Topic Title

Guys

With this year's Tour starting in London on 7th July there should be lots of great publicity for our sport.

We are running a 7.9km time trial on Friday 13th July to recreate the prologue event. This will be in place of our normal Thursday evening TT and will be open to all riders, not just club members, under the CTT "Come and Try It" banner.

We need to advertise this vigorously. It is an ideal chance to get people out to experience competitive cycling, and hopefully there will be many riders there who are putting a number on their backs for the first time.

We also need to make sure that it is run professionally and creates the best impression of the sport and of the Clifton CC.

I am organising the event, but will need plenty of help. I see the main areas as

1 Pre-race publicity.
We need to get the Press involved. We need to get riders along. We need the wider community to know what is going on and to support it - spectators to a TT?

2 At the start
There will (hopefully) be lots of newcomers. They need to be made to feel welcomed and supported. Perhaps we could run off a few bullet points on a sheet covering how to sign on, where to pin the number, warming up, arriving at the start line in time, being pushed off, etc. This could go online asap and be there to hand out on the night. A few club members milling around and looking to help might be appreciated.

3 The race itself
Course prep - sweeping corners, putting out signs, marking the start and finish lines - timekeeping, marshalling.

4 At the finish
Results up asap, pref on a board for all to see. Membership application forms to hand out, flyers for the club and its other activities, promote the website as a source of info, lots of encouraging words about taking the next step.

5 Post race publicity
Let's tell everyone how great it was. A write up for the website, photos, Press article.

Even if you are less optimistic than me about the numbers that might turn out, my view is that we should treat it like we are on show and give the best account of ourselves and our sport as we can. Just think how bad we would feel if we had just say 6 new riders but one of them missed his/her start time, couldn't find the result on the night or got overlooked and came away thinking we were not interested in them.

So please post your thoughts, suggestions and offers of help. And in the meanitime let's all please get talking about the event with every rider we meet.

Thanks

I'm happy to help with publicity.

I've done a poster/flyer for the event which I was aiming to get dropped in to the York bike shops over the next week. We should publicise it wider tho - York St.John's, the Uni, fitness clubs, running, tri and other sports clubs, secondary schools... ...where else? If anyone can think of anywhere they can put up posters, email me and I'll email you the poster as a jpg for you to print out (or will send paper copies if you can't print in colour).

I've also been in touch with Steve Lewis, the Press journalist who did the article on the Saturday Social Ride back in January. I'm trying to talk him into doing it; if he agrees I'll chat up Cycle Heaven into lending him a pukka bike. If he can't be persuaded, then has anyone got any ideas about how to turn it into a Press feature?

I've also spoken to CH about prizes. They're happy to talk to Met about putting up helmets for the more serious prizes (we've still got one from last year's TT series too) and Powerbar for less expensive prizes. I'm sure the more we can do to raise the profile of the event, the more CH and their suppliers can be persuaded to chip in. After all, CH sell Scott, David Millar will be riding Scott, etc...

I wonder if any of the local firms who specialise in display and presentation would like to sponsor us to the tune of a projector and screen so we could hook it up to a laptop and have the times on a spreadsheet posted within seconds...

I agree with Nick that it's a real opportunity to get new people along and make a real event of it. Would refreshments be too ambitious? A cycle racing DVD or two on that display screen during the signing on?

I'll do refreshments if you like - and I can help with signing-on etc at the hall.
Cath.

Cath,

If you like I could bake a few cakes?

Gill

Sounds great Gill, will definitely enjoy those.....might have to save a bit for the riders I suppose...

My daughter and a mate of hers (the Clifton cheerleaders at Thurcroft last year) have volunteered to be podium girls and refreshments assistants - I'm sure we can crank out a cake or two as well!

Do we have any contacts within the club with anything vaguely French where we could blag/borrow appropriate stuff? Tricouleur bunting? Baguettes? Any ideas?

My daughter and a mate of hers (the Clifton cheerleaders at Thurcroft last year) have volunteered to be podium girls and refreshments assistants - I'm sure we can crank out a cake or two as well!

Do we have any contacts within the club with anything vaguely French where we could blag/borrow appropriate stuff? Tricouleur bunting? Baguettes? Any ideas?

Do you mean red, white and blue? Sort of like, er, British?

What we really need for authenticity are some protesting farmers, fields of sunflowers, drunk dutchmen and most importantly, a new drug scandel breaking the night before.

Willy could do the drunk dutchman bit except he'll be busy running up and down with his trident....

Hi Folks

A laptop and projector would be a good idea. Being Head of Faculty for ICT and Business Studies at a school, I should be able to russle up a laptop and projector. I've supplied them before when in Hull for road races there. You could run the results, DVDs and even video footage of the event after the event.

Here's another thought. Why not make an instructional video on "How to Sign on" or something like that. I'm sure you could come up with ideas that would make it easier and less intimidating for the general public. The videos could be posted on the Clifton website. An introductory welcome video would be a good idea and an explanation of what a time trial is. You could intersperse this video with highlights of the TDF previous time trials etc. It is very easy to do. All computers with XP have windows movie maker.

I will make enquiries regarding a projector.

Offer of equipment sounds excellent to me Colin - many thanks! Nick? Yes?

I'm not sure anyone's likely to have the spare time to cook up a video, but I think we should stick something up on the website on the run-up to it. A very prominent link to a page specifically about the event? As Colin suggests, simple info about what happens when you turn up? Is that do-able Arthur?

I've got posters/flyers to all the main bike shops in town now. We've got a contact at York college too now. [b]Please could someone take on getting posters to health clubs / gyms / etc?[/b] I'll email info to our contact at York St.Johns. Could anyone with kids at secondary school (or contacts) get a flyer to the head of sports there?

I rode the course last night to kill time while me daughter was at a class on that side of town and thanks to the joys of GPS I have a profile for it now - it looks right dramatic if you get the vertical scale right!

I'm not sure anyone's likely to have the spare time to cook up a video, but I think we should stick something up on the website on the run-up to it. A very prominent link to a page specifically about the event? As Colin suggests, simple info about what happens when you turn up? Is that do-able Arthur?

Anything you want - just send me content. We've already got a good page about riding your first time trial that can be suitably linked in, so what we need is some text just about the event, illustrated with some suitable pictures.....

I'll send to gyms/clubs/schools Phil - any other suggestions? Also, will send a covering letter as well - have we got headed notepaper or shall I make something?
Cath

Further to the projector and laptop offer, I've also knocked up an excel spreadsheet which works out timings and positions based on start time and finish time and also the average speed.

You could quite easily use this for a mail merge certificate which would put in the individual riders number, time and average speed. This would be nice for them to take away. I've knocked up a rough certificate as well. Obviously you would like to create a certificate with a clifton logo. If you are having a laptop, it would be easy enough to bring a printer as well and produce the certificates. It would take just seconds as the mail merge would already be set up and would just merge with the results on the Excel spreadsheet.

Would make a good advertisement for Clifton. Its always nice to have something to take away.

Just let me know if you would like them. Its always best to do a dry run before hand.

Cheers

I've sent a few e-mails with phils poster attachment to several of the local running clubs, I know a lot of runners who like to train on their bike.

Also put up a poster on the Universitys noticeboard at the sports centre.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the enthusiasm.

I will be pulling together a bit of a plan in the next couple of days, and I will definitely be taking you all up on your offers for the day of the event.

For various reasons I would like to have at least one marshal on every corner. Any volunteers?

Nick

I have to do a risk assessment and send it off to the CTT as its a new course. I'll let you have a copy as soon as it is complete so that we're all singing from the same song sheet. Considering the nature of the event I think we should try and have someone on all the intermediate junctions of which there are four plus the two left turns?