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Stourbridge Cycling Club 2000 – 2010
2000
20th November 2000. There were suggestions about functions to raise the club’s revenue. Congratulations to Isla Rowntree for her selection in the National team and to Louise Robinson for her Olympic success.
A suggestion to move the club dinner to February to accommodate the cyclo-crossers was tabled.
There is to be formalisation of our procedure for dealing with children on off-road rides with parental consent forms.
There is a suggestion to move club nights to Mondays for a trial period.
2001
15th January. A social event at Brooks saddles in Smethwick to incorporate a talk on the history of the business and a trip around the factory. Then on to The Vine.
The annual dinner will be moved to February 2002. There will be a public meeting in Belbroughton about the 10’s.
Louise has won the National Trophy, Isla was 4th. Both are going to represent GB in the World Championships in Czechoslovakia.
Louise Potter has won 5 Midlands events; Richard Bowater is the leading U23.
Leaflets advertising Saturday off-road rides are to be placed in Halfords and other local stores.
There is a possibility of SCC being involved in the National Cyclo-Cross in Sutton Park.
19th March. It was noted that in the jumble sale, some of the stall holders not only were not members but also failed to pay a contribution to our funds. In future, non-members should pay £5 per table on a pre-booked basis.
The Audax may have to be postponed because of foot and mouth disease.
2nd April. ½ year AGM. Concern that we had lost over £3000 over the last two years. A fisherman has been compensated £40 following an incident on the towpath.
14th May. Two of the 10’s have been held. Circuit races have been cancelled. Of the 2 races staged, one had no riders turn up and one had only 9 competitors, one of whom came from Australia. (Editors note: this was probably Shane Sutton).
A number of wins by the racers: Barry Charley, Roger Iddles and Tim Wood. James Shaw is performing well and is riding for GB.
Web site costs for 1999: £149, 2000: £272 and is out of date.
16th July. A new, free website has been created – the old one is to be abandoned but is paid for until February 2002. There is a good MTB section, all U23. Traffic lights are to be installed at The Bell, Bell End which means the Hagley 10 course will no longer be available from next year. Alternatives are needed.
A letter has been received inviting us to hold the National 10 in 2003. There is an opportunity for a cycle track (like Eastway in London) at the Summerhill School redevelopment.
Racing report: James Shaw won the U23 National Road Race at Port Talbot. James is now selected for the world’s road race in Lisbon.
There have been a lot of team wins at TT’s (Roger Iddles, Bob Couldrey and Paul Bradley).
Barry Charley has made over 200 BC points and is now an Elite rider.
Louise and Isla were in the top 3 in National events.
There will be no Audax in 2002.
A jet wash is to be purchased for cyclo-cross.
10th September. There is an RTTC meeting to decide who will run the 2003 National 10.
It was suggested we use a new course for the evening 10’s with The Royal Oak, Halfpenny Green as the HQ.
Barry Charley is the National Champion in the BCF/RTTC Circuit TT. He won the over 35 Masters category. Tim Wood and Chris Taylor have had road race wins. Roger Iddles continues winning 10’s and 25’s. Dave Bowater won an off-road race. Isla won at Catton Park, Louise Robinson wa 2nd.
The community centre wants to raise the rent by 5%.
8th October. The AGM There has been an increase in club funds of £2154.
We have 121 paying members and 11 life members. 286 riders attended events. The hilly TT was poorly attended.
Touring – the nature of Sunday runs has changed. The touring secretary thinks he can no longer ask people to lead rides.
James Shaw was elected Club Member of the Year.
The Elite Squad had 45 wins. We have two national champions – James Shaw and Barry Charley. Roger Iddles had 15 wins. There are 10 members of the squad.
There was no conclusion over which course to use for the club 10’s but the K8 had the most votes.
It was decided to abolish joining fees.
19th November. Summerhill School were unable to include a cycle racing circuit in the plans as they have progressed beyond the possibility to include one.
Hugh Porter of Wolverhampton Wheelers has proposed a joint dinner for late 2002/early 2003.
The old web site is to be stopped.
2002
18th March. Roger Iddles suggested the annual dinner is changed to a skittles evening.
A problem with the K8; district committee have decided to stop using it. The Hagley course can be used until the end of May.
18th April. ½ yearly AGM. A joint dinner with Wolverhampton Wheelers is a non-starter.
Graham Huggins is to step down as treasurer after 30 years.
20th May. Idea an awards night is run at The Hill Tavern, Clent – a call for racing members to organise it.
Racing – 10’s to stay on the Hagley course for now. The police have objected to the traffic lights.
RTTC is concerned about the Million acute turn on the Bobbington course. A request is going to the police for the latter part of the season. There will be a cyclo-cross event at Himley on 10th November. Dudley MBC are in co-operation.
10th June. Extraordinary meeting to appoint a new treasurer after the death of Graham Huggins. Tony Taylor will be the new treasurer.
22nd July. Roger Iddles is to organise the skittles evening at The Hill Tavern. The road race in August is expected to make a profit of £500. Isla suggested we increase the prize money to encourage a good rapport with the entrants.
16th September. We have Another two national champions – Richard Bradley and Roger Iddles. The Elite Squad now has 53 wins this year so far.
28th October. The AGM. The president remains as Mike Howard. Chair person is Norma Fardon.
Graham Huggins has passed away.
There are 107 paid members and 10 life members. The club dinner for 2003 will be a skittles evening.
There are fewer people riding the club 10’s. The Elite Squad is flourishing. The ladies team were 3rd in the Red Bull event at Sandwell valley. David Folkes became a life member. Club Member of the Year was Bob Couldrey – a new trophy for CMOTY – The Graham Huggins Trophy. A question was raised over our insurance cover when operating with children.
18th November. A question was raised about whether to buy club clothing without the sponsors name – a heated discussion and resulted in no plain clothing and no subsidy.
A number of people were taking part in our activities who had not paid their subscriptions. They will be written to with a request to pay up. (Names were given).
A youth development officer was appointed.
A successful cyclo-cross race had been held at Himley park with a handsome profit. A proposal was made to hold a National Series cyclo-cross race at Himley.
2003
20th January. Elite Squad – all the current sponsors have been retained and Parker International will be the main sponsor for the next 2 years. Last year there were 80 victories including 3 National Champions.
A discussion about organising youth races on the Waterfront car parks and Merry Hill on Sundays (pre-Sunday trading!).
Polo shirts are to be purchased for marshals to wear.
Three new members were proposed but it was not possible to read the names of the proposers. Future proposers must print their names.
17th March. The chairman has resigned and David Folkes has stepped in until the October agm. We currently have 71 paying members and 11 life members.
Evening 10’s will be on 3 courses in the Bobbington area. Marshals only necessary at the beginning and end of races. There is a proposal to spend £600 on polo shirts – One for each member. 8 for, 4 against. There is a need to prioritise Sunday clubruns to retain members.
28th April. ½ yearly AGM. Bob Couldrey insisted on knowing that all members present were current paid-up members. 5 raised their hands as not being members (2 were former sponsors, 1 current). Bob wanted the meeting adjourned but those present insisted on continuing. Note: this caused a tremendous amount of bad feeling and the echoes of this lasted for months. We lost some good, stalwart members.
There was a proposal to separate SCC from the Elite Squad to restore the autonomy and status of the non-sponsored members. Overall, the majority wanted the Elite Squad to remain part of the club with some minor changes.
There was a move to reduce membership fees.
Roy Archer repeated the need to train new timekeepers.
12th May. 87 members and 11 life. There was an interesting picture of membership from Norma who had taken over the membership secretary’s job.
Bob Couldrey was asked to apologise in writing for the outburst at the ½ yearly AGM. He declined.
National Series cyclo-cross – Isla is still in negotiation with Dudley Council. We may miss the deadline so the cx may not happen this year.
21st July. A request received from Roger Allen and Kevin Payton to have plain clothing in addition to the sponsored kit as the current situation with only sponsored kit was attracting dissent from a number of members. This was agreed and orders will be taken for plain clothing and it will be subsequently purchased
We are worth £9060. 89 members, 11 life.
Our team won the 10 championship by 1 second.
A team supported “get set cycling skills” in Buffery Park. A complementary letter wa received from the friends of Buffery Park for our efforts.
Some proposals for radical change…
- Reduce membership fees to £10 senior
- Subscriptions received after 31st October to be credited to the next year.
- Committee of no more than 10
- Reduce meetings to 4 p.a.
- No ½ year AGM
- Club members to be allowed in committee meetings with 1 weeks notice.
- Communication by email only.
- Plain clothing.
- Remove the necessity of a vote to accept new members.
15th September. The cyclo-cross national series event will be in Buffery Park on 26th October.
This has been SCC’s most successful season to date.
A variety of designs had been put forward without sponsors names on.
13th November. Steve Gussin addressed the committee about the new website and how to update and introduce new features. The committee were in favour of proceeding with the new site for £100 p.a. Steve was also voted onto the committee.
A new membership pack is to go into Halfords, Decathlon etc. £300 for 1000 packs. Approved.
10-mile TT’s to run from April until August in 2004.
Also, 2 open events: a 10 on the K37 and the Rudy Project TT at Astley in August.
The committee voted 7-3 in favour of wearing helmets in time trials. – to go to national committee.
2004
March 2004. Plain clothing is rolled out to the membership and has been successful, this is in addition to the clothing bearing sponsors names.
The membership packs have been procured bu the costs were substantially more than first indicated. We have, however, continued with it and they have been placed in local stores and public places.
December 2004. Stourbridge CC headed by Isla Rowntree run a National Series Cyclo-Cross event at Grange Park, Dudley in fairly dry conditions.
2005
Missing records.
2006
January 2006. The LVRC road race will go ahead Les Archer has booked the HQ at Bobbington and the road race will be titled the Bob Mansell Memorial R/R in memory of a man who loved cycling and gave a lot of his time to further the sport we all love.
February 2006. The website is moved to a new host which will give us more control, better reliability and faster load times.
An interesting Q & A session at the clubroom with two local champions: Geoff Hill and Roger Iddles.
March 2006. AGM: membership is down at 79, 26 fewer than last year. There is a document going round the committee with a proposal on how to reverse this trend. Some effort is being made for recruitment at Edgcliffe School in Kinver and an open day at Mary Stevens Park in May. We also have membership packs out at local stores in Merry Hill and libraries.
July 2006. RI issued a detailed report to all committee members; he said how disappointed he was that we have had to cancel our club ten through lack of interest by club members. The future does not look good for club time trials. The Rudy Project field was poor considering the event status RI said he would like to use the Bobbington road race circuit for next year’s Rudy Project event and was also considering running it on a Sunday. RM commented on the club tens and said we are lucky to have had 14 years of club racing. RI said Walsall roads get 40/50 riders at their event!!
IR asked committee if Tim Goodall could speak about the new sub group that has a proposal for committee to allow them to take the club forward to attain BCF go ride status. This is a big undertaking but will propel us forward to a “best in class” club. A lot of detail in Tim’s presentation, including training coaches – agreed by the committee.
August 2006. Roger Iddles won the Worlds Masters road race and time trial in Austria.
2007
March 2007. AGM: It is noted that although club membership has increased, participation in racing has decreased however, our members race over a wider range of disciplines: road, ‘cross, tt’s, mtb, track, sportives. There are 3 people undergoing training to be coaches. Appreciation was given to Roger Iddles’ successes at world level.
The membership fees will rise from £15 to £18 for a full senior member
May/June 2007. The open 10’s on the K8 have been cancelled due to traffic calming and police objections. There has been some financial loss to the club since we had paid for the HQ.
July 2007. A substantial clothing order has been placed with Biemme which should result in many more members riding in club colours. However, we received shorts that were the wrong shade of blue and 51 pairs were returned. There was some discussion about moving the clubnight back to Fridays as Mondays are less favoured by many people so an EGM was set for November for further discussion by the membership.
September 2007. Bryan Hedges took on the membership secretary’s post after Terry Rowntree stepped down. (Thanks was passed to Terry for his past service).
We have no racing calendar for 2008 RI said no we have no one willing to organise anything, DF said in all the years he has been involved with SCC this is the first time we have never had a racing calendar.
November 2007. The communication policy is to change so that email will be the default communication method.
We held a “sportive” on a cold, foggy morning with the clubroom as HQ. The route went to Evesham, 51 riders total, 31 of those from SCC.
2008
A turbulent year.
January 2008. A proposal was made for some changes to the running of the Elite Squad which provoked some heated discussion and was only partially carried.
The committee would be visiting Stourbridge football club to view facilities and ascertain if it would be a suitable venue for a new club room. All club members would be invited to go along and see for themselves what the Stourbridge football club had to offer.
An unauthorised change of club colours with British Cycling was reversed.
March 2008. AGM: the hot topic was relocation of our clubroom to Stourbridge Football Club. The committee had visited the venue on a Monday evening and seen what was on offer. Discussion at the AGM was around our loss of a private clubroom and after much debate, the proposal to move was defeated.
April 2008. The first committee meeting after the AGM saw a number of committee resignations – the lack of foresight from the club for the future of racing cited as the reason for the departures. We were thus left without a chairman until an EGM scheduled for June.
May 2008. Go-Ride sessions will start at The Wordsley School as part of our initiative to support and recruit youth riders.
June 2008. EGM: a new chairman was appointed – Terry Rowntree and a revised constitution was adopted.
A bulk purchase of water bottles with the SCC logo was made.
September 2008. Although the position of Racing Secretary remained vacant, SCC riders continued to enter races and performed well. Results included Stefan Harrisons’s 5th placing in the Rudy Project Series along with a credible performance in the BC Championships. SCC riders also performed well in the SCC 10s.
October 2008. The Three Peaks Race and weekend was a great success giving SCC visibility among both other nations and other clubs which was commented upon by other competitors and supporters. In short, SCC were everywhere, on the road, at the bottom and top of the mountains, on the podium and even in the pub! A great team effort, with preparation second to none that brought much credit to SCC.
The future of the SCC 10s was discussed and it was agreed that in the absence of a Racing Secretary, along with a guaranteed team of volunteers, SCC would not be in a position to organise Club 10s next year. That said, SCC riders would be encouraged to enter other racing events and the Club would continue to support racing in its various forms including road, track, cyclo-cross and MTB.
2009
January 2009. As the Cyclo-Cross season draws to an end, SCC could be justifiably proud of their performance with many podium places having been achieved both locally and nationally. Highlight was Hannah Payton finishing in Silver position for her category in the BC National Cyclo-Cross Championship while continuing to perform well in the West Midland Cyclo-Cross League (WMCCL). The Club has a good heritage and reputation in cyclo-cross and there is no reason why it should not continue.
Tom Payton won the Junior National Series cyclo-cross.
March 2009. AGM: Matt Bowker reported on the Go-Ride activities that took place in 2008. The British Cycling Level 2 Coaches (Kevin Payton, Tim Goodall and Matt Bowker) organised six sessions at the Wordsley School over June and July with an additional five sessions over the holiday period. Apart from the sessions themselves that involved some 28 young cyclists learning various cycling skills, the highlights were the Presentation Evening on 15th September and a number of those who took part subsequently joining SCC and taking part in the Saturday off-road rides. The programme for 2009 would again use Wordsley School as a venue.
The Chairman reminded the Meeting of WAG’S Kup, in honour of William Arthur George Onslow who was renowned for his wry sense of humour, which was normally awarded for things the members would rather forget. While no nominations had been received, he welcomed nominations should the Meeting wish to retain the tradition of awarding the WAG Kup. Bob Smith was considered a worthy contender for going on a cycling holiday with 2 left footed cycling shoes of different colours and containing different cleat mechanisms: 1 x Look and 1 x SPD
August 2009. Orange jerseys have been present spectating at various key stages in the Tour de France and various cycling events. This confirms SCC members are spread far and wide which can only be good for the Club (not in competition though!)
The matter of naming the Clubroom after Roy Archer had been raised at the Hawbush and District Community Association meeting and approval was granted. The Clubroom would be known as “The Roy Archer Room” and it was suggested that a plaque was made to be inscribed with “Dedicated in (date as appropriate) to the memory of Roy, who was a founder and Honorary Life Member of Stourbridge Cycling Club. He served on both the Club and Hawbush Association Committee for many years.”
We have hardly any racers but there has been an increase in membership figures.
There is a much more enthusiastic approach to promoting races in 201, several possibilities have been discussed: road race, LVRC road race, time trial and a 2-stage hill climb.
Chairman informed the meeting that Ted Pearson had reached the age of 79 years and in anticipation of celebrating this milestone had ridden 101 miles the weekend before his birthday. An inspiration to all Club members!
There was a failed attempt to start all Sunday club rides from the Bonded Warehouse – back to the original start places!
The hill climb event on 31st October 2009 was considered to be an overwhelming success and TR, on behalf of all the Committee, thanked SH for his hard work in ensuring the event took place. In total, about 40 Club members were involved on the day with 27 competing. The event also received good coverage in the Stourbridge News
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