Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Vets

It has been my privilege to be the President of the Veterans Cycling Club over 2019.

It’s a point of pride for me that we have a very effective Committee that allows members to race three times a week in Summer and once a week in the winter season over a massive number of NSW and ACT courses.

Through the efforts of the committee, we’ve been able to get all the road approvals for 2020 and developed a list of marshals for the full racing year. If your name comes up, just know that it’s once a year whereas there are a number of people that put in a huge effort to support the club on an annual basis.

At the club level we are financially secure and able to offer members over 80 events per year. The work that both Kirsti McVay (treasurer) and Ian McVay (that guy that emails you and tells you it’s your turn to give back to the club by refereeing) undertake is a critical part of why this club is so successful. At a national level the club is represented as both a State and with the vice presidency which has allowed the ACT to push for only a marginal increase in fees for members, and a change of national constitution, which is a huge effort. In this, special thanks go to the efforts of Ian Albrey and Phill Coulton who have both made the effort to get to Melbourne to represent the Club at the national level in 2019.

Another significant achievement was “saving the crit circuit” and I’d like to thank our member Ben Davis and local politicians Guilia Jones MLA and Mark Parton MLA in achieving something that had been seemingly impossible until that point.

I’d also like to put a shout out to the brilliant work that Mr Algorithm (Graeme O’Neill) and his offsider Mr “I’m going to hang you out to dry then come stomping past you at the finish line” (Micheal Langdon) and the always level headed Alec Millet have put in to run the 2019 Track season. If you haven’t tried Track you’re REALLY missing out!

A special thanks go to Secretary Jan Koehler for taking the weight of Phill and myself and always providing such a positive voice in the Committee meetings. For stepping up and her assistance all year I’m awarding Jan the “Clubman of the year” award (yes I know but it’s an old award that I think we should change!). Unfortunately Jan couldn’t be there on Tuesday night to accept the award.

I want to also sincerely thank all the volunteers, race directors and marshals for allowing all of the racing to occur in 2019. To my knowledge, we had no cancellations of races because of missing marshals, race directors or other officials. Thanks also go to our handicapper, Rob Langridge, Ian Morton who puts the Bleat together every week, Kim Malcolm arranges all the trophies and medals and Andrew Remely and Seymour Savell-Boss who assist with the social media aspects of the club and the website. Thanks also to Russell Marston, Andrew Remely Ian McVay and Al Bontjer who undertook a significant review of the Club’s IT systems in 2019.

Andy Matz and Jan Koehler were instrumental in winning an ACT Government Grant for first aid training for club members and I thank them for their efforts. A special and HUGE thanks for the weekly commitment to Graham Hendrie “the van man” who’s out to support every non-crit event – a massive effort.

My thanks also to Nathan Spillane and the Quon crew for putting on an awesome spread on Tuesday night for the last night of racing for the year. Despite the smoke and subsequent cancellation the event was exactly how I picture Vets events. A lovely way to end the year and I encourage anyone who wants to to approach the Committee and put on a similar style of event.

We have some challenges in 2020, the main one being dealing with the outcome of the push for all cycling clubs (including BMX and MTB) to become members of “AusCycling”. The ACT Vets have been to every meeting on this issue and the AVCC (our national body) had a briefing from the head of CA where we discussed a number of issues. The challenge for ACT Vets is that a number of Victorian AVCC clubs are considering moving to AusCycling which would create difficulties for WA, SA, ACT and Qld in meeting insurance costs. Another challenge I would like to resolve is fostering a higher number of women in the ACT Vets, as, at the moment, only around 10% of our members are women. Please encourage all the women in your life that ride bikes to come and join us for a trial ride!

I’ve decided that 2019 will be my last as President of this great club. I feel like I’ve achieved most of what I set out to achieve with the club. I’d like to hand over to someone who has the passion for the direction of the club on an ongoing basis with the knowledge that they are supported by one of the most professional and committed groups of people that I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. If that’s you, feel free to step up in 2020!

I wish you all the best for 2020. See you out there!

Regards,

Dougal Torrance
President,
ACT Veterans Cycling Club.