CYCLISTS’ TOURING CLUB, OXFORDSHIRE DA

Minutes of the Annual General Meeting
(click here for latest DA Committee minutes)

Held at The Dog House, Frilford Heath, Oxfordshire.

At 1pm Saturday 10^th November 2007

1. NOTICE CALLING THE MEETING. Published in the CTC Cycle Magazine, Oct/Nov issue

2. ELECTION OF CHAIRMAN. Steve Swanton was proposed by ET and seconded by PH

3. ELECTION OF MINUTES’ TAKER Helen Beane was proposed by SS and seconded by PH.

SS welcomed Norman Hayes, the National Councillor for SW Region, to the meeting.

4. APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE. Ann Cameron, Jan McCabe, Peter & Eileen Johnson, Peter & Ross Hallowell, Mavis Rose.

5. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING. Were read out. Proposed by PH Seconded by RB, and signed as correct.

6. MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES. None

7. SECRETARY’S ANNUAL REPORT.

Secretary’s Report to the AGM for the year ending 30^th September 2007

Introduction

Thank you all for coming and particular thanks to Norman Hayes, councillor for SW, who has agreed to talk to us about the Birthday Rides for 2008. As our own councillors live in Kent, Surrey or Sussex and I didn’t feel it appropriate to invite them from such distances to speak to us about the Policy Handbook but Norman has said he will field any questions which we have. I doubt if anyone will disagree with me when I say that the Policy Handbook has not made for easy reading but it all boils down to very little change.

Oxford City Section

The weekly Sunday rides have been well supported by typically 10-12 members. At Easter a cottage near Chichester was hired and a week of varied sights and cycling was enjoyed. Rain and wind reduced Whitsun Bank Holiday camping near Northleach to two members. Graham from Sydney has been back after a gap of four years and it has been good to see new members Bridget and Amanda out on rides.

The Section is to become Oxford City CTC as a Member Group or maybe it should be CTC Oxford City?

Oxon Midweek Section

The last year has seen numbers boosted by several new riders which has been very encouraging. Some successful joint rides with the Veteran-Cycle Club have been held. The highlight of the year was the Midweek Audax organised by Derek Boutle and helpers, entrants reached a record high of 62 riders. It had been thought that the Tuesday Lunch Meets would come under the Midweek banner but they have decided to remain independent.

The section has not decided, in view of the CTC Policy Handbook, what kind of group they will become.

Wantage Section

Numbers taking part in the all-day Sunday rides, which are held once a month,have been going down compared with previous years, but the splitting of the monthly Saturday afernoon ride into two, Easy and Moderate has been a big success with growing numbers joining both. Tuesday evening rides have been very popular with attracting at least 10 new members who now ride regularly on the Saturday and Sunday rides. Off-road rides have returned to the programme for the first time since September 2004.

The Mince Pie ride on 9^th December attracted about 50 cyclists and £575.45 was raised for Whizz-Kidz, this included a matching donation by Vodafone Foundation.

24 riders took part in a Back-on-yer-Bike ride in April and a Midsummer ride to Avebury with a 4am start attracted 10 riders. The Uffington Audax on 8^th July, suffered in attendance numbers as it clashed with the start of the Tour de France.

West Oxon Section

A good year with a variety of leaders and new faces joining the rides A variety of which have been held ranging from beginners’ pootles to all day thrashes round the Cotswolds and unplanned impromptus. One very windy day found three riders helping to rescue a narrow boat which was in distress. On 20^th July the section organised a Cycle Hero Climate Change event in Witney when times were logged of people walking, driving or cycling from several areas in Witney to the town centre, the following day Witney was sliced in two by an engorged Windrush after which the best method of transport for several days was the bicycle. The Charlbruy audax was marred by an accident and the ensuing legal action. The claim by the rider involved against the organiser is still being handled by CTC’s insurers Norwich Union. The Charlbury Autumn Audax has been cancelled

The Section haven’t decided whether to become an affiliated club, an informal or formal member group.

DA Events for members

The Mulled Wine Picnic was poorly attended.

The Oxfordshire Millenium Ride was proposed by Steve S. as a cycling contribution to the celebrations. The route was the now neglected Oxfordshire Cycleway which was covered in three days with a lot of cyclists joining in for part of the time and two of us completing the whole route. It was very enjoyable

BBQ – Mavis and Lou, with help from Sue and others, once again did the DA proud when they hosted the barbecue

Tri-Vets – Well, it turned out all right on the day, but the organising committee of Eileen, Ellen, Helen and myself had a lot of obstacles put in our way. The final hitch was that, because the certificates and badges didn’t reach me until the day after the event, they couldn’t be presented at the end of the ride. I sent to National Office a list of the problems we had encountered and Kevin Mayne apologised fully for the shortcomings in the support from National Office.

DA Bike Week 16^th – 24^th June Wasn’t well supported, partly because of bad weather and because a number of people were away. Numbers were down on the DA Pub night and the Treasure Hunt

Rides for Women were held in Oxford , Wantage and Witney but none attracted very many participants.

Forthcoming Events

Mince Pie Ride to White Horse Hill on 9^th December – hosted by Wantage Section, all are invited to join them.

CTC Local Groups Conference 29^th – 30^th March, to be held in the Midlands or Northern England.

CTC AGM, Northern Ireland – the preferred date is 10^th May but this is to be confirmed.

Women’s Cycling Weekend 7 – 8^th June (proposed)

Bike Week 14^th-22^nd June

York Cycle Rally 23^rd – 24^th June

Birthday Rides 2^nd – 9^th August

Mildenhall rally 23^rd – 25^th August

Connect2 is one of six projects competing for a single grant of £50 million from the Big Lottery Fund’s Living Landmarks: The People’s Millions. The winning project will finally be decided by a public vote on television in December 2007. If Sustrans are successful in their bid they plan to create local networks of walking and cycling routes in 79 communities. Locally this could mean a new tunnel under the railway line in Didcot for walkers and cyclists instead of having to share the current Cow lane with vehicles and a bridge in Banbury over the canal(?) which currently divides the community there. I’m afraid a bridge over Bablock Hythe doesn’t qualify in this context.

RtR

I saw mention of a DA Rights and Planning Officer and asked Alex Geen to tell me how this post differed from that of a RtR Officer. Her reply follows

“The difference between the two is as follows:

DA Rights and Planning Officer

A position on the DA Committee, voted for democratically by the DA membership. Not part of the RtR network.

Right to Ride Representative

Part of the CTC Right to Ride network. Not connected to the DA. RtR Reps apply for the position through Cherry Allan, CTC RtR Network Development Officer at National Office, who decides whether they are given the position of RtR rep.

The roles of both positions are the same. Both involve campaigning for cyclists’ rights. One person may hold both positions, and we encourage this. We are now looking at ways for the two networks to work together more effectively, i.e. the RtR network and the local groups network.”

James Dawton has agreed to stand as DA Rights and Planning Officer hence the motion as in the Agenda.

DA Committee

The DA Committee met four times during the year. Kevin Hickman, James Dawton, Steve Quartermain, Helen Beane and Brian Hipwell were at all four meetings, Eve Thornton and Jan Mccabe were at three and Pat Hurt and John Bridgman were at two. One meeting was abandoned as we did not have a quorum.

We do need to appoint someone as Welfare Officer, it is expected that this will be someone who is already on the committee with the exception of the Secretary. This will be the ideal year to be Welfare Officer because not many will be aware of your existence. I doubt very much if many Welfare Officers will be called upon to exercise their judgement. National Office is producing guidelines. Similarly one of the committee should also be Promotions Officer.

Many thanks to Roger Quartermaine for acting as our auditor for the past four years and to everyone who has worked towards making the Oxforshire CTC what it is.

Eve Thornton

NH Explained to the meeting that the problems experienced with the Tri Vets Event was due to the mismanagement by the Membership Department, which is outsourced. Kevin Mayne personally apologised and accepted that things could have been handled better and that lessons had been learnt. Proposed by SD and seconded by JB

8. TREASURER’S ANNUAL REPORT. Proposed by KH and seconded by PH.

1. PUBLICITY OFFICER’S REPORT. This post remains vacant

2. REGISTRAR’S ANNUAL REPORT.

Registrar’s Report to the AGM for the year ending 30^th September 2007

I am pleased to report that, for the second year running, membership listings have been received reasonably regularly and have appeared to be correct but on the downside some individual members have had problems which have taken a long time to resolve.

New members are sent a ‘welcome letter’, a list of local cycling contacts and the current Rides lists for all four sections. When available email addresses now appear on the membership lists and I forward on to Rides Secretaries listings of new members.

CTC total membership for last year was 55,516, the highest recorded since 1899. When I asked for this year’s total I was told it is just under 60,000.

In 1995 Oxfordshire DA membership stood at 648, in 2005 it was 858, last year 970 and the current figure is 1049. As we had 160 new members last year it appears that about 81 cyclists did not renew their membership.

Alex Geen will not, in future, be sending out membership lists from National Office, they will come direct from Membership Department.

In January this year I queried with Kevin Mayne the unsatisfactory practice of sending out only one membership card per household. His reply was that he only saw about two complaints a year about this and that because of the numbers involved it is expensive to manually intervene and put multiple cards in some envelopes. There had been some heavy criticism in the past when cards for the same address were sent out in separate envelopes.

I understand that if separate membership cards are wanted the onus is on individual members to contact Membership Department.

In previous years I have received from National Office a list of volunteers recognised as belonging to our DA. The listings always contained discrepancies with the information supplied to them.

I have not received a list this year.

Eve Thornton

NH explained again that The Membership Department is not part of National Office. The Management Committee accepts that the number of complaints is unacceptably high but The Chief Executive wants the Department outsourced. The report was proposed by SD and seconded by RB

RTR OFFICER’S REPORT. RTR report to the DA AGM 2007

I still get consulted by the OCC on schemes, with varying degrees of success, but it has been a pretty quiet year.

Consultation on the London Road scheme in Headington was fairly extensive.

The number of schemes sent out for consultation has been much lower this year; I suspect a reflection of the County Council’s highway budget. There were a number of positive items on the agenda, a new consultation strategy, a new cycling and walking strategy, printing of a new Oxford cycling map and a review of the Oxford cycle network with the aim of filling in missing gaps. All of the above are now on hold due to “more pressing” priorities.

Councillor Ian Hudspeth is now the county councillor in charge of scheme implementation; this is possibly an improvement as Cyclox have managed to get him on a bicycle to see some of the bad spots in Oxford. (‘Oxford Mail’ October 29^th) but the outlook is not good with the falling transport budget at the County Council.

James Dawton

RTR Officer

Proposed by RB and seconded by SD

3. RATIFICATION OF SECTIONS/GROUPS.

Oxford City CTC Section

Oxon Midweek Section.

Wantage Section.

West Oxon Section.

It was proposed that all four Sections remain. By the next AGM 2008 each Section must decided whether to become a Member Group or an Informal Group. Each to discuss with members and notify the DA Committee Proposed by PH and seconded by EL.

4. ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE (MAXIMUM 10)

Position	Nominated		Proposed by	Seconded by
Secretary	Eve Thornton		Helen Beane	Vera Friend
Treasurer	Steve Quartermain		John Bridgman	Brian Hipwell
Registrar	Eve Thornton		Brian Hipwell	Edith Hipwell
Publicity Officer	None
Minutes’ Taker	Helen Beane	Eve Thornton		Steve Quartermain
Section/Member Group Reps:	(Appointed by Member Groups)
Oxford City	James Dawton		N/A	N/A
Oxon Mid Week	Peter Hallowell		N/A	N/A
Wantage	Brian Hipwell		N/A	N/A
West Oxon	Kevin Hickman		N/A	N/A
Ordinary member	Pat Hurt		Steve Swanton	Ellen Lee

NB The positions of Webmaster and Deputy Webmaster are both co-opted.

14. MOTIONS TO THE AGM

a) That the name of the Oxfordshire District Association is changed to CTC Oxfordshire.

Proposed by: Eve Thornton. Seconded by SQ. 18 for, 1 abstaining 0 against.

b) That the post of DA Rights and Planning Officer is added to the existing posts on the committee.

Proposed by Eve Thornton. All agree. James Dawton elected, Proposed by ET and seconded by VF.

No other motions for this AGM were submitted to the DA Secretary during the stipulated time period, which is three weeks before the AGM.

15. Norman Hayes, CTC National Councillor for SW Region, came to talk about the BIRTHDAY RIDES 2008.

He explained that the Birthday Rides are run by CTC Holidays. The number of participants has been dropping over the years. The CTC National Office is keen to keep the tradition alive, and plan to stage the rides at The Fire Service College, Morton-in-March in August 2008. There will be an appointed organiser and help from members/volunteers from local DA’s and affiliated groups. Bristol DA, Coventry & Warwickshire DA, and Southern Wheelers are keen on the project. The site is very suitable for the event with accommodation for 300, and room for camping within the grounds. The College is situated on the edge of the town in beautiful countryside. The plan includes a Vintage Bike Rally, Slide Shows and perhaps a Ceilidh.

16. Policy Handbook for CTC Member Groups and Organising Committees, ET summarised the document

Points from the Policy Hdbk.

Council recommends that groups no longer use the titles ‘District Association’ or ‘Section’

District Associations will now be referred to as ‘Member Groups’

Sections that wish to receive the benefits associated with Member Groups should become Member Groups.

The parent Member Group (previously the DA) must at all times have a definition of the membership and activities of all other Member Groups within its control.

If a Section wishes to opt out of the DA it must go through the full New Member Group procedure.

Groups who have no formal membership, no elected members, little need for money and do not carry out events or publicity in their own right may be hosted as an activity rather than a recognised group within a larger body such as a DA. eg a Monday Section could become the Monday Rides with a co-ordinator as part of the DA committee but no other recognised existence. Such an informal group would take on the identity of the Member Group (DA) and share benefits such as liability insurance and publicity.

The title of all groups must include “CTC” i.e. CTC Central London, with CTC coming first must define an area of operation.

CTC members will be able to choose to be listed as a member with any Member Group. They must specify one as their “main” group, which is the only group in which they may vote at general mtgs.

If a member chooses to be listed with a Member Group that was previously a Section, their subscription levy will be claimed by that member Group. They will have voting membership of that group and also of the main or parent group.

Members specifying the main or parent group (previously the DA) will only have voting rights in that group.

Default is to main/parent group.

CTC members must personally contact membership dept if they wish to nominate other than the main group.

AGMs – Each Member Group must hold an AGM between Oct 15^th and November15th each year.

Meetings must be held at a time and location accessible to the majority of group members, be accessible by public transport, provision must be made for the less able. These are legal requirements.

Admission is obtained on production of current membership card. Registration officers must identify which members have the right to vote.

Member groups must have a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer and a person who fulfils the role of Registration Officer.

Each member group in a hierarchy may appoint one rep to each of the other member group mtgs.

The Secretary has to ensure that all committee members, ride leaders, event organisers and any other volunteers are registered as such with CTC National Office.

The Member Group Registration Officer receives details of CTC members who have chosen to be listed with that group. The number of members form is used to calculate the Subscription Allocation claim.

Groups must have capacity to promote CTC, CTC Charitable Trust and activities of their group, recommendation is for one person to carry one this function.

And an extract from an e-mail sent by Jill Kieran (CTC Council Chair)

To the Mid week Section

‘The new structure offers DAs and Sections the chance to stay the same if they wish-‘an umbrella’ for local administration. Current section groups can be an autonomous member group, if they wish, or link to the parent member group. If a very small group wants no admin, they can be an informal group of friends with no committee, who are part of the DA- perhaps sending a person to the DA committee.

The choice for you is:

Stay the same, register leaders, have a small committee (3minimum)-and be a member group linked to the DA (parent member group) who send in your financial returns for you as they do now.

Or: be a member group who have a committee, make all your returns to Head Office and be separate managing all your own administration.

Or: become an informal group of friends, who are part of the DA, letting the DA register your leaders and do any financial returns for you.

My experience so far is that most groups like yours are staying as they are, becoming a member group that is linked to the DA, calling themselves whatever they like, only using the term “member group” for Head Office administration.

I would emphasise that there need be little change-just an acceptance that legal, insurance, health and safety have required those responsible for cycling administration to update and review how we do it.

Norman Hayes explained that well run groups will not have to change.

In 1991 a Policy Document was sent out to inform groups how they should be run. There has been no change since then. Health and Safety, Data Protection, Disability etc are obligatory requirements and need a more formal framework. The new posts being introduced are Welfare Officer (formal), Chairperson (formal) and Promotions Officer. These posts should be voted in at the AGM 2008.

There was a general discussion about who takes responsibility for informing HO the names of Volunteer Ride Leaders. NH- explained that Section/Membership group secretaries supply National Office with a list of volunteers, who would be covered by the liability insurance. This is more cost effective than insuring all CTC members, who are already covered by third party insurance. This keeps the insurance premiums down and therefore the membership subscriptions.

JB asked if members who rode with a midweek section group and a weekend group should be listed as volunteers on both lists. NH will come back to ET on this point.

17. GENERAL DISCUSSION

a) EL asked what was the policy of children under 18 years riding, unaccompanied by a parent /guardian, coming out on club rides? SS – this is permitted if they have a signed consent from the parents. He advised good communication with the parents re issues such as getting to the start and collection at the end of the ride.

b) SS thanked Norman Hayes for coming to the meeting and for his contribution.

c) JB thanked the DA Committee for their hard work over the past year.

Meeting closed at 15:40 hrs.