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Thanks for the contribution Paul. Have to take issue with one bit though: "Enough for now". Not going to let you off the hook that easily! You have given a good discription of your aspirations for your riding and make a good suggetion to make someone responsible for recruitment. Other than that can you think of [i]specific[/i] stuff we should be doing extra or differently? What do you reckon to "Like my Bike's" suggestions further up the thread?

Yes, I like Andy's ideas. I think the key thing is that the areas where we want the club to grow or develop then it needs an internal 'champion'. If you want more members someone need to be the focal point for new members so they are well informed and made to feel welcome. If you want to make the ladies feel more welcome then why not see if someone wants to champion their cause. I also don't think it would harm to have someone look at social/family events.

I'm fairly late to this discussion but is it bourne out of seeing other clubs that seem to do things better? If so why not visit the type of club we see as a successful blueprint and pinch their ideas?

I hope I'm not sounding critical as I think the club is in fine fettle...but you did ask for ideas.

How about I put a 'newcomers' section in the cliftonite (end of February in time for the new season) with stuff about entry-level racing, sportif type riding, fitness...whatever.
I'm not writing it though - I'll put together bits people want to contribute, but I don't know enough about the subjects to write it all myself!!!

I'm interested in Paul's perception of the club as - possibly - heading towards being a race-orientated club. It interests me as I think there are, in a way, two levels to all of this discussion:- there's what we do, and what people think we do.

Within the club there are about, what.. a dozen people who race regularly.. ..a little over 10% of the membership? The bulk of the membership get up to all sorts of non-competitive riding. Even given the feeling at the last meeting that we should as a club encourage members to maybe step up from social rides to challenge rides, from challenge to competitive... this is very much about offering new challenges, not about funnelling people into some sort of lean mean racin' machine.

There's been lots of work behind the scenes this year to get press coverage of racing sucesses. Perhaps we need to balance this with more publicity of other activities - the trick will be finding where it "fits" in the press if it's not on the sports pages - and how we go about "marketing" ourselves in other ways. There have already been some promising suggestions in this thread.

I think a "newcomers" pack is an excellent idea, but I wouldn't put it in the Cliftonite. Any newcomer gets the introductory first year membership so it should be simple to target the pack just at new members - it could go out with the membership card (yes! What membership card?!). Given that paper printing costs money but web space is (virtually) free, I reckon some re-structuring of the website would be worthwhile too, to get a chunk of info on there which relates to new members, or existing members moving into new riding territory - sportifs, racing, TTs or whatever.

I really do agree with the idea of a membership secretary who has a development role - they're not just logging names, but they're thinking about how the club can grow. I think alongside that we could well do with considering if other new committee positions might be worthwhile ("sponsorship secretary"? "MTB co-ordinator"? whatever..) as a way of spreading the load and giving more members a chance to be involved in running and shaping the club.

I'd also echo Paul's comment about the club being in good shape. I've only been a member for three years and I'd hate to seem like some johny-come-lately who barges in, says everything's crap and it all needs changing. The club's doing great. And.. ..the offer of more sponsorship has sparked a fascinating conversation within the membership about how it could be even better, which I think we should make the most of.

Can someone take overall charge of Tuesday's meeting, the last meeting made some progress but a facilitator would help direct conversation, log ideas and get some sort of agreement in principle. Maybe nominate someone on the night any thoughts?

I've lost a little bit more hair since the last meeting and dont want to end up like Kojak come Wednesday (Im sure Im not alone in this)

Steph, you are suggesting that you would like to ride a TT event, going off at minute intervals, as fast as you can, but not actually take part in the competition? The courses are fairly straight forward and not a challenge to "get 'round". So what's left? Why ride? I'm not being sarcastic or anything - I'd like to get to the bottom of what you (and other people you may be representing) want. There maybe another kind of event we can invent. Or maybe we need to explain how you and others can "get your kicks" from other stuff we already organise.

Genuine question.

Rob, what I would like (and have probably failed to communicate) is a fun way for me to gauge my progress and improvement through the year. It doesn't have to be during a race being staged, I just thought that would be a ready made structure that would be easy to slot into.

It's easy on a mountain bike ride to gauge improvement (I didn't get up that climb last time; I descended that without crashing; look I'm not dead yet etc.) but a bit boring to go out by myself on the road and ride the same route with only the clock for company. I really liked the idea of the reliability ride although I didn't manage to get out on it last year. At the risk of suggesting something, perhaps a ride over a route like this that is repeated a two or three times over the summer? It would be fun to ride with people you know, while all the time mindful that the clock is ticking. It wouldn't take any extra organisation (would it?) other than announcing what dates they are on.

I would have had a go at the various audaxes but they are just too long and the minimum pace probably a bit quick for an ordinary recreational rider like myself.

The audxes certainly aren't too quick for you, and sound like they might be the sort of thing you are looking for.

Thanks Steph, I do understand.
Arthur is right, the minimum speed in an Audax is usually 15 kph, any slower and you'd get a parking ticket anyway.... and there are many at 100km.

I've always thought it far easier to gauge fitness on the road as there are less variables. On an MTB you'd have to get off every so often to measure the mud viscosity

But, the important take home message is that you want some non-competitive "fitness trials" to measure yourself - we'll chuck it into the pot.

Can someone take overall charge of Tuesday's meeting, the last meeting made some progress but a facilitator would help direct conversation, log ideas and get some sort of agreement in principle. Maybe nominate someone on the night any thoughts?

I've lost a little bit more hair since the last meeting and dont want to end up like Kojak come Wednesday (Im sure Im not alone in this)

Nick was running the meeting last time but did it in a very hands off fashion as he didn't want to look like he was imposing any particular view. I suggest we give him the OK to be a bit firmer with us.

I agree that it would be good to be closing this one down now and making some decisions, but I'd council that there is no rush and we could do damage if we get it wrong or move without consensus.

As long as we're out in time for Arthur to get that round in......

An idea about something completely different (apologies if this has been discussed/flogged before) -- club discounts.

In the past I've provided a discount to a tri club. I know this club quite well and also know they have a volunteer sponsor/supporter coordinator position who did the legwork and put together a nice range of discounts for team members and their spouses/SO.
http://www.bostontriathlonteam.com/sponsors.html
The most impressive thing they managed to negotiate was a 20% discount in the local bike shop. And you have to hand it to the bright spark who thought to ask for free beer (and got it).

In the good ol' days I had my clinic name right under Dunkin Donuts logo on the race singlets , but more importantly as a local small business owner I got some website advertising and marketing, and the members (and more importantly, their SO) got something practical. I'm doubt people joined the club because of the discounts, but this club has a waiting list of prospective members and I know for a fact none of the other Boston tri clubs do.

The downside to trying to negotiate discounts is that someone who is into marketing needs to take responsibility for drumming up local business support.

Anyway, just a thought. If you've been through this before, just ignore it.[/url]

Hey, this is all very "full circle" given that this debate was kicked off by Cycle Heaven's revised sponsorship proposals. (For those that weren't around a year ago, CH get their logo on the back of our kit in return for stocking the kit at a nominal handling charge, and in acknowledgement of their support of the annual RR. They've proposed greater support - in return for the club committing to various activities - hence the current "where do we really want to go?" debate. Aside from the more contentious elements of their proposals, there's a blanket 15% discount - 10% on bikes - proposed for all members).

I did quite a bit of asking around among other cycling clubs via the net prior to us entering into the current deal with CH. A number of responses were positive about sponsorship - though often the most positive were in respect of things like website design or hosting; practical things directly for the club, rather than the members. A number cited bad experiences with sponsorship deals with members and their businesses, due to various fallings-out, and suggested caution.

Your posting raises an interesting point tho - advertising on the website. One of the problems with names on jerseys is that for each official sponsor, we have to pay both British Cycling and Cycling Time Trials an annual fee. I'm guessing this wouldn't be the case with sponsors who simply got advertising on the website? If so, it could be something to look at - the site's getting quite a lot of attention these days.

I won't be at next Monday's meeting (unless I get away from an evening work commitment in time to turn up late) so I thought I'd stick my thoughts on here instead - and maybe it'll kick some discussion into life too.

Much of what follows is my interpretation of discussions – feel free to disagree not only with what I suggest but also with what I recall.

The previous two meetings about "where do we want to go" seem to have agreed on some strategies, principally:-

We want to increase our membership, and in order to do that we will:-

-Continue to push for sports coverage in the local press
-Work to get non-sports (fitness / health / lifestyle) coverage in the local press (and we’ve started to make moves to achieve this)
-Consider getting a twice-annual glossy published and distributed via the bike shops (separate from Cliftonite)
-Consider getting club noticeboard at CH / other shops
-Get club business cards printed so we can leave them in cafes / stick them in passing cyclists’ hands / etc
-Re-vamp the website to make it even more useful to newcomers to the club
-Look at appointing a membership secretary with a specific role to work for increased membership
-Look at ways of market researching why some people don’t stick with the club after initial rides

We’ve generally sort of agreed that while the club isn’t all about competition, we want to offer more help to members who *do* want to move from social rides to challenge rides, and from challenge rides to competition. To do this we will:-

-Sort out some “how to…” pages for the website
-Sort out a jargon-buster page on the website
-Structure the Saturday training ride to suit varied abilities and to encourage newcomers
-Structure the Tuesday night chaingangs (when they re-start) to suit varied abilities and to encourage newcomers, and to include some informal coaching
-Look at how we can promote the TLI TT series more widely, to build upon its first-year success
-Possibly look at approaching the organiser of the Tuesday Boroughbridge TLI road races to see if there are ways of encouraging women and newcomers

We’ve also talked a bit about coaching, and the aim of trying to offer something within the club which is a resource for anyone who wants to make use of it, but is particularly there for young riders who want to develop within the sport. We’ve not got to the bottom of this as “coaching” means different things to different people, but we’re looking into it. It might just be advice pages on the website, or it might be employing someone, or training up someone in the club. It’s one of the things that needs talking about a bit next week.

Lastly we talked a bit about organisation within the club, and the aim of perhaps making changes to reflect where the club now is and where it’s going. The general point was made that maybe we need “champions” within the club for specific interests – for example MTB – who take a lead on organising things and provide a point of contact for anyone new who’s interested. We also talked about the need for more people – perhaps some of the recent new members (don’t be shy) - to take on responsibilities so everything doesn’t always fall on the same few people. My personal view is that we need some new committee posts – I’ve already mentioned membership secretary, but I think we also need someone to deal just with sponsorship (general and for specific events, and not necessarily solely with CH) and I think having someone who is in overall charge of publicity (press liaison, website, publicising events, everything) would also be good. Paul and Cath do a bloody good job of getting race reports out, and Arthur does wonders keeping the website running, but I think giving someone responsibility for making it all work together would be a good plan.

So.. ..sponsorship. Andy Shrimpton’s original “conditions” for increased support of the club were mainly about increasing participation in cycling of children / families / women. The feedback at meetings seemed to be that we couldn’t commit to Go-Ride; that we might be prepared to put on a family event. I think the stuff we’re already proposing, and in some cases already actioning, shows we’re working to similar aims. I think we could, possibly, say we’d review Go-Ride on an annual basis and would look at working with it *when* we have sufficient members to spread the load. If we’re working at attracting members through non-sporting publicity, we’ll attract both women and men.

The third “condition” was a seat on the committee. Well, we’re always happy to have volunteers for committee positions, why don’t Andy and CH staff join the club and stand? Road race assistant? Clothing officer? BC representative?

Lastly Andy says we should put our fees up. Personally I agree with him, *subject to* the club giving more back. I know plenty of people disagree with this though. I reckon we all spend a fortune on bikes and equipment and shouldn’t begrudge a few quid more on fees *if* we get something more back. Which leads on to..

…what do we want in return?

My suggestions are:-

-Support for as many as possible of the things we’ve said we’ll do – printing/distribution of twice-yearly glossy, cost of business cards, help with press/publicity, sponsorship for TLI TT’s and advertising of them, possible sponsorship of women’s/newcomers’ challenge within the TLI road race series
-Support for coaching in whatever form we decide is most appropriate
-Continue support for club road race
-Increase stock of clothing
-Members discounts at the shop. Andy’s proposal was for basic discounts (10-15%) to all members and “staff” discounts (30-50% on sports equipment) to regular racers. I think this is fair *provided* the “staff” discount is given to regular road racers, regular open series TT riders, and regular riders in mass-participation events – after all, this is when CH’s logo gets sat in front of the biggest number of cyclists. And this year we were often in front; we’re an excellent club to sponsor, so let’s be confident about both what we can do, and what we can ask in return.

This is a massive rant, and I apologise for going on and on, but I think it’s important. Have a good meeting on Monday, folks.

I think having someone who is in overall charge of publicity (press liaison, website, publicising events, everything) would also be good. Paul and Cath do a bloody good job of getting race reports out, and Arthur does wonders keeping the website running, but I think giving someone responsibility for making it all work together would be a good plan.

This makes sense. It's a divison of work - someone to decide what to publicise and maybe write (at leastd some) copy and others to put it up. So Jo publicity bod would say to me 'We need something on the website about X, here's some text', and the website techies could make it happen.