West Highland Wheelers Committee Meeting held at Marian’s house on 17/5/22

Present – Doug, Marian, Gregor and Norma.

Apologies – Mark, Norman, Iain, Ailsa, Gill, Jacqui, Dave, Steve.

Bike Park

• Around £500,000 funding has so far provisionally been raised for the bike park. The aim is to raise £555,000 which would include everything, including the lighting system .
• Velosolutions have formally been invited to build the pump track.
• It was agreed by the committee that the club would pay £2873.56 to EB Scotland in order to be able to access a grant of £25,000 for the Bike park. It was agreed that this was the club’s contribution towards the bike park and would not need to be refunded from Lochaber Wheeled Sports Society at a later date. Gregor did not take part in this decision, however Ailsa and Jacqui put in their vote earlier in the day.

Winter League

•  The buffs to be given to everyone who completed 3 races this year have been caught up in the Shanghai lockdown. Maybe we could just use them next year?
• Going forward to next year it was agreed that, as ever, it is important to make options so that a wide variety of riders of differing skill levels can participate.
• It was agreed that it would before every race next year to give all riders a polite reminder about the correct etiquette as to letting faster riders pass.

Time Trials

•  The Scottish Cycling policy on club confined Time trials has changed – “  club confined time trials should involve no more than 80 riders, cover a distance of no more than 25 miles and be confined to first and second claim club members only plus any invitees  who are not members of any cycling club and who have been invited to participate with a view to joining the organizing club”
• A rider may now participate in “club confined time trials” of a maximum of two clubs in any calendar year.
• Marian will let NACC Know that they can now take part in our club confined time trials.

 Wednesday Nights

•  The introductory Wednesday at Nevis Range with 3 different levels of rides was very successful and bought in a number of new riders. Going forward, it was decided that it would be good to have regular rides like this at Nevis Range. It was suggested that to hold them on the 2^nd and last Wednesday evening of each month would be a good idea.
• Suggestions for possible new venues included -Caig falls path , Achnacarry, the Devil’s Staircase at Kinlochleven, and the Fersit loop. These rides would probably be for more experienced riders only .
• It might be worth trying to ensure that there will be separate groups from the start rather than everyone setting off together and people feeling pressurised into keeping up with the fastest riders.
•  If we have a night at Wolftrax in the future it would be good to ask about maybe having the café open.

Kid’s Club

•  Going well but for one reason or another we are struggling to get the right number of coaches for this block of sessions.
• The last session before stopping for the summer holidays will be the 18^th of June, The aim would be to have one session on the Blue Doon and one at Wolftrax before the summer break.
• Marian and Gregor will liase with regards to checking that we have got a list of all coaches and current up to date qualifications.
• Doug to contact Simon at Highland First Aid about running a first aid course in the near future and on a regular basis going forward.
• Mark Clark is keen to organize level 1 and level 2 coaching courses. Gregor will liaise with him regarding possible dates and prices. We should have at least 4 youngsters ready to do their level 1 qualification.

 Coaching

• It would be great to have Ben Cathro or someone similar coming along and doing a weekend of coaching for all levels of riders as we did a few years ago. In the first instance Gregor will check with Ben regarding any availability for later in the year.

Web Site and Social Media

• Minutes are not necessarily read by everyone so It would be great to have newsletters sent out on a regular basis letting members know of ant upcoming events. Perhaps every 3 months or so?

AOB

• Helping to run the Scottish Enduro Series Races at Nevis Range  brought in £440 to the club. Ther were some really great results from club riders at the event
• Lisa MacGilivary is going to organize someone to take over the running of the electric trishaw project. Lochaber Hope seem keen but as yet they have not confirmed. It will be necessary to find someone soon to run the whole project or the funds will have to be returned to Highland Council. Bridget is currently working on this.
•  Many thanks to Mark and Bridget for the amazing job they did in moving the shed to its new position at Nevis Range.  The roof is leaking a bit – maybe we could contact Stewart about how we might best fix this?
•  Membership- It is currently cheaper to buy one adult and one child membership rather than family membership. Unfortunately, the website will currently not recognize two individual memberships bought from someone using the same e mail address. Not everyone has 2 e-mail addresses , so it was agreed that we could have a new membership category at least for the time being. Rather than calling this category “small family” it was decided that it might be easiest to describe it as “ one adult + one child”. For next year it might be worthwhile either increasing the junior membership slightly or reducing the family membership slightly so that we do not have this issue.
• Tops – Doug to order 10 tops of each size.
•  Gregor thanked the club for the donation of £2,873.56 towards the funding from EB Scotland.
• Marian has renewed the insurance for off road events – we are currently covered for 15 events.

Bank Account – £8400

Next Meeting – Provisionally planned for August the 16^th at Gregor’s house.