TOWER HAMLETS WHEELERS
Meeting (and Annual General Meeting)
Minutes
Wednesday, 12th March 2008 7pm
Held at St Margaret's House, 21 Old Ford Road.
PRESENT: David Tuckwell (Special Projects)
Caroline Fenton (Workshop Co-ordinator)
Dave Allison (Treasurer)
Ralph Withers (Newsletter Editor)
Keith Jones (Events Co-ordinator)
Kerry Nice
Kerry Noble (Press Officer)
Penny Cooke
Geraldine Matthews
Steve Collins (Secretary/Rides Co-ordinator)
Aneeta Patel
Sam
Neville Reid
Robert Lister (Campaigns Co-ordinator)
APOLOGIES: Owen Pearson (Co-ordinator)
Gail Culverwell
Peter Barlow
Carol Gray
CHAIR: David Tuckwell
MINUTES: Robert Lister
1. Guest speaker (and Wheeler) Aneeta Patel gave an excellent presentation
on her charity ride in India, for a charity called Women for Women. You
can see her blog of her training and finally the 5 day 372km adventure:
www.justgiving.com/aneetapatel
2. The chair gave a round-up of the past year, particularly last year the
web site had continued to receive many hits, we had a very active year in
terms of events and rides, and we were working better together with the
LCC, attending their monthly social events, to exchange ideas with other
groups and LCC central.
3. The chair invited reports from the current committee members to recap
what they had been up to in the last year, and any ideas/intentions for
the coming year.
i. Treasurer (Dave Allison)
Presented the treasurer's report.
Currently held £3,367 of which:
Bank : £ 3,011.32
Cash : £ 118.36
Paypal : £ 237.96
It was noted that we have £900 outstanding to spend from St Katharine and
Shadwell Trust. CF confirmed that we had been promoting in that area
again recently and hoped to gain more interest. The money needs to be
spent by May, but is ring-fenced for that neighbourhood. Youth Groups,
Schools, local businesses and other venues have been approached.
We expect to receive £300 grant from LCC this year, which did not appear
to have been received in 2007.
No active requests for any further funding, but ideas welcomed.
(GM suggested that a possible way forward for the Shadwell money could be
supporting the Arnold Circus event.)
RL suggested there may be funding available via LCC if we can apply for
CLPP (they seemed interested in copying an idea like Movers and Shakers
to other boroughs.) Also still trying with the PCT/LCC to see if there is
any funds available for a cycling for health project.
ii. Rides and Socials (Steve Collins)
Owing to ham string injury, Steve did not manage to lead as many rides
in the last year as he would have liked.
It was agreed that we should continue to encourage new ride leaders to
build up a wider base of people who can lead rides.
This might take the form of being a co-leader on one or two rides with an
experienced ride leader, and then swapping roles, and then leading a ride.
Steve thanked everybody who had organised and led rides in the past year.
iii. Events (Keith Jones)
Keith reported that we had attended several successful events in 2007,
mainly:
- A couple of events in Victoria Park
- St Barnabas Community Fete
- Spitalfields Green Fair
- Trees for Cities
- Eco/Tree event
- Bikeathon Dr. Bike.
- Freewheel support
- Bike Week
Keith added that if possible it would be good to be able to work with
other events/concerts in Victoria Park, and that events should encourage
cycling to them, and provide secure bike parking in the Park, which we
could be involved with/hand out information at.
iv. Workshop (Caroline Fenton)
Caroline reported that it had been a good year for workshops, running
them every month except December.
>> Discussed the possibility of encouraging more self-help at the
workshops (i.e, us showing workshop users how to fix their own bikes
rather than us doing everything for them.) as sometimes we are very busy,
while people wait in a queue.
>> Find out how much longer we have at Limehouse Town Hall.
>> Keith mentioned possibly we could get another work stand.
>> A brief discussion took place on the issue of liability for the
workshop, for example what would happen if somebody made a claim for
their bike getting damaged or for injury as a result of a repair we
had carried out, or assisted them to do. Although we do get them to
sign a disclaimer. We need to clarify our insurance in what we are/are
not insured for in this regard.
>> Keith to investigate possibility of some formal mechanic training for
regular "Dr. Bikes".
v. Newsletter (Ralph Withers/Robert Lister)
Rob confirmed that we had distributed around 4000-5000 newsletters.
Thanks to Ralph for producing June/July 2006-June/July 2007 issues.
Rob has produced 4 issues so far since October 2007.
Agreed that it can be hard work getting people to write articles, and
that it needs somebody to chase up and attend various meetings to
identify the current issues, and to identify suitable people to write
articles.
Rob thanked everyone who had contributed to the newsletter, as without
them it would not be possible!
For the coming year we would continue to experiment with different
locations for the hand-outs to see if we can get new groups of cyclists
previously missed. (We tried a couple of new locations last year with
varying degrees of success.)
Also for the next year, Rob intends to continue to work on placing
newsletter boxes in other places such as Cafes, Libraries and other
interesting venues. (also thanks to Keith for handing them out to bike
shops)
vi. Campaigns (Robert Lister)
Rob reported not much happening on campaigns activity at the moment,
but we are working on relationships with the police, hampered by
various contacts at the Met Police moving on to other roles, and their
replacements not being very responsive or having other priorities.
That said, we have had two Bike Security awareness events tied in to
the workshops organised by Owen, and had responded to several
consultations and planning applications on issues such as bike parking
and cycle routes.
Working on cycling for health/Movers and Shakers type campaign for the
coming year.
vii. Special Projects (David Tuckwell)
David reported he had enjoyed doing this interesting post!
Highlights included organising the social dinner which was a great
success with 22 people turning up.
Relations with LCC
Relations with Hackney Cyclists
Newsletter handouts / supporting events i.e Freewheel.
Thanked everybody who had done lots of work on things
RL commended David for all the ideas he had originated, even if we
aren't (yet) able to act on some of these, they are very welcome,
these have included:-
- Initiative to review planning applications
- Wheelies awards
... many more!
4. ELECTION OF OFFICERS (AGM)
All the committee posts were up for election at this AGM.
No advanced notice had been received from anyone wishing to stand for
any of the current posts.
Re-Elected to their current posts for 2008 were:
- Owen Pearson, Co-Ordinator (prop: ? ,sec: Anneta Patel)
- Steve Collins, Secretary (prop: Keith Jones, sec: Kerry Noble)
- Dave Allison, Treasurer (prop: Ralph Withers, sec: Neville Reid)
- Keith Jones, Events Co-Ordinator (prop: Kerry, sec: Caroline Fenton)
- David Tuckwell, Special Projects (prop: Dave A, sec: Rob L)
- Kerry Noble, Press Officer (prop: Caroline, sec: Keith)
- Robert Lister, Campaigns Co-Ordinator (prop: Steve, sec: Kerry Noble)
After some discussion, it was agreed that Steve Collins would hand the
rides & socials co-ordinator post to Caroline.
- Caroline Fenton was duly elected as Rides & Socials Co-ordinator.
(prop: Ralph, sec: Steve C)
There was some discussion on creating a post to co-ordinate the bike
buddy scheme, but nobody was officially elected. Instead RL expressed an
interest in doing it, as it would fit in with what he is doing.
- Ralph Withers confirmed he was no longer the 'official'
Newsletter Editor. Nobody was elected as Newsletter Editor.
RL to carry on producing the newsletter for the time being.
5. Approval of Accounts / Minutes
- The Minutes of the previous (2007) AGM were approved as accurate
by those that had read it.
- The Treasurer's report was approved as presented.
6. AOB
There being no other business, the AGM concluded at 9:15 PM.
7. Presentation by Steve Collins on his work leading charity rides
for Maternity Worldwide, who are developing maternity services for
Western Ethiopia, by providing skilled maternity staff, running the
delivery unit in a hospital in Gimbie, Western Ethiopia, funding for
those least able to pay for care, and training local people to run rural
clinics (basic emergency obstetric care centres).
The speakers (Aneeta and Steve) were thanked.
Geraldine thanked for arranging the display of Victoria Park proposal
which took place before the meeting.
The meeting ended at around 10:20 PM.
|
