West Highland Wheelers -Minutes of Meeting

25^th July 2023

Present: Doug Little, Gill Barnes, Gregor Muir, Dave Parfitt, Jacqui Parfitt, Marian Austin.

Apologies: Steve Bradley, Lorraine Whelan.

Actions from Last Meeting:

• Mark still needs to give us the costs for doing a Level 1 course on 2^nd and 3^rd September.
• Congratulations to Zoe and Chris for passing their Level 2 assessment. Andrew is doing his assessment in August.
• Gregor and Nathan still need to liase about doing a Scottish Cycling Club Protection Officer course.
• Doug still needs to contact Simon at Highland First Aid about doing a free 2-hour refresher course.
• Jacqui has sent out info about the rolling membership system in a newsletter.
• The website has been updated re Bike and Blether.

World Champs Fringe Event- Wednesday the 26^th of July at Achaderry Estate Roy Bridge:

• Scottish Cycling are giving us £300 towards hosting this event.
• Many thanks to Leon for hosting the event and coming up with the novel idea of holding a fun biathlon competition. The club will offer to pay Leon for any of the costs associated with running this event.
• Doug will do the BBQ.

Nevis Range letter:

• There have been some fairly significant communication issues recently between the club and Nevis Range. Gregor has drafted an email to be sent to Nikki at Nevis Range outlining these issues and asking for a meeting so that we can discuss how to address them and improve things going forward.
• Marian will forward this email to the Nevis Range Board of Directors
• It was agreed that Gregor, Gill, Doug and Ruari would aim to attend any prospective meeting.

Fort William Bike Park:

• Plans are well afoot for the opening of the Bike Park on Wednesday the 2^nd of August.
• Marshalls are needed to help with the opening event. Jacqui will send out an e mail asking for marshalls and ask them to get in touch with Ruari.
• As agreed at the last meeting, the Wheelers will contribute £7000 towards ensuring that the work is finished at the Bike Park. £3500 of this will be an outright donation and £3500 will be a loan to be repaid over the course of 5 years.

• Work on the 2 pump tracks is finished, however there is still work needed to finish the skatepark. For this reason, the bike park will be open for a couple of days and then will close again until the skatepark is finished and a security fence has been put up around the whole development.
• Once work is finished the bike park will not be open to the general public during school hours.

Opening hours for the public will be;

Mon to Thu 16.00 – 21.00

Friday 14.00 – 21.00

Weekends and School holidays 8.30 to 21.00

• During school hours, recognized user groups will be able to book time slots. The board of the bike park will need to approve these groups and there will be an annual administration fee involved. The wheelers will be a recognized user group and it will be necessary to appoint someone who can verify any Wheelers members that wish to use the Bike Park during school hours.

AGM:

• Provisionally planned for Thursday the 9^th of November.
• It was agreed that it would be good to hold it again at The Highland Soap Factory. Doug will liase with Mandy about this.
• As per the last few years, the bike park AGM will be tagged on at the end of the Wheelers AGM.

Fort to Fort:

• Planned for the last Sunday in October – the 29^th.
• All donations this year will go towards Highland Hospice in memory of Lyndsay Jarret.
• The aim this year would be to run the race starting from Fort Augustus. It would be good to avoid the road bridge at Bridge of Oich and go over the old bridge. Doug will make initial enquiries with The Great Glen Events team about getting this bridge open for the event.

Wednesday Nights:

• Going well, but it was agreed that there was a need to provide more info about meeting points for everyone.
• Rather than naming leaders it would be good to just say that “there will be 3 groups of differing levels”
• If Gregor is not going to be there and he has not found a specific replacement to run the teenager’s group then this needs to be made clear. Teenagers will still of course be able to come along but will need to join other groups.

Facebook/Social media:

• There have recently been some issues with people posting pornography on our Facebook page. Fortunately, these were spotted reasonably quickly and removed. In order to try to avoid these postings in the future Jacqui has locked as many settings down as she can on Facebook. For example, people will only be able to post if they have been a member for a month. It was agreed that we should monitor how this goes before deciding if we need to take stronger action.
• With the World Champs coming up Scottish Cycling have been reminding clubs of the need for websites to be as welcoming as possible to new members. Glasgow Wheelers website was specifically quoted as an example of good practice.
• It was agreed again about the need to find a social media person who can monitor/respond to facebook posts, send out newsletters, forward relevant info from Scottish Cycling newsletters etc.

AOB:

• BBQ – the need to do a risk assessment for this was discussed. We need to make enquiries about who could do a gas safety certificate for us and how much this will cost. In the meantime, Dave will see if he can get hold of a risk assessment for gas cookers from Nevis Range and we shall continue to do visual inspections and above all ensure that the BBQ is well cleaned.
• Tops – we need to make a new order of tops.  It was agreed that we would use Shredz again. After the World Champs are done and dusted Jacqui will send out a request in a newsletter for sizes.

Bank Account:

• Currently standing at £13507

Next Meeting

• Tuesday the 19^th of September at Marians house at 7.30