West Highland Wheelers Committee Meeting Tuesday the 8^th of December 2021 on Zoom

Present; Doug Little, Marian Austin, Dave Parfitt, Jacqui Parfitt, Norma Marshall, Steve Bradley, Mark Clark.

Apologies; Norman Clark, Ian Pooleman, Ailsa Pooleman

Trail Maintenance.

Steve brought up that it is important for leaders at Kid’s Club (and for the rest of us) to take care in deciding which trails to go down according to current conditions. A lot of damage was done to Rainbow Nation last Saturday morning following the previous days torrential rain.

It would be good in the future to try to do some more trail maintenance sessions after morning Club sessions. Learning about how to build trails and proper trail etiquette is an important part of what kid’s club should be about.

Xmas Handicap.

• Good to go for Sunday the 19^th Dec.  on the normal route in Glen Nevis. Meeting from 10.15 onwards in Braveheart Car Park.
• Everyone to bring presents up to a value of £6.00 for the lucky dip at the end.
• As per the Winter League races, High School kids can race unaccompanied. Primary age kids wishing to do the whole race need to be accompanied by a responsible adult.
• There will be a shorter kid’s version which will start after all the riders in the main race have left.
• Doug and Gregor are happy to help Andy out with course marking etc.

Winter League.

• Numbers for the first two races have been relatively low. Not too sure of the reasons for this but we definitely need to make sure that information about the races gets out timely. With this in mind, Jacqui and Norma are going to have a separate zoom meeting so that Jacqui can pass on to Norma tips as to how best to use mail chimp.

Provisional Schedule for the rest of the series is below

            DATE                                    VENUE                             ORGANISER                        KID’S RACE

Tuesday 28th December	Nevis Range – Clare Mackintosh Memorial race	Vince and Cammie  Mackintosh	Yes
Sunday 16th Jan	Barcaldine	NACC	yes
Sunday Feb 6th	Whitebridge, Invergarry	Vince Mackintosh	Possibly
Sunday Feb 27th	Strontian	Jo and James Tait	Probably
Sunday March 20th	Wolftrax	??????????????	Probably
April 15th – 18th	Easter
Sunday ???????	Nevis Range – possible Enduro?	Steve?	Probably

• Wolftrax are happy for us to come on the 20^th of March. For future reference, anyone organizing a race should contact Christian at Wolftrax in the first instance rather than Forestry to check if everything is ok. We need an organizer for this race ( risk assessment and course map have already been done by Jamie)
• The planned date for the last race of the 24^th of April clashes with a Scottish Enduro race at Nevis Range, so we shall need to look at an alternative date. Steve is happy to organize the race and will liase with Spook as to when would be a good date. It will definitely be important to limit numbers for the Enduro.

Committee positions.

• It would be great if Jodie was willing to come on to the committee. Doug will check with her if she is still interested.
• We need to get a youth representative. Maybe best to ask in a kid’s club email
• Paul Jefferies has offered to help with Facebook.
• We need someone who will keep on top of ensuring that all coaches qualifications are up to date and to look at organizing training courses.

Wed nights.

• Storm Arwen has ruled out Strone as a potential venue for some time. All the other venues which Gregor posted recently are good to go, apart from the odd fallen tree.

Time Trials.

• It would be good if Alastair, Dave, or Emma would be able to come to the next meeting in

February in preparation for next year’s series of races.

Kid’s Club.

• The last session before the winter break will be this Saturday the 11^th.
• Cory and Nina recently completed their level 1 British Cycling leadership course with Mike Pescod – many congratulations. Daniel, Cole and Joseph also did some training with Mark Clark to get them ready for doing the official course next year. They, together with Evan, Fraser, Kai, Kieran, and Rory have all been doing a fantastic job in the kid’s club sessions helping out with the leading of the younger groups. We are hoping to run another Level 1 course for 16-year-olds in the Spring.
• Many thanks to Lochaber Sports Association for giving us a grant of £380 to help with the course.

Pump Track

• It has been confirmed that the pump track received a grant of £290,000 from the Scottish Cycling facilities fund. A further £75,000 is required to get the project started. If anyone has any ideas how to raise this money, then Gregor would be very keen to hear from them!
• Other donations; Garfield Weston Foundation grant – £25,000

Adult Social rides

• Formal club organization of these rides will stop next Saturday. However, the ladies’ group have intimated that they will carry on organizing rides themselves over the winter.
• It would be great to start formally organized rides again in the Spring.
• James Bracher at Scottish Cycling has written an extremely positive article about the ladies group. We are not sure yet where (or when) it is going to be published.

Bank Balance

• Currently stands at £11,185. Doug estimates that it will go down to around £ 10,000 by Christmas as several payments will be going out soon for Child protection courses, a first aid course and Mike’s Level 1 course.

Any Other Business.

• Electric Trishaw -we have been awarded a grant of £9800 from The Highland Council Wards Discretionary Fund. This will enable the Wheelers to become a “chapter” of “Cycling without age” which has proven so popular in Inverness. The grant will enable us to purchase one electric trishaw, to get training for pilots and insurance and maintenance for two years. Lisa McGillvray is happy to do all the administration for the project. She will also store the bike in her shed in the first instance. Once the pump track project gets going, then this might be a good area to store it as Gregor is keen to get disability cycling involved with the project.  The initial focus will be to get care home residents out for small journeys.

• An order has gone into the Big Bobble Hat company for 50 Wheelers branded bobble hats. These cost £18 per person and the aim would be to sell them on at somewhere near this price. We are hopeful that they will be here by Christmas, but unfortunately this is not guaranteed. The Big Bobble Hat company can also do Wheelers branded buffs and it was agreed that these would be good to give out instead of T-shirts for anyone who completes at least 3 Winter League races.
• Marian has done a great job in collating much of the information required from Scottish Cycling in order to get club affiliation for next year.
•  It would be good for the club to organize a first aid course regularly every spring (and possibly in the Autumn) to help to ensure that all Leaders can stay up to date. It would also be good, going forward, to have a designated person who can keep on top of qualification requirements for all the leaders.
• To help to ensure that all leaders are members of Scottish Cycling it might be good to look at discussing whether the club pays for this cost – further discussion needed.

Next Meeting – Tuesday the 8^th of February at 7.00.