Manifestos by the candidates for Chairman

Here are the two manifestos prepared by Laurie Mutch and Mark Waters.  Please don’t forget to come to the AGM on 15th November at 10:00am at the Jack Phillips pub in Godalming.

 

West Surrey CTC should adopt a forward-looking programme following the excellent progress made in 2014.

With the continuing growth in cycling popularity, the club offers an important service to the community within our designated postal codes. Our excellent new website now provides a valuable marketing and promotion tool and we should continue to enhance this. In addition, consideration will be given to appointing a sub-committee to explore other ways of attracting new members, both within our current age group and younger riders.

It is important that we continue the ride leaders training programme, given that we offer some 30 different rides each month. A ride leaders’ workshop will again be proposed for early 2015 to share valuable experiences gained on the road.

Further ideas for the progress agenda will be considered carefully at the committee’s first meeting on 27^th November. In developing the 2015 plan, great care will be taken to build on the inherent social and supportive character of the club, and to continue to address the needs of all our members.

I look forward to being your chairman for the coming year and riding with many of you.

Laurie Mutch

I gladly offer myself up as Chairman in response to several requests from members. Principal concerns about the club as it stands revolve around an increased level of disciplinarianism which appears to have filtered into the way we operate, together with a fear of too much change too quickly. Don’t get me wrong: I am not averse to change – indeed the club needs to move with the times – but I am averse to changes that are made without careful thought as to the consequences, as well as change for the sake of change.

My view of the role of Chairman, other than the obvious and constitutional one of ‘chairing’ meetings, is that s/he is an equal member of the Committee which runs the club and therefore not necessarily the ‘lead’ person on the Committee. Along with all other members of the Committee, I would strive to ensure that matters that I come across or have drawn to my attention, concerning the club and its future, are discussed quickly and effectively, with relevant information passed on in timely fashion to members. Other members of the Committee would function in exactly the same way.

We are a local cycling club whose primary role is to offer bike rides to all on a regular, safe and reliable basis. In this, our Ride Leaders are our greatest asset and we should never forget that their contribution to the club’s work is fundamental to what we are and why we exist.

Promoting the club to potential new members is clearly important and the Committee will ensure this remains high on the agenda. We need to ensure that everything we publish depicts a friendly and welcoming club with the minimum amount of rules and regulations. What happens behind the scenes to ensure that our rides are safe is a different matter and lies at the feet of our Ride Leaders in conjunction with, and with the full support of, your Committee.

CTC, as a national body, is changing; much of this change over recent years has not affected the membership to any great degree; however, the pace of change continues unabated and we may well see some significant changes taking place in the coming months. Your Committee will strive to keep you informed of any changes which might significantly affect West Surrey CTC as it operates today. Other activities that the club could get involved with should be considered carefully, particularly in respect of actually having volunteers willing to take on specialist roles, plus the Committee time that would be required to manage such tasks. I believe that the changes to the national body will provide the Committee with quite enough additional work, bearing in mind that we actually only currently meet four times a year.

Mark Waters