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!

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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

What a hectic week.

Yesterday the BCC hosted the first interclub race of the season. We saw about 50 racers come out on a beautiful sunny day. The race was won by our own Orrin Bowser, congratulations to him on a sandbag well played

We also had a great Sunday morning ride, lead by its weekly leader, Tony Miranda, care of the Trek Store Barrie! Tony will be at Fred Grant every Sunday morning at 9am, ready to lead you on a great, fun, social touring ride.

Tonight we’ve got the first of our weekly MTB rides kicking off. This year, we’re lucky enough to have Bikeland rider Linnley Clarke leading each & every Monday night ride. So you’ll always have a familiar face to greet you. The rides begin at 6:30 and leave from the Simcoe County Office building in Midhurst. The ride is a social ride, and you will not be dropped. If gaps appear, the lead riders will pause and wait for you to catch up! We look forward to seeing you there.

Tuesday will be the first of our dual Tuesday night group rides. We’ve also moved to our ‘summer’ timeslot, with both rides starting at 6:30pm. The downtown, Fred Grant Square ride is our social group ride. The Tuesday night social ride will be a fun ride for all.  There will be no racing for sprint signs and every effort will be made to keep the group together.  As the season progresses riders’ abilities increase so as time goes on the average speed will increase. If you haven’t been on a bike yet, and it’s July, email us before coming out.

The Sunnidale Park ride will feature higher speeds, sign sprints, and possibly some paceline riding. It’s geared towards the more serious & experienced cyclists, who are looking to get a little training in during the week, in addition to a social ride. All are welcome, but you may be dropped, so ensure that you are self sufficient in terms of routing & repairs at minimum.

This Thursday brings us the first of our venerable TT series. We will be riding on the Oro Course at the 7th line and 15/16. As in previous years, we must thank Mike & Judy Doble for taking on the chore of timing the TTs, and ensuring everyone gets away in a safe manner, without their dedication, we would not be able to offer the TT series. The weather looks good, we hope to see lots of you out, setting down a baseline time, so you can watch your fitness progress over the course of the season.

Upcoming events this month are the Youth Race on May 21. This will require some volunteer hours to clean the sand from the course, and we’ve also got to clean our adopted section of Ridge Road, through the town of Shanty Bay. Stay tuned for date announcements for each of these undertakings. Thankfully, with these behind us, the rest of the summer is all about riding.

cheers,
robb

Thank you to everyone who raced in the 1st Annual Barrie Youth Race on Saturday.
You were a great bunch of racers, who were a lot of fun to watch, and cheer on!
I hope that you all enjoyed the race today. It was our first, and I am sure that we got some things wrong, but for the most part, I think it went well.

It would not have gone as well without the help of many people.

First and foremost, I doubt this race would have happened without any of the amazing parents who signed you up, and brought you to Barrie. Thank you to each, and every parent who was there today in body, or in spirit. The support and encouragement received from each of you was truly fantastic.

Second, I must thank all of the people who helped with planning, and day-of tasks.

I hope that I don’t forget anyone in this list, my most sincere apologies if you helped us today, and I haven’t listed you.

Thank you to: Orrin Bowser, Steve Homenuk, Mike & Judy Doble, Doug Pogue our timing guru, Michael Kolesar our Commissaire from the OCA, Laura Hagerman our OCA on-site representative, Cliff Lilley, Jamie Herbst, George Taylor, Denise & Mark, Colin McGuire, Jim Tyler, Denis Charlton, Mike F & Dave. Again, if I missed you, I am very sorry!

I would also like to thank the Ontario Provincial Police for their patience, instruction, and safe keeping of all our racers.

In addition to these individual thanks, I’d like to thank Bikeland, Blacktooth Grin, The Bike Zone, Days Inn Barrie, Velocity Cycle & Ski, the Trek Store Barrie, Hardwood Ski & Bike, Napoleon Gourmet Grills, Golf Hunter Inc, Husky Property Maintenance, W R Best Memorial School, the Township of Oro-Medonte and the County of Simcoe. Without the support of all of these businesses, and local Communities this race would never have been possible. Thank you from each and every one of us.

If you are looking for race results, you can find them here:
Time Trial Results
Road Race Results
Overall Combined Results

We really hope that you enjoyed the race, we can’t wait to do it again next year. We already have LOTS of ideas to make it a better, and more enjoyable experience for everyone, parents & racers.

THANK YOU!

If you have any comments, positive or negative, please feel free to offer them below. We are listening.

cheers,
robb