AUK OFFICIALS' REPORTS 1998 Secretary A year has passed and I am finding my feet in the job. Preparing an agenda before the committee meetings, and minutes of the meetings afterwards, is the bulk of the work. Correspondence is generally easily dealt with and there is not a huge amount of it. Much of the ongoing business is conducted through email. This does mean that the few committee members not online tend to be less well-informed than the others. I have seen at first hand the immense amount of work which various members of the committee undertake. The huge number of events and the vast amount of work which goes on behind the scenes — checking routes, planning the calendar, printing brevet cards, validating each individual rider, and much more — is nearly full-time work for some. Remember that these are all unpaid volunteers. You have seen Arrivée improve greatly in quality during the last few years. A lot of care and effort has gone into making it a very professional publication. The levels of enthusiasm and commitment from organisers, helpers, and riders in AUK are very high. That is what makes a thriving club. It is a pleasure to have a part in that. Some of you will have noticed an advert for a minutes secretary, Anne having abandoned her post and fled the country. Now that I have managed one meeting without assistance, I feel this post could be allowed to lapse. Ian Hennessey Treasurer As the accounts (see opposite) show the overall capital position of the club remains healthy. Arrivée costs are distorted by having 5 issues included (our old print shop was less speedy than the new one in issuing invoices) nevertheless the inexorable rise of printing and other outside costs means that our revenue position is less robust than in previous years. I recommend that to stave off this trend there is an increase in subscriptions; the last one was in 1996. In an attempt to mitigate this rise for the committed Auk I am proposing a fee structure to promote 5 year membership and this will also be available to new members. To continue the bad news, as trailed last year both in my report and the Organisers Packs issued by Peter Coulson, increases to both Card and Validation Charges are recommended. The full recommendations are:- Regulation 9 - Subscriptions - Annual renewal £9:00 Household member £2:00 Commuted (5 years) £38:00 Household member £8:00 Regulation 13 - New members Initial enrolment to include annual subscription £14:00, Household £2 (Initial enrolment to include Commuted subs £40:00/Household member £8:00) Lapsed member enrolment £5:00 Regulation 10 - Honoraria - Brevet Production - £750, Validation - £600 Regulation 11 - Validation - AUK £0:20 Addition for BRM validation £0:50 Regulation 12 - Card Production - £0:35 Late Cards - £0:45 I would be happy to hear from any member wanting further amplification or clarification of the figures. DKB Membership Secretary Membership continues to grow at around 10% annually, reaching 3250 members at the end of August. With enquiries already coming in about next year’s Paris-Brest-Paris, there is every reason to expect this to continue. A new venture this year was the sale of handbooks to non- members. More than 300 handbooks were sold, with over 50 of the purchasers subsequently becoming members. We expect to continue these sales for 1999. However, renewing your membership seems an altogether better bargain! This November David Palfreyman will be joined by Julian Beach in processing your renewals; we hope to have individualised forms included with this (autumn) magazine to make renewal easier and to enable you to check the personal details held on computer. Thanks to the extra helper, during the next year we shall be looking for ways of providing improved services to members. I see this mainly as taking the form of better documentation and information/advice, particularly to new members, rather than offering a proliferation of ‘merchandise’. Whereas in the past it may have been the case that almost all our members joined AUK in addition to CTC or local club membership, this seems to have changed. For almost a third of our members, Audax is their only cycling club. Partly for this reason, it does seem that members and prospective members are keen to be able to purchase a limited range of goods of direct cycling relevance which will enable them to identify with the club - eg club jerseys, caps, badges, T- shirts. While committee is considering ways in which we might develop such sales, we have no plans to expand into ties, coasters, credit cards, etc! Please let the committee know if you have constructive suggestions on what members expect from the club. Ray Smith Event Secretary Once again, congratulations and many thanks to all the Organisers (156) and Helpers, who gave AUK its biggest-ever Calendar. The increase was 20 events, with only one cancellation. Over the last year there has been a healthy number of new events, including some above 200km. Next year, being PBP, is already attracting more BRM and longer events, and with luck the trend will continue. We need more spread through the UK, and more spread through the year: it is possible to run a 400 in September! Please get in touch with me if you fancy running some events. We are looking at methods of possibly covering the Organisers of longer (above 200km) and new events against financial loss. The figures for 1998 are: Cat. 50+ 100+ 150+ 200+ 300+ 400+ 600+ 1000+ Totals BP 26 130 †39 — — — — — 195 AUK — — — †87 12 †8 1 — 108 LRM — — — 12 6 †6 4 1 29 Totals 26 130 39 99 18 14 5 1 332 *includes multiple starts. †includes Arrows and Darts. Peter Coulson Arrivée Editor This year all our publications have moved to a more high tech printing process. Quorum Technical Services, in the person of AUK member Brian Hayward, offered help at the last Reunion and the result has been an improvement in the quality of the magazine and leaflets, and particularly in photograph reproduction. Processing your prints, negatives and slides, is now a pleasure for both Tim and myself, since we know that if we can produce a reasonable image then Quorum will do it justice. In addition to printing and dispatch, they also produce the address labels from the membership database, which has relieved Ray Smith of a chore. Additionally, the club has purchased its own Desk Top Publishing software for the first time. This will ease the production of the November and February editions - though most people won’t have spotted the difference, up until this November edition, I have used a “simple” Word Processing package to produce these layouts - Tim uses his own DTP. Thanks to the untold dozens of people who have continued to provide excellent material, also Tim who has produced two issues a multi-skilled job requiring great talent and sensitivity, Francis who produced the Handbook and whose technical skills and artistic flair continue to contribute in a myriad unnoticed ways to club life, and Ray another gifted Auk who can rise to any task and has taken over the job of keeping the AUK Leaflet up to date. Sheila Simpson International Events There has been a lively response to foreign events I published in Arrivée in 1998. The vast majority of enquiries related to rides in France. Channel Hoppers were the most popular venues, where the Dieppe Raid continues to attract the most British riders, followed by the Semaine Fédérale (Charleville-Mezieres this year) and Boulogne with several calendar events. ‘Cyclosportifs’ among AUK riders headed for L’Etape du Tour (Alps). In Brittany no one event has been able to draw as many British sportifs as the now defunct Bernard Hinault Classic used to do. Belgian Classics like Liege-Bastogne-Liege, l’Eddy Merckx and la Criquielion were well supported. Adventurous individuals also ventured beyond the Channel Ports to take part in FFCT randonnées in Northern France and beyond or to accomplish a ‘mer-montagne’. A number of ‘Raiders’ (as individuals or in groups) attacked the Alps, the Pyrenees or Corsica. Interesting articles describing some of the events mentioned above appeared in Arrivee in 1998. Conversations with AUK members have convinced me that reading people’s experiences abroad does indeed encourage others to have a go. An epic account of the Paris-Roubaix (Winter Arrivee 1998) certainly influenced your Foreign Events Secretary in his decision to do battle with (and on) the flooded pavé this year! Len de Vos Systems Manager This year saw the introduction of a new computerised system for recording each and every ride as the season progresses and calculating the championship points, super-randonneur lists etc at the end of season. In the event of any queries Bernard Mawson can use the program to produce a printout of any member’s personal record for the season. At time of writing the system is holding up very well but the sheer weight of data pouring in is causing Bernard’s computer - currently the most advanced one AUK owns - a certain amount of distress. It’s a flexible system and I expect to adapt it to interface directly with ACP’s own computerised validation procedures in the runup to next year’s PBP. The recent changes to Arrivee have been accelerated by moving our business to a very IT-based printing firm, and the current issue is the first to be produced on new software which duplicates that which is in use by the printers themselves. As well as all the obvious innovations, the lag time between ‘putting the magazine to bed’ and getting it to members’ doorsteps is now much reduced. Francis Cooke ACP/AUK/LRM Correspondant The year began quietly: The usual activities were undertaken: seeking information about the 1999 PBP and clarification of regulations from ACP; answering queries from members about foreign matters; liaising with other correspondants and with LRM; supplying French letters to members for individual needs. But preliminary work has now begun on PBP 99 preparations, in anticipation of hectic periods next year. Noel Simpson Brevet de Randonneurs Mondiaux Validator Numbers for both events and riders have been on a gradual decrease since 1995 PBP year which is against the trend of the rest of AUK's events. No doubt the number of cards will at least double next year! Compared to other countries, although we run fewer 200K events, we generally have larger numbers riding each event, particularly 300K and above which is where we scored the points that won us the championship in 1997, but only by 230 points from France. We will be hard pressed to hold onto it this year. ACP though are consistently impressed by the high number of riders we get for the longer distance events so we can say that AUK is truly the long distance cyclists’ club. At the ACP end there has been a change in my contact from Bob Lepertel, who has moved onto work for 1999 PBP, to Yannis Varouchas. Together, he has excellent English, we have managed to move into the electronic age. Returns can now be sent on a spreadsheet via e:mail.This helps considerably at their end and also is a stepping stone for us to further automate the processes here to help reduce the overall workload, particularly for Bernard. Because of a planned extended trip to New Zealand in 1999 I advised Bernard earlier this year that I could not commit to providing full support for 1999, particularly in view of the deadline dates that have to be met for PBP. I will do what I can to help when I return. ACP/LRM Validated Events 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 Events Cards Events Cards Events Cards Events Cards 200 12 1560 18 1192 16 938 13 905 300 10 748 8 320 6 297 6 295 400 5 567 3 144 4 197 5 247 600 6 404 4 208 4 251 4 194 1000 1 39 1 11 1 17 1400 1 107 Dave Whitney Validation Secretary The year started very promising with the early season events showing an increase of about 20%, but with the coming of the monsoon season this diminished, with the final total of rides being as follows. (1997 numbers shown in brackets). The introduction of a new computer programme for keeping all the records of points gained by members through the year has been successful, it does not only produce a list of members points, it also produces the S.R. list, list of riders with 50+ points. (these list will appear in the Handbook) and also identifies the Various award winners. It would help if the points counting year could start from the 1st. October instead of 1st November as it does at present. This would not reduce my work load, but it would give me more time to prepare all the information that is required for the A.G.M. The introduction of the new Randonneur and Brevet Series have proved to be a success, with a steady flow of claims coming in (over 250 in the last month) and the demand for the various medals and badges which are available for these awards has been music to our Treasurer's ears. In the main the organisers make their returns promptly which helps me a great deal, however there are still some rogues out there, and I suppose there always will be. Thanks to you all. Unclassified 39 (28) 50Km 448 (511) 100 5591 (5514) 150 1155 (1021) 200 3810 (4152) 300 596 (639) 400 503 (535) 600 262 (254) 1000+ 17 (107LEL) Total Brevets 12421 (12760) Bernard Mawson Permanents Validation Secretary The dust now appears to have settled and the overall picture is now clear. The number of brevets ridden this year is down 524 compared to last years 568. Obviously one looks for possible reasons. The only reason appears to me to have been the less than fine summer weather. Looking at the list and comparing it with previous years there was certainly a large spread of riders both new and familiar doing rides, although no one was going for a championship with a massive points total, such as Liz Creese and Steve Abraham have done. There was also no 3 cornered fight for the Altitude championship as last year. Even if the quantity was down , the quality was certainly as good as previous years or arguably even better. The unofficial permanent champion is Ian Hennessey with 54 points from 12 rides, the highlight being a solo run of the Calais-Brindisi. The runners up were Dave Lewis with 48 points, Sheila Simpson with 44 points and Alan Withers. Alan’s tally is also remarkable in that he completed 50 permanent rides and virtually all were started after 9pm and more usually midnight. Imagination in obtaining stamps in the wee small hours he used cash dispenser machine printouts which give a time and location. This also means I now have a good knowledge of his financial status. Other sizeable collections of points were Roy Carr & Bruce Lees. Single major rides of note were prominent this year. Ian Hennessey’s Calais- Brindisi I have already mentioned, he was followed 2 months later by Rose Almond, Jim Churton, Peter Hansen, John Rivers & organiser Simon Jones. Well done to them all. Simon managed on the last day to have his cycle, belongings and worst of all his brevet card stolen. Buying a second hand bike he completed the course and relied on his companions vouching for his efforts! The found distance on this event by the riders was such that it has now been recalibrated as 2600km. The End to End at last after a gap of several years received 4 completions at randonneur pace of sub 116 hours Congratulations to Keith Smallwood, Mike Hunting, Mark Williams & Ian Kendall. James Reynolds also rode the 1000km Lowestoft Ardnamurchan at randonneur pace. The Wessex Randonneurs again invaded France and this year further incursions were also made by the Devon CTC. New events this year were mainly a series of rides, some very hilly, from the north-west of England organised by Andy Corless, the Brian Chapman Memorial 600 organised by Pauline Porter & only just announced, a couple of PROFS in the south west of Ireland by Dave Lewis. Existing rides that proved popular were again those organised by Peter Coulson, Sheila Simpson & Rob Kilby although it should be noted that they each offer a large choice of rides. Duncan Peet AAA Secretary The AAA goes from strength to strength: a record 67 events were on offer, of which it would have been possible to ride 43 and gain a maximum of 77.75 points. Since a list of AA4 permanents was last published (Arrivee 57), several more have been added and, as reported last year, it would now be possible to gain over 100 points from permanents alone. 138 cards were issued, 62 to first-time participants. At least 20 riders completed their first award this year and eight claimed their AAAx3 badge. 36 riders made claims for eight points or more in the season, of whom 26 gained 12 or more (equivalent to gaining the award in one year). Several riders have now completed nine awards (3x3), one is now working towards his 22nd, whilst another has finally completed her first award after 13 years! Dave Lewis