AGM MINUTES – 14/11/24

Minutes  West Highland Wheelers AGM 14th November 2024

7pm Lochaber Rural Complex

Present Dave, Jacqui and Daniel Parfitt, Nix and Damien Forster, Gregor Muir, Stefan, Emma Pearce, Bridget Thomas, Chris Waters, Doug Little, Alastair Maclennan, Steve Bradley, Claire Abernethy, Gill Barnes, Norman Clark, Henry Cairns, Bronagh Wishart, Ruari Watt, Marian Austin, Andy Rogers

1 – Apologies  Karl Bungey

Dave thanked everyone for coming along and the Rural Education Trust for providing the venue.

2 – Minutes of 2023 AGM  Proposed as accurate by Gregor Muir, Seconded by Emma Pearce

3 – Chairman’s report

The club has had members competing in a wide range of mountain bike competitions over this year from mini dhs  to world champs, just missing Olympians.

Notable achievements

Cross country/ Cyclo cross Lily and Isla Cant and Kai and Aaron Tressider have been flying the club flag for these, ( as well as competing in other disciplines) winning the Scottish Schools Mtb mixed team champs.

Lily Cant got 5 x 1sts and a 2nd across SXC, 10 under the Ben , Tweedlove and Muckmedden

Isla Cant was 1st at Muckmedden, Tweedlove and an SXC

Kai Tresidder won all 5 of his SXC races and the series

Aaron Tresidder was young in his category this year but was still sitting 3rd in the series until his last race (which didn’t go as planned!) , he was also 1st junior in 10 under the Ben and 1st junior in the Fort to Fort and 7th overall. He was also 6th in the 1st cyclocross race of the season.

Es Tresidder has also been flying the flag in the cyclocross over 40s

Gary MacDonald had a quiet race season but still managed to win a couple of SXCs and become Scottish SXC champion in the 40 to 49 category

In Enduro Mia Jackson was 1st overall in the Hope womens enduro at Ae forset (1st in category and fastest lady overall)

Cole Jackson was 3rd overall in the national enduro series (U21) came 12th in the Open EDR in Loudenville France and was 3rd in the Southern Enduro series

Ava Marsh was 2nd at Muckmedden and 2nd at Laggan Tweedlove enduros

Charley Kennedy got a 1st and a 2nd at the Hope PMBAs, finishing 2nd overall.

Downhill.. In DH its been great to see loads of riders  (both male and female) from the club taking part across the different age groups with

In mini DH Archie Rodger was 3rd at Learnie, Mia Jackson was 1st in Learnie and Nevis Range and at the mini DH final at the World cup at  Nevis Range the club took 1st female in (U12), Lily Cant,  U14 Mia Jackson and U16 Isla Cant

At a National/ Regional level

Alexander Pervan was 1st in the SDA overall, 2nd in the Scottish Champs and 5th in the national series overall

Sorley Swabey was 1st junior and fastest time of the day in the national race at Glencoe and 2nd overall in the British series

Danny Parfitt was 3rd at British Champs

Mikayla Parton was 2nd at British champs

At the Scottish Champs club ladies took 1st (Nina Cameron) 2nd (Tiandra Anderson) and 3rd (Laura Jackson) and Marcus Scott took 1st in the 40 plus category.

Nina also took 2nd elite female at the British round at Nevis Range

At a European level Hollie Alderson, Aidan Baltrunas, Alexander Pervan and Mikayla Parton all headed out to race at the European champs.

At World Cup level the club was represented by 3 juniors (Daniel Parfitt, Sorley Swabey and Alexander Pervan) and by 2 elite females (Nina Cameron and Mikayla Parton)

Daniel Parfitt was 3rd at Nevis Range and finished 10th overall (and top British junior) in the junior male world cup standings.

Mikayla Parton finished 9th at Fort William

Both Daniel and Mikayla competed in the world championships.

Time Trials

No national level time trial competitors that we are aware of but thanks to Emma Pearce for organising the local series. 26 men and 12 ladies competed across 7 races. In the overalls 1st male was Oli Warlow, 2nd Robin Downie, 3rd Donald Paterson and 1st female Iona Hamilton, 2nd Emma Pearce and 3rd Nix Forster. No juniors competed this year.

The series included 2 gravel rounds this year.

Winter League

Last winter 7 races , thanks to Marian and Andy and everyone who ran them

1st male Liam Moynihan, 2nd Ben Miller,  (27 riders overall)

1st junior male Aaron Tresidder (and 6th overall) 2nd Alexander Pervan

1st female Lily Cant (also 1st U18) 2nd Katie Maclennan (14 in total)

1st Ebike Stewart MacMillan 2nd AJ MacDonald (5 in total)

U12 boys 1st Kaiden Springett

U10 boys 1st equal Kai Tresidder, Harris Thompson and Alastair Cant

Thanks to Marian for organising once again. This will be the last series Marian organisers so we are looking for  a new organiser to take over from her. No organiser will equal no winter league

Thanks also to Nix/ Lochaber Athletic Club for sharing their winter league dates so we could aim to avoid too many clashes this year.

There are 8 provisional races with the best 6 counting for the overall

Aim is to have kids races at at least 2 of the races.

Races will be free of charge to members, £5 non member adult and £2 non member child

There will also be the annual xmas handicap, thanks to Andy R for organising

Provisional Schedule
MonthDateVenueOrganiser
DEC8thDurorBen M
 22ndGlen Nevis (Xmas Handicap)Andy
 29thNevis RangeTBC
JAN19thCour loopDave
FEB2ndStrontianKarl
MAR2ndArgyllNACC
 16thAchaderryTBC
APR6thWolftraxLance
 20thGlen LoyMark C

Fort to Fort Held last Sunday in October, 25 riders making just over £130 for Cancer Research

Bike and blether rides are still going well,

Members have helped with adaptive sessions  at the pumptrack for disability Scotland and Glencoe House

Members have been helping at LTA dig days at Allt a Mhuillin and Erracht

Mandy and Claire ran a successful mini DH at Nevis Range (assisted by several other members)

Wednesday Night Rides continue. Thankyou once again to Gregor for keeping on top of the schedule and his unwavering enthusiasm and to Henry for finally taking this job off Gregors hands

Membership

Total members 432, slightly up on last year (416)

249 males, 168 female, 15 prefer not to say

4 – Treasurer’s report Thanks to Gill for keeping on top of the accounts

Gill had brought along  treasurers statements for the year to 1st November 2024 which were available to all attendees.

Approx £7000 at start of year, now just over £10000 in the bank.

Membership subs up slightly to £4235

Mini DH was a great event raising £1194

We have spent £1500 on training, 6 people have done level 2 training and 1 assessment

5 – Kids Club report

Great to see kids progressing from kids club to racing with special mention to Steve Bradleys group who started age 5/ 6 and several have now raced at world level

Kids club is running well, with 56 kids in place at the moment and a good band of 10 level 2 and parent helpers committed to helping each week.

We have 4 volunteers who have completed their level 2  training and are awaiting their level 2 assessment.

We have kids from Skye, Oban and Fort Augustus attending every week.

The waiting list currently has around 8 kids on it, unfortunately the running theme is 8-9 year old boys, we already have 2 groups of this age group and unfortunately although we have a fair amount of level 2 we do not have them all, every weekend – there are some spaces further up in the groups and ages.

The last session will be on the 7th of December, we will do the presentation of the most improved boy and girl then and serve up hot chocolates, at the moment there are no plans for club to run over winter, and we will resume after the Easter Holidays.

6 – Election of office bearers and committee

•              Chairman Dave Parfitt proposed Steve Bradley, seconded Gregor Muir

•              Secretaries – official secretary  Marian Austin proposed Dave Parfitt seconded Jacqui Parfitt

  • Minutes secretary…. No volunteer

•              Treasurer  Gill Barnes Proposed Jacqui Parfitt seconded Dave Parfitt

•              Membership  Jacqui Parfitt Proposed Gregor Muir seconded Dave Parfitt

•              Junior rep  no volunteer but Robbie Cant will ask Lily if interested

                Social / Website  Henry Cairns Proposed Jacqui Parfitt, seconded Marian Austin

General members Claire AK, Doug Little, Norman Clark, Karl Bungey, Steve Bradley all agreed to remain on committee

7 – AOCB 

As no one offered to run the winter league series it was agreed an email would be sent out

LTA Mark Clark reported they had had quite a good year with 13 digs organised, the next one planned for 24th November on the CIC path with Friends of Nevis, then there will be one in Glen Nevis in December and in February a dig as part of the mountain festival working on sunset with Trash Free trails, Tracy Mosely and Marcus Stix. The association works in 4 regions, Glen Nevis, Torlundy, Strone, Glen Loy. Trails are inspected every year and a hierarchy of need created from the most pressing issues, this directs the dig days. The 1st 2 years have focussed mainly on safety issues but now there should be more progress to trail improvement. Also looking at trails in Inchree to see if can do anything there.

Emma Pearce how folk could register interest that easier trails be built, Mark said that they have been working on Sunset to make it an easier trail but that in general they are maintaining existing trails rather than building new and it would not be appropriate to change the nature and difficulty of existing trails.

8. Trophy presentations

Quick end to the evening as no trophy winners were present! But trophies will go to the following:-

Most Improved lady Jenny Beattie

Benji Fair Memorial Trophy for most improved downhiller Alexander Pervan

Mens Time Trial Oli Warlow

Ladies Time Trial Iona Hamilton

Most improved junior male .. Archie Rodgers

Most improved junior female… Charley Kennedy