CI AGM 2016

Beasty

JK.BMC wrote: »

Yes, CI mostly deals with bike racing and to a large extent they are right to do so.

The main objective of CI is

To encourage, develop and organise cycling on the island of Ireland including, but not exclusively, racing, touring, mountain biking, physical education and any activity or business pursuit connected with or ancillary to the activity of cycling.

Yes racing is in there and I don't want to downplay its importance, but is not the sole or indeed main purpose of the organisation

In practice a lot of the organisation on the leisure side is down to the clubs, but the same can be said of racing

Beasty

JK.BMC wrote: »

The Irish love a good lynching. We gave the English language the word.
Not a sign of half those delegates since I bet!

Attendance has increased significantly as a result of the momentum behind the EGM. Indeed IIRC before that I believe there were occasions when the meeting was not quorate and had to be adjourned for a short while as this permitted it to then proceed with lower numbers (although I also understand the quorum has been reduced as a result of those prior issues)

JK.BMC

Beasty wrote: »

The main objective of CI is

Yes racing is in there and I don't want to downplay its importance, but is not the sole or indeed main purpose of the organisation

In practice a lot of the organisation on the leisure side is down to the clubs, but the same can be said of racing

Yes- I acknowledge all the above but (I'm repeating myself a lot!) the country needs the leisure commission to get up and in order; until then (and up to now) the national governing body has focused mostly on competitive cycling. And given my first experience of an AGM yesterday, given the proposals and rationale from the leisure representatives, maybe they were right.
As for the new commission, I'm looking forward to the stampede of volunteers!

Weepsie

JK.BMC wrote: »

But everybody who owns a bike should not feel that CI should do something for them.


Yes, CI mostly deals with bike racing and to a large extent they are right to do so. I do hope the Leisure Commission will now finally take on the valid points floating for years- it is in everybody's interest.

On the first point, membership should carry some benefit. I joined as I planned on doing a good few sportives and some audax so the insurance would've been there. I turned up for a charity spin and had to pay a CI fee and had less to give to the charity the year before and felt bad.


On the second, moneys generated from leisure memberships should not go towards racing cycling unless it clearly says so when signing up (maybe it does)

JK.BMC

Weepsie wrote: »

On the first point, membership should carry some benefit. On the second, moneys generated from leisure memberships should not go towards racing cycling unless it clearly says so when signing up.

Oh no. The 'racing V leisure' debate.

Membership definitely carries benefits (check the earlier thread posts)

And if you want to question the financial plans and propriety of Cycling Ireland, make your feelings known to CI and explain why membership money should not be put into bike racing.

A delegate from Carraigdhoun CC made a detailed and sincere presentation of roughly the very point you make; it was overwhelmingly defeated. End of story it seems.

if in doubt

A couple of comments on leisure fees going towards racing and the HP / road commission being self sufficient.

Not sure the exact arrangements in place between CI and Sport Ireland and the various government bodies but I do know that a condition of funding is that the organisation needs to put a proportional amount of funding towards a HP programme as well - Sport Ireland and the IOC aren't there to just fund HP programmes for CI, Hockey Ireland and Triathlon Ireland for example. If you're a governing body, then you need to have structures in place to support those athletes and you can't just rely on external funding to cover everything.

I believe a couple of years ago Basketball Ireland had it's funding significantly cut as it wasn't spending it's grant money the way the sports council wanted it spent, and it wasn't supporting it's international squads to the required level.

If true, then the HP unit and the road commission could never actually self sufficient as CI would need to pump some of it's own money into each - money that may have been generated by affiliation fees and memberships.

ednwireland

RobFowl wrote: »

That was bollocks

Turnout always crap at AGM's unless there is something contentious....

PMQ cough cough cough

I still stand by. That if even If every club s ent one representative Ci would be shocked

slow

Beasty wrote: »

Attendance has increased significantly as a result of the momentum behind the EGM. Indeed IIRC before that I believe there were occasions when the meeting was not quorate and had to be adjourned for a short while as this permitted it to then proceed with lower numbers (although I also understand the quorum has been reduced as a result of those prior issues)

Attendance as a percentage of membership hit an all-time low on Saturday. 70 out of 29,000. Less than 10 of the 70 represented leisure cycling clubs. And quite a lot of us who did travel were looking out the window at the gorgeous sunny weather wishing that we were out on our bikes...

Beasty

slow wrote: »

Attendance as a percentage of membership hit an all-time low on Saturday. 70 out of 29,000. Less than 10 of the 70 represented leisure cycling clubs. And quite a lot of us who did travel were looking out the window at the gorgeous sunny weather wishing that we were out on our bikes...

OK, but not all clubs can define themselves as "leisure" or "racing". Indeed there are very few that would be considered to be for "racers" only. My own club caters for (and goes out of its way to cater for) the likes of road racers, leisure, women, young, old, BMX, CX and even the (very!) odd trackie

CramCycle

slow wrote: »

Attendance as a percentage of membership hit an all-time low on Saturday. 70 out of 29,000. Less than 10 of the 70 represented leisure cycling clubs. And quite a lot of us who did travel were looking out the window at the gorgeous sunny weather wishing that we were out on our bikes...

Yes but each club can only have so many delegates. So 70 out of sub 500 would be a better reflection. Still poor though.

nilhg

Our club AGM was about 10 days before the CI one, I was going to be away on holiday last Saturday so asked if anyone was interested in representing the club, I had only one mild expression of interest and as it turned out he couldn't go either.

I'd say I'd easily get 8 or 9 lads to go to the AGM of our local inter club league, they see that as relevant to them, but not really the CI one, sure you'll get bits of bickering about CI this and CI that during the year but nothing that lasts, the licence fee is seen as something that's necessary to race/join the club but after that most of our members wouldn't really think about it from one end of the year to the next.

morana

the funding for CI comes in 2 tranches as far as i recall. one is for hp and the other is the core grant. The hp is to fund the programs that CI present to the ISC with the required funding to carry out those programs as part of those submissions. They usually dont get the full allocation and it will be reviewed based on targets agreed in the plan.. The core grant reflects the membership and its growth in youth women etc.

CI will supplement the hp program with money from affiliation fees etc. and use them when there is an overspend etc. I just happen to think hp should be self sufficient. if you cant get sponsorship now with all the world tour riders winning decent races and our recent exploits on the track i dont know if we ever will. but hey you might disagree and thats ok.

As regards numbers and having attended most AGM's for as long as i can recall the EGM had 119 voting delegates (iirc) and the agms would have slightly less numbers, back in the day elections would fill the hall with a substantial amount leaving after their man got in. I cant ever remember 400 at any meeting for CI.

Leroy42

But surely the lack of interest from people in the AGM points to a worrying option that many people simply see CI as irrelevant.

As nilhg said, you would find it hard to see from most members what they actually get from being a member. Insurance seems to be it and you don't need an AGM for that.

So rather than blaming people for not coming, the question needs to be why the CI is failing to illicit any buy in from the members. When the next 'new-thing' arrives to replace the upsurge of cycling people as just as likely to drift away again. It is the local clubs that drive the interest.

Would you expect many junior club players to turn up to the GAA conference?

Beasty

I work for a major multinational. We may have 10s of thousands of investors, but our AGMs may usually attract only 2 or 3 of them (with most resolutions getting passed via proxy voting). TBH "company business" should be straightforward and generally uncontroversial

The problem is that many people see the AGM as their opportunity to air any grievance

The idea of a Congress at which sporting and other matters may be discussed in a way that does not seek to bind the "company" has been mooted, and is a format already in place in one or two other sports. That's the way forward in my view, although the starting point was probably to tidy up the Memorandum and Articles of Association, which the recent AGM did move forward.

morana

Beasty wrote: »

The problem is that many people see the AGM as their opportunity to air any grievance

in fairness people couldnt get an answer by phone or email for years and so this was their only oppurtunity. I like the idea of the separate meeting to be held on the same day which deals with young lads getting extra points on their licences for their race win celebrations and other such sporting matters

wav1

Lots of the posts on here are very similar to stuff posted year after year.
What are ''They Doing For Us'' etc etc etc.Bottom line is that it should be what are ''We'' doing for us as we are all equal members of the same federation and more need to step up and take ownership of committees,commissions, etc.
29kmembers as against 4k members 8 or 9 years ago and I bet you that there are actually less active volunteers now than there was then and its the same regardless of where your priorities lie within the sport.Seven times more people to complain to far less volunteers than before equals some people having to bear the blunt as never before.In some ways who would even dream of putting themselves for positions,and on the other hand our sport is crying out for them.

CramCycle

To be fair, I think very few members complain. Particularly unaffiliated leisure members. They get good value. It is still less than the price of one event in similar sports to get pretty decent insurance for the year.

There is a risk for those that do go that they forget that these new members may leave over price increase as that value is gone. Many of these people do not care about CI, the AGM or volunteering. CI just has to be careful that they don't put of a large cohort who are essentially a nice cash cow and seem happy to be such.

Not sure a leisure commission will even get off the ground because of this. Bar making joining a club a requirement and defacto making certain clubs have more of a want to push things, and even then, alot of people will not rejoin if they have to be arsed affiliating with someone due to increased cost and effort.

Hope I am wrong but that's my feeling on the matter, maybe having a voice of reason on the road commission might be the best option.

Beasty

My own club engages with it's membership, as I'm sure do many other clubs. We find members generally happy to volunteer to do things for the wider benefit of the club and its members.

However I think there are a number of clubs that continue to be subject to more central "control" over their activities, which is less conducive to the engagement of membership (and again my own club was perhaps nearer to that category not too long ago).

wav1

It was suggested on Saturday that membership has now probably peaked after research and consultation with other NGB's from other sports.29k members but a database of 60k,so those going missing are quite a few.

morana

wav1 wrote: »

It was suggested on Saturday that membership has now probably peaked after research and consultation with other NGB's from other sports.29k members but a database of 60k,so those going missing are quite a few.

and this is something that we have been talking about for years. why do we lose 35% members year on year?
maybe CI should be asking the question "what would you like us to do for you?" as a leisure member i would have to say..let me think about it.

slow

http://www.cyclingireland.ie/cycling-news-item/lapsed-member-survey/3293

This gives reasons why members haven't renewed their subs.

greenspurs

http://www.cyclingireland.ie/cycling-news-item/report-from-cycling-ireland-agm-/3313

Interesting reading about Profit , Reaching peak number, and maintaining...

Hmmzis

With the AGM done and dusted, when are the renewals for 2017 opening up?

I saw the link in the licensing page but when I log in it still shows the 2016 license and no option to renew.