MINUTES OF THE KDCS COMMITTEE MEETING HELD ON 20/10/2024
Attendees: Anne Brookes, Tim Goffe, Martin Slader, Dave Wills
Apologies from: Will Beck, Brian Woodward - both had submitted comments on the agenda prior to the meeting and these were included in the discussion.
Topics discussed:
- Finance
- Club constitution
- Club communications
- Rides and events
- Cycling campaigning/advocacy
- Next meeting
Finance
Martin reported that the financial position remains the same as reported to the committee in February with enough funds (~ £256) to meet commitments this year and next. We agreed not to fund the coffee and mince pies at this year's Christmas meal. We all agreed that having a regular subscription was not necessary, given the limited outgoings of the club and the overhead of administering it, but that asking for occasional one-off donations from members is a more acceptable way to generate funds. When this was done in 2019, it raised over £500 and has met all outgoings for the past five years.
We discussed the signatories on the KDCS account (currently Martin, Steve Warner and Neil Hazelhurst) but did not make a decision to change them.
Club constitution
Tim raised the question of whether the club had a constitution. None of us knew of a specific document but pointed to the Membership Rules and the KDCS Code of Conduct for members to abide by. Martin could not remember if Skipton Building Society required one in order to open the club account. We agreed to look into this further by researching a template for club constitution before deciding on whether we should make one for KDCS.
ACTION: Anne to research a template constitution.
Club Communications
Previous to the meeting, Tim had expressed some disappointment around communications related to what is going on in the club and had suggested that a newsletter might improve things and so we discussed this whole matter. We discussed the various ways that club information is communicated: club-wide emails, rider group emails (for road and MTB), the web pages and Facebook pages and also acknowledged that MTB riders and road riders are quite distinct groups and that not everyone uses Facebook.
Will's comments on producing a newsletter suggested that a quarterly email or blogpost might work well, with topics covering write-ups of rides, forthcoming events, any campaigning issues etc, but he also acknowledged the commitment needed to make this happen, from his experience of producing the KCC monthly newsletter. Tim offered to coordinate a newsletter but would give the matter more thought before committing to it. Brian also contributed his willingness to provide more help in updating the website. In our discussion, we supported the proposal of a newsletter, if the commitment is there to maintain it.
At the last committee meeting Anne and Dave had agreed to make a number of changes to the club website to simplify the content and structure of the blog pages. This work has not been done yet for a number of reasons, but both agreed to get the changes done in the next month or so and to present them at the next meeting.
In the discussion about Facebook, a question arose about who administers the KDCS accounts and accepts new members who request to join. Dave is one of the administrators and reported that there are numerous 'spam' requests and it is difficult to know who is genuine, without knowing the names of new KDCS members. We agreed to follow this up.
ACTION: Anne & Dave to find out Facebook administrators (ask Andy G) and develop a process for circulating new member details.
Rides and Events
While discussing communications, Tim expressed a desire to have more information in advance of a ride about who was intending to join the ride, so that he could decide whether to join or not and to help coordinate car-sharing. This mainly related to MTB rides and was partly due to an issue over e-bike and non e-bike riders. Will's comments also mentioned the problem of ride pace due to powered and non-powered riders, although he had no answer to the problem. The same situation also affects road rides although does not seem to be an issue yet. We did not reach any conclusions but agreed to discuss the issue again.
ACTIONS: Tim to discuss advanced rider information with Will.
All to discuss the e-bike issue at the next meeting and decide any actions.
On social events, everyone agreed that club social events were generally well-attended and a good way to keep members involved and to make new members feel welcome. Also, that the 'cafe bomb' events worked well to bring MTB and road riders together (even if they didn't mingle!). Tim agreed to organise more of these. Dave suggested that a social sub-committee should be formed to help organise more regular social events because he cannot do the role in addition to website updates.
ACTION: Raise this at the next meeting and call for volunteers to make a social sub-committee
Tim commented that the Away Trips are very successful (mainly with MTB riders) and that these should be extended to incorporate more road riders. This year, he hosted a planning meeting with other members who organised trips which was very useful for coordinating the trips.
ACTION: Raise this at the next meeting and call for participants from road riders to be included in the planning and coordination of Away Trips.
Cycling campaigning/advocacy
We discussed the involvement of KDCS in local cycling issues, campaigns and consultations. All agreed that the club is keen to be involved in local issues related to cycling and that it would be good to make it a committee role for someone keen to take it on.
ACTION: Raise this at the next meeting and call for a volunteer
Anne reported that the club had been invited to attend an online consultation meeting with LDNPA, Active Travel England and the councils, who are developing a cycling, walking and wheeling plan for the Lake District. She was not able to attend but the club can feed in our priorities by email. In Will's comments he reported that KCC committee had developed and submitted a series of proposals to the LDNPA initiative. In Brian 's comments he expressed an interest in collaborating on this.
Next meeting
We discussed the next meeting and all agreed to have an open AGM for all members in the new year. The date proposed was Wednesday 22nd January 2025. Venue to be arranged.
