2011 was a year of growth. Our Club grew larger, with the highest membership since it’s first year. Our youth race was larger than the year before, and went off without a hitch. Our cyclocross race nearly doubled in size, but also went off without a hitch. Thanks in large part to our friends from the City of Barrie. Our Monday night MTB rides had a lot more participants than in 2010 as well.

One thing we would have liked to see grow some more, is the club TT series, organized, and hosted by Mike & Judy Doble. Year over year numbers were pretty flat, though hosting our first Interclub TT on the new Ingram Rd. course did push our numbers higher than in years past.

Tuesday nights continue to be the most popular ride of the week, the dual start locations worked well this year, and our downtown ride leaders, Brad & Barb Watts worked all season to ensure that everyone enjoyed their time riding. Our learn to ride program was well attended, and a great success judging by the number of club rides attended by it’s graduates. Much thanks to Marc Brouillette for his time to lead the course.

The Club continues to be involved locally, participating as a member of Barrie’s Active Transportation Working Group. Recently planning has begun for Cycling Safety Week 2012. Plans will include a car free day downtown, and possibly the City will host a bike summit, lead by Share the Road Coalition leader, Eleanor McMahon.

The Club has also forged a partnership with the Town of Innisfil, and the Innisfil Rotary Club, and are helping to create and build a ‘Rotary Trail’ at the Innisfil Recreation Complex. It will include a multi-use trail, with XC MTB trails cut into some treed land at the complex.

In 2012, the Club will be offering expanded Learn to Ride programming, to be offered in the City of Barrie’s Spring/Summer leisure guide. We’ll be offering both learn to road, and learn to MTB programs, for youth & adults. In the spring, the Club cleaned and adopted a stretch of Ridge Road through the town of Shanty Bay. Following our clean-up, the County put a sign up, letting everyone know the Barrie Cycling Club is helping to keep the area clean. We look forward to the support of everyone, when it’s time to clean up again next spring. It took all of 2 hours to get it done this year.

Our interclub series with the Eagles, Mountainview and Owen Sound continues to be a great introduction to racing for many people. Next year we, along with Newmarket will work to add in a youth component for younger racers, who might like to become involved. The OCA is adding a skills component to the youth race series, it might be fun to add a skills component to one of the interclub races as well. This is something we’ll investigate and share with the club as details become available from the OCA.

One thing that never materialized in 2011, was a Club clothing order. We tried to get this off the ground a couple of times, but hadn’t seen enough interest to cover the minimum orders required by Sugoi. Some of you have placed an order, and left a deposit with me, I apologize it’s taken so long, but tonight I would like to Club to vote on whether they support the club investing some if it’s own money to ensure we meet Sugoi’s minimums. Provided that there is support, we’d like to place an order for January 2, 2012.

Looking towards next year, some things that I’d like to see us focus on are, expanding our Time Trial series. Perhaps partnering with the Barrie Baydogs Tri club, could see us have a TT each week, and share the burden of organizing and hosting amongst other people. As with most club events, we have a core group of volunteers that enable these events to happen, we need to see more members offer to help, and volunteer through the year, in order to ensure we can continue to provide all the events and rides that we do.

I’d like to see the club support a women’s only weekly ride, lead and organized by women. I have heard many times this year from women, who would simply prefer to ride with other women, and no men. We have tried these in the past with mixed success, but I believe if we can provide a regular ride, and get the word out, it will be successful in 2012.

We’ve recently sat at a table with the man behind Centurion Cycling, and the Subaru Ironman Series. They have a long term goal of creating an all women’s ride, that would start & finish in Barrie, and have at least 1500 participants. We’d like to work collaboratively with them to see this become a reality.

We’ve also been working to develop a proper, five year strategic plan for the club, that covers all aspects of what we could, or would like to see accomplished in that time. It’s something that has been underway for several months, and we should have something to show everyone early in January. This represents a big step forward in the growth and development of the Barrie Cycling Club.

I’d also like to see us continue to grow our weekly MTB rides, and of course the more people riding on Tuesday nights, the better. Next year may see us realize the addition of a third ride, catering to more recreational riders, who just want to get out for a cruise with some friends. Definitely let us hear your thoughts on these things tonight through the course of our meeting.

The Club has already submitted an expression of interest form to the OCA for our youth race, which will hopefully be held on Saturday, May 21. We’ll also be submitting an expression of interest form to host another Ontario Cup Cyclocross race as well.

Thank you to all of you. Our members, and executive, who have made 2011 such a great year of growth. Now let’s get into the discussion of how we can make 2012 an even bigger, and better season!

————————————————————————————————–
Barrie Cycling Club
Annual General Meeting
Dec 6, 2011 – 7:00 PM
Location: Liberty North Barrie

AGENDA
Welcome & approval of agenda

PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Attended:
Copeland Stewardship Stakeholders Meeting
City of Barrie Active Transportation Working Group

Reviewed:
Active Transportation Master Strategy – City of Barrie (preparing a response on behalf of BCC)

Actioned:
City of Barrie Learn to Ride Programming
Youth Race Expression of interest
Rotary Trail Construction in Innisfil with Town & Rotary
Bike week 2012, last week of May in Barrie. Will include car free day, possible Bike Summit with Eleanor McMahon

TREASURER’S REPORT

2011 Financial Statement

RACE DIRECTOR’S REPORT

2011 Race/Event Summary

 NEW BUSINESS/ANNOUNCEMENTS

Weekly Rides: How to grow the MTB ride? How to grow the Sunday touring rides? Add a Saturday touring ride?
TT Series: Should we connect with the Baydogs, and collaboratively run them? Possibility of an Inter-Club Time Trial series? Newmarket, Barrie & Mountainview to host 1 each at their home course?
Interclubs: Add a youth component, possible skills competition?
Women’s only ride: Can the BCC facilitate and support a regular weekly ride lead & organized by women in the club/community?
Clothing order: Spend club money to place an order on Jan 2? Vote.
Membership fees: Proposing an increase of $5/yr, to cope with rising insurance costs. Vote.
Youth Race: How to ensure we have enough volunteers for a safe race?
Leisure Guide Programs: Club to hire part-time coaching staff to facilitate this courses. Vote.
Initial Discussions with Centurion Cycling: Goal of a 1500 all female ride starting and finishing in Barrie. Looking to support youth programming and masters racing with the club.
HSF Spark Grant: BCC Submitting for funding to help develop ‘safe routes to schools’ and walking school bus programming within the City of Barrie.
Canada Summer Games: Enter a team from Barrie Cycling

Possible Grant opportunities:

Ontario Trillium Foundation – Possible Submission, March 2012
$5000 TD Friends of the Environment – investigating for next submission date.
Home Depot Canada Foundation (up to 5K for neighborhood improvements)
MEC – Up to $15,000 funding for community projects

ELECTIONS:

President, Secretary, Treasurer, Communications Director, Race Director & Youth Development Director

NEXT ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING: November 13, 2012

cheers,
robb

Just a reminder to everyone that the first Interclub Road race on the year is this Sunday, May 8!

The first race is the Oro Short course this year, and we’ll be meeting/signing in at the Oro Fairgrounds as per usual!

The Oro Fairgrounds are located at the corner of the 7th Line of Oro-Medonte and the 15/16 Sideroad East, 3km North of Highway 11.

Race starts at 10am, please arrive by 915 to get signed up, warmed up and to put your numbers on.

Looking forward to seeing lots of you there.

We do need at least 4 volunteers to ensure a safe race, so please contact me if you can help!

cheers,
robb

Due to the incredible number of events already taking place on Sunday, Sept 19, the final interclub road race has been rescheduled to Sunday Sept 26.

We apologize for the short notice.

cheers,
robb

Wow, Thursday already? Really? Ok, well, we had a fantastic Monday night MTB ride this week, 6 riders out, looking forward to more next week. We’ve made the decision to move the Monday night rides to 6:30pm, to make it easier for people to get there.
In addition to this, in a couple of weeks, we’re going to move the ride out to the 7th & Bass Lake Sideroad. The trails out there are even more beginner friendly than in Midhurst. Look forward to seeing you there!

Tonight we have the 4th of our 15km TT series at the Oro Fairgrounds. The weather is going to hold off, and I am looking forward to finally riding one myself. See you there.

Saturday is the second interclub race of the year, put on by the Mountainview Club. This is the Lafontaine course, and is a new one.
The race starts at 10am, so make sure you arrive in time to sign in, and get your numbers pinned on.

Sunday, weather permitting, will be our Adopt-a-Road cleanup day, so again, we will be removing the Sunday morning ride from the Calendar, and instead meeting at the Johnson St Parking lot for 9am. Please wear appropriate clothing for cleaning on the side of the road. Shouldn’t take long, our section is already very clean. See you there!

Now, a couple of final notes regarding group riding.

The downtown ride is seeing great success, with new members joining it every week, and a good time being had by everyone! Two things I noted during this weeks’ ride, which I need to address.

The first is regarding rear wheel skewers. I know a lot of people in the club ride Mountain Bikes, where it’s standard to leave the skewer handle pointing straight backwards. On a road bike, this is not a great idea, as another wheel could become caught up on it. I insist that everyone please keep their skewers pointed inwards, so that nothing is sticking out past the stays/dropouts/derailleur at the rear of your bikes. Thanks!

Second, if there is a wide, paved shoulder on the right side of the road, then please use it. There’s no need to ride on the line between lane & shoulder. Take the shoulder, so that only the outside row of riders are on the roadway. This is much safer than taking up half a lane and having 1m of space on our right too.

cheers,
robb

I can’t believe it’s almost March.

I haven’t made an update here since last year? Well, LOTS has been going on. I guess it’s time for an update.

Our 2010 OCA affiliation forms have been filled out and submitted, this means we will have membership cards in hand very soon. We also will provide all the local shops with forms & some club brochures in the next couple of weeks.

We have a whole bunch of great things that are set for the year ahead.

Saturday, May 22, we’ll be hosting an OCA Youth Cup Road Race & TT for riders ages 10-16. More info on the series is available on the OCA Website.

We will of course be participating in the Interclub road race series as we always have, however this year instead of Owen Sound being the third club, our friends from the Mountainview Cycling Club of Midland will join ourselves & the Newmarket Eagles in the series. The schedule is close to complete, and will be posted this week.

Mike Doble has again volunteered to run the club Time Trial series on alternate Thursdays through the summer, we’re very lucky to have his help!

We have joined a coalition along with the OPP, the County of Simcoe, the towns of Oro-Medonte, Innisfil, Springwater, Vespra & the Blue Mountains to create a rural road safety initiative/education program. After just two meetings a lot of progress has been made. The County has agreed to add a 1m strip of pavement to all new construction and re-pave jobs from herein. Oro-Medonte has agreed to something similar, but with the upcoming Pan-Am games, there is also potential to create an actual network of cycling routes through the area.

We have volunteered to adopt a section of Ridge Rd. The County responded to our request by granting us the section from Range Rd, through the town of Shanty Bay to the 3rd line of Oro. Our responsibility is to spend two days per year cleaning the shoulders of that section of litter & debris. For this, we get a sign along the side of Ridge Road with the Club’s name on it!

We’ve been hard at work to put together a program of rides designed to appeal to people who just like to ride bikes, as opposed to the ‘cyclist’ style rides we’ve typically focussed on.
These rides will be taking place every Saturday through the summer, and we’re really excited to teach new people what it’s like to change a tire, or ride in a group properly!

Hopefully some of the riders who attend these new Saturday rides will aspire to ride in our Charity event for the Barrie M.S. Society on Sunday September 18th. This will be a fully supported, exciting ride of multiple distances up to a full Imperial Century, or 160km! We’re really excited to showcase some of the challenging and picturesque terrain in our backyard.

I am sure that I’ve forgotten some things, but the gold medal game is almost on! I can’t believe it’s been so long since an update went out, apologies for that, but the Barrie Cycling Club is looking for 2010 to be the best year yet!

One last thing. We never had an end of year dinner last year, so I think perhaps a club meeting/pizza night is in order for this month, does this sound like a good idea?

 Loading ...