Post date: Jun 09, 2014 11:39:10 AM

Hello Vets,

In this week's Bleat, some important information that will potentially impact our racing;

• AVCC Annual General Meeting

• Trained Traffic Marshals

• Why we do not have prize money for ACTVCC races?

• Clothing Specials

• Wanted to Rent

• Racing this Week

• Race Report

Please send me your contributions at: TheBleat@actvets.cc

Ian Morton.

ps If you miss The Weekly Bleat, you can find archived copies: here.

AVCC Annual General Meeting

The Australian Veterans Cycling Council (AVCC) is the national body that the ACT Vets Club, as well as other state’s Vets and Masters clubs, is affiliated with. We have a link to the AVCC on our web site – or see: http://www.ausvetcycling.com .

Our $100 yearly ACTVCC membership fee funds the AVCC as follows: $60 for rider and officials insurance; $20 for AVCC running (the remaining $20 funding our club’s activities and costs).

The AVCC’s main function is to provide clubs and their members (males over 35 and females over 30) with: race rules; insurance coverage and; the Vets National Championships.

Here is a summary of the items discussed at the AVCC annual general meeting held on 7 May 2014, that may be of interest.

1. The minutes of special General Meeting Geelong 7 October 2013 were passed with a clarification that a motion to change AVCC to Australian Masters Cycling Council was not passed (but this was further discussed at this meeting – see Item 9 below).

2. President's report

• Affiliated clubs have 2314 members, to date, in 2014. AVCC is in good financial position with 2014 income of $20 x 2314 = $46,280 from membership fees, $60 x 2314 = $138, 840 from the insurance component and some $87,000 in bank and term deposit.

• IMG membership processing system working well - but some complaints about lack of membership cards. (Members should print out summary details from IMG receipt and laminate).

• member AVCC affiliation fees ($20) to remain as is.

• clubs encouraged to run races to accommodate older riders. Suggested mid-week events

• clubs encouraged to attract and retain female members

• referees - clubs should endeavor to maintain a high standard of referees and send referee lists to AVCC

• big events - Clubs to publicize such events. Local clubs to check this website and publicize to local members with the aim of fostering more inter-club and interstate racing.

5. Treasurers report and auditor's report presented.

• Main expenditure ($154k) is insurance premium. $10k for National championships, $27k for officials' expenses - airfares, meals to attend two general meetings. Secretary and President receive a $3,000 yearly honorarium each.

• Election of officers - President and Secretary/Treasurer elected unopposed. Two candidates stood for VP. Delegate from Tasmania and delegate from SA. Tasmania elected to VP position.

6. Motions moved by president

• equipment and clothing clause of rules be amended to prohibit cameras being attached to helmets and bikes. ACT vigorously opposed ban on cameras being attached to bikes (to enable recording of ‘aggressive drivers’). Carried - we can still have cameras attached to bikes, but not helmets.

• equipment and clothing clause of rules be amended to prohibit disc brakes on any road and time-trial bike in AVCC events until their use is sanctioned by UCI. ACT sought an exception to this rule for racing tandems. This was not agreed and it opened up a previous meeting's discussion on tandems racing with single bikes. The AVCC executive advised that mixed tandem and single racing should be banned on safety grounds. ACT vigorously opposed such ban before we had consulted with ACT tandem racers. Outcome: ACT was given a 6 month extension to allow mixed racing to continue in this jurisdiction and to present a case for it's continuation at September GM following consultation with tandem riders.

• equipment and clothing clause of rules be amended to prohibit mobile phones, headphones and radios being used while racing - carried.

7. Information Items

• 2014 AVCC National Championships will be in Perth on 26-29 September. Nominations will close 12 September 2014 (see AVCC website)

• South Australia likely to host 2015 AVCC Nationals to coincide with 2015 Masters Games

• Timing systems - most clubs use the 'My Laps' system and is the preferred system for any AVCC club looking to adopt a timing system. Other systems discussed.

• Race Day reports and other insurance matters - Race day reports must be completed for every race - as both a pre-race risk management check and post-race or incident document. Our insurer requires this WE MUST comply.

8. State Reports

• There were a number of interesting matters that came to light in these reports such as payment of referees and marshals, race fees and prize money, running of 'open' events and AVCC seed money for these events.

• Tasmania reported it had suffered a mass defection to CA and now only had only 9 members and one official.

• ACT’s report on the health of our club which runs weekend races on almost all weekends plus weekly criteriums and track events each week in summer – all with $5 entry fees and covered by unpaid volunteer marshals - was well received.

9. Change of Name from AVCC to ‘Australian Masters Cycling Council’ or ‘Masters Australian Cycling Council’.

• A very long discussion on this matter took place. Both names have been registered with ASIC, but the name change had not yet been agreed by AVCC . A number of WA, SA, Qld and Vic clubs have already changed their names from ‘Veterans’ to ‘Masters’ and report improved membership numbers, particularly younger members and better success in getting local sponsorship and advocated for the name change.

• Despite this, the President and some members of Executive were opposed to any change. ACT reported that it could not support status quo or change until we sought the views of ACT members. Other states reported the same.

• It was resolved that each state delegate should ask each club to seek the views of members - through written or on-line survey and report back to September 2014 meeting.

• State delegates could then vote on whether to change the name for national body.

• Each club would always be free to adopt any name or to transition on a timescale for any change.

Note: The ACTVCC will shortly send out such a survey seeking all members views.

Trained Traffic Marshals

From the year ‘dot’ our club has competently ensured rider safety at road events by having experienced club members act as road marshals at turn points and intersections. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) we can no longer do this, at least in the ACT.

The ACT Government has required that, commencing immediately, we must either use commercial companies with trained and accredited road marshals who are authorized to direct traffic or we have our own people trained to the same standard.

To continue with our road race program in the ACT, the Committee is arranging for a commercial company to supply turn and intersection marshals from the 14 June race (Honeysuckle Creek) onwards. Start and finish marshals would still be drawn from club volunteers. NSW races are not so impacted (yet).

We will also be looking to have our members trained through the accredited training, which has only just been made available in the ACT. We would look to pay our own trained members a fee for turn and intersection marshaling, in lieu of engaging a commercial contractor, if we can achieve sufficient trained club members.

Your committee will finance this arrangement for the rest of this year from existing funds. We will not be looking to increase race-day fees to cover this. The Committee would need to continue this arrangement next year, but in likelihood would finance this additional cost from an increase to yearly membership fees.

More on Accredited Traffic Controllers – for ACT Races

Representatives from all the cycling bodies (Vets, CCC, Vikings, Triathlon ACT, Pedal Power) met with Roads ACT last week to clarify and discuss this the new requirement that all cycling events on ACT roads must use ‘Accredited Traffic Controllers’ where the course involves turns against the traffic; i.e pretty much all of our races!

While we are responding by contracting with a traffic controller firm to supply the accredited personnel, ACT Roads has agreed to fund the training of cycle club members to become accredited traffic controllers through a registered training organization – at least for the first few sessions. We may be able to get a handful of members onto the first course – to be held in late June, or July.

Pleas email race.committee@actvets.cc to express your interest. We will be looking for members, particularly non-racing members, to attend and to commit to undertake this critical race-marshaling function on at least a semi-regular basis.

The race committee will also be looking to simplify our courses for next year to minimize the quorum of accredited traffic marshals we will need for each course. Ideally we will be looking for circuit courses or simple out and back courses. The three leaf clover courses – and we have a few of these - with three or more turn points are not desirable.

Why we do not have prize money for ACTVCC races?

Prize money used to be a feature of the Gunning two-day race, and also for a number of other races, principally the handicap events. A few years ago the Club Committee, after quite a bit of deliberation and following feedback from members, decided to do away with prize money for events, including Gunning.

While the ACTVCC Committee is aware that prize money is a feature of other clubs, including other Veterans Cycling clubs, we feel that we get better and more honest racing without prize money. It also avoids prize money leading to post-race disputes, questioning of race referees and undue pressure on the handicapper.

Prize money was discussed at our recent Club Committee meeting and it agreed that the decision of a few years ago need not be revisited, so we will continue current practice. Arguably, this sentiment is supported by club members, as in last year’s members survey (its on the website under ‘racing files’) no one raised the matter of prize money in response to Question 31. This question provided members with the opportunity to raise anything or to make any suggestion.

Clothing Specials

The Club has some stocks of Ventou Club Clothing the we are look to shift.

As a special offer, Club Clothing Officer, Linda Stals, will be bringing it along to the Apollo Rd race on the 14th June where it can be had for the special price of $20 per item.

The Club will also be offering a 20% discount on the TriplePlay Jerseys and Vests and 40% discount on Knicks.

Wanted to Rent

1 hard case bike box over the period mid July to mid August.

Please contact Brad Sherman 0414 306 068 or - brad@grapevine.com.au

RACING THIS WEEK:

Saturday, 14th June – Apollo Graded Scratch

Where: Old Tracking Station, top of Apollo Rd (follow Naas Rd past Tharwa)

When: 1:30pm

Sign on: 15 mins before scheduled start time wearing your registered number.

Race Description:

Honeysuckle Creek Summit Finish - Honeysuckle Creek Map - ABCD - Start, B, Finish (Base of Apollo, Thartwa short turn, Apollo Rd, Apollo summit) - EFG - Start, A, Finish (Base of Apollo, Namadgi Vistor Centre, Apollo Rd, Apollo summit)

Race Director: James Meredith

Contact: Email JamesMeredith5@bigpond.com Ph 0427 477 521 or 6161 7586

Assigned Marshals

The nominated marshals for this event are;

• David Gunther

• Dale Kleeman

• Michael Carr

We still need one more Marshal, please contact the Race Director if you can assist.

Please confirm with the Race Director that you are available. If you unable to make the date that you have been rostered please find a replacement.