completed within a month of taking office.

Chair of KDCS

Following my request to members seeking a volunteer to take over as Chair of KDCS I am pleased to report that Andrew Judson has agreed to take over as Chairman on the understanding that his role will not include the additional duties of membership secretary and entertainments organiser. Andy Mason has volunteered to take on the role of entertainments organiser to include slide shows, the Xmas meal at Wilfs etc. I will retain the role of membership secretary handling enquiries via the website, referrals etc. but would look to reliquish this responsibility if a volunteer comes forward to take it on in due course. I think by splitting the Chairmans duties in this way it lessens the burden on one individual and should ultimately be a more efficient way of managing KDCS. Peter Raffle has the key role of arranging the rides list, Neil Hazlehurst producing the newsletter, Lois Sparling maintaining responsibility for uploading information to the website and of course Liz Ashburn and company taking the lead on campaigning we should have some stability for at least the next year. Andrew will look to hold a committee meeting in the near future to seek views on future direction of KDCS, activities etc. With Andrew being able to take on a distinct leadership role rather than the multi-functional responsibilities I previously held as Chair, I think we now have a positive way forward that will prove beneficial for the club and members.

I would like to express my thanks to both Andrew and Andy for taking on these roles as my continuing work pressures and family commitment pressures have severely limited the amount of additional time I have available.


Steve Warner