Help I'm a female who has inherited the cycling club presidency

[Koala Adams]

I didn't even want that job, lucky I have kind supporters locally who give direction.
Interested to hear about your club activities that members enjoyed?
How to engage volunteers and not burn out the keen ones?
How did you attract bunch riders and turn them into racing members?
If I'm the president, does that make my partner 'Anthony' the First Lady?

[DavidS]

Anthony would be the first gentleman. I know this as my partner is the president of a trade union, so I'm the first gentleman of the union Since I'm also a member it has advantages!

DS

[nickobec]

Congratulations/Commiserations

In last four years I have gone from racer to media person to committee member to secretary of Peel District Cycling Club

Up until recently our club was run by four retired gents, but age and illness caught up with them and now it is all new people at the helm.

I have not got any real wisdom on engaging volunteers, we struggle with that. Recently we took the decision to raise race fees by $5 to employ two traffic management professionals to handle the stop go bats and meet our requirements under the approved traffic management plans.

As for what our members want, regular, inexpensive, easy to get to races.

We learnt our lesson two years back, to ease the load on our volunteers we joined forces with other clubs (who did not put on regular racing) to put on a criterium series across Perth at the cost of local races. Some members loved it, but it cost us members.

Attracting bunch riders and converting them into racers is a challenge. Your best ambassadors for doing this are your members who ride bunches convincing other bunch riders to try racing.

The other club that does regular racing in Perth, races under the AVCC offer a free trial ride, which has got a few people racing.

PDCC races under Cycling Australia, so it is educating people (our members and potential members) about 3 event licences, if you get a full licence after purchasing a 3 event licence you get most of the cost of the 3 event licence back, and that from June you can get a 7 month licence at reduced cost.

The other thing you need to realise is that most club racers last on average about 3 years. They work and train hard, get to a certain level, then life in the form of work, partners, children, other interests, injury or even cost etc take over.

So as a club you need to be constantly recruiting, just to keep the same numbers.

[mikesbytes]

I know a female who use to be president of a bike club, if you PM me your contact details I'll pass them on

[RobertL]

I'm a member of Lifecycle Bicycle Club here in Brisbane. We have just changed presidents and have a women president for the first time.

You could probably speak to her and the other committee members. They're all very friendly. Try through the website: https://lifecyclecyclingclub.wordpress.com or the Facebook page.