MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN - PLEASE READ
Posted: 13 Jun 2019 14:11
Hi all,
Beacon has always been a cycling club that has taken on a lot of varied activities, and we do them really well, whether that is club rides, road races, crits, track, time trials, audaxes, youth events etc, but for these to continue we are reliant on willing volunteers to organise and assist. To be fair, we somehow are always able to find organising volunteers from our pool of enthusiasts, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people to volunteer to help out on these events. We muddle through, only by pleading for support, and repeating over and over again that we need help.
This is discouraging for the organiser (if no one else can be bothered, why should I?) and might also affect our reputation (I don't fancy entering another Beacon event). Several activity organisers have recently made their frustrations known, and just last week there was a lament on Facebook about people not helping out at the Stourport Crit. At the next Committee meeting, we will discuss ways of ensuring that the club only takes on events that it can be confident of organising well (with enough volunteers). It would be a great shame if that led to us putting on fewer activities. So please do consider all volunteer requests seriously, rather than leaving everything to the same old faces.
Remember…most requests for help usually involve just an hour or two, and are light duties, and sometimes involve just cooking bacon! So it would be good to see more people volunteering to help before we go down this road of reducing what we organise.
It’s up to us….happy to hear your views.
Phil
Beacon has always been a cycling club that has taken on a lot of varied activities, and we do them really well, whether that is club rides, road races, crits, track, time trials, audaxes, youth events etc, but for these to continue we are reliant on willing volunteers to organise and assist. To be fair, we somehow are always able to find organising volunteers from our pool of enthusiasts, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people to volunteer to help out on these events. We muddle through, only by pleading for support, and repeating over and over again that we need help.
This is discouraging for the organiser (if no one else can be bothered, why should I?) and might also affect our reputation (I don't fancy entering another Beacon event). Several activity organisers have recently made their frustrations known, and just last week there was a lament on Facebook about people not helping out at the Stourport Crit. At the next Committee meeting, we will discuss ways of ensuring that the club only takes on events that it can be confident of organising well (with enough volunteers). It would be a great shame if that led to us putting on fewer activities. So please do consider all volunteer requests seriously, rather than leaving everything to the same old faces.
Remember…most requests for help usually involve just an hour or two, and are light duties, and sometimes involve just cooking bacon! So it would be good to see more people volunteering to help before we go down this road of reducing what we organise.
It’s up to us….happy to hear your views.
Phil