CTC Committee Minutes Jan 21
Present:- Chris Crosland, Jayne Moore, Dave Dodwell, Graham Joyce, Jill Schorah, Richard Loh, Colin Chapman, Anne Lawther, Carol Hargreaves, Jason Hemmingway, John Whiteley.
1. Apologies for absence –
2. Minutes of meeting held 26th November 2020 agreed as an accurate record. Proposed: Dave, Seconded: Jill. All in favour.
Minutes of meeting held 17th December 2020 agreed as an accurate record subject to changing Gravel bike to MTB. Proposed: Graham, Seconded: Jason. All in favour.
3. Matters arising from both sets of minutes. None not already on agenda.
4. Secretary’s Report – Jayne
I received a phone call and then an email from From Rachel Pechey on 13 January 2021 giving advance notification of the Halifax Railway Station interim public consultation 18 January 2021. Mott MacDonald are working on behalf of Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council to develop the design proposals for the new Halifax railway station. An interim, non-statutory, digital public consultation for the Halifax railway station design proposals will begin on 18 January for 4 weeks. It will be hosted on the combined authority ‘Your Voice’ webpage: www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk/hsg. I sent the email to the committee and it was posted on Facebook to encourage our members to take part in the consultation.
I have also had chance to explore our pages on the CUK website and the group manager role where I can edit permissions for officers and also send emails to group members, update member list etc.
5. Communications with CUK
Jayne attended a webinar run by Tom Page, about running a virtual AGM. See separate report . Chris was unable to join the meeting due to the link not working.
6. Planning for a virtual AGM – Jayne
Jayne explained the webinar by Tom Page of CUK that she had attended and what it means for our club. Things to be considered were
• Do we use Microsoft teams with CUK admin support?
The committee agreed that it would be best to use Microsoft Teams to run our virtual meeting. This way we would have CUK member of staff to provide admin support. Graham explained that the direct link for the meeting would need to be on an email rather than an attachment as some folk can’t access Outlook.
Date for our AGM?
This needs to give Jill time to do her accounts after the end of March and also not too late for Jayne to complete the Annual Returns which are due in Mid May.
Jayne proposed Thursday 29th April 2021. Graham seconded it and all were in favour.
• Post holders (does anyone want to step down)?
Anne explained that she wanted to step down from Friday night Coordinator if possible. She had expressed this last year and had got a few volunteers together to help run each Friday evening with her planned travelling. She has last years programme as well which wasn’t used. Anne will hope to be off travelling again this winter.
Jill wants to step down as treasurer. With the current situation she realises a face to face handover will be difficult but so is prepared to continue until the handover can be done but this will not be an indefinite time.
John Whiteley wants to step down as welfare officer. He is still willing to continue as Vice president. If no one else fills the role he is prepared to continue doing what he does to fill this mandatory role if necessary for the club.
Carol wishes to step down from the committee.
Graham will be stepping down as external relations officer. Greg Elwell, who is a CTC member, from The cycle Forum will now be attending the City Connect Advisory Group and hasn’t given any commitment to feed back to our committee. Graham will let me know if he wishes to serve on the committee next year.
Dave D wishes to step down as Sunday Rides coordinator and Ride Leader input and training. He feels there are younger members with ideas who could bring something new to the role.
It was pointed out that we have also lost Dave Power as Thursday Rides coordinator in this last year so that is another vacancy although we haven’t ridden on Thursdays for a while.
Jayne will contact Eric Meadwell and Richard Loh by email to see if they would like to join the committee.
The view was expressed that we should wait until we can hold the AGM in person as a virtual meeting would not be supported and do nothing for the club’s future. Other views expressed thought we may have more interest with a higher than usual attendance.
• How do we manage the voting including Postal and Proxy or do we leave as is.. those who attend mtgs only to vote?
Chris explained that the CUK member Handbook states that voting is done only by members who actually attend the meetings. He would like Jayne to query the advice to allow proxy and postal voting at the AGM. This will make things very complicated.
• Do we want a practice with the committee.?
The consensus was that it would be good to have a practice, particularly with Chris and Jayne and a few committee members to work out the logistics of voting etc. Chris and Jayne will find a date.
Jayne will liaise with CUK over the decisions above and set things up. She will also draft an email for members for Chris to have a look at before sending out.
7. Registration Officer’s Report. Dave D
No new members have been added so no emails have been sent this month.
8. Website. Jason
Jason gave an update to say that whilst progress had initially been slow he had now received input and material from several committee members and was in a good position to now task Digital Renovators with putting this material on the website.
Jason explained he would park the Ride Categories discussion for now as there was no rush for this and there was time to give further thought to what is desired.
The Logo had been decided last time but a decision needs to be made on the two blues and the different type faces. After discussion it was agreed that the logo should read ‘Calderdale CTC a member of we are Cycling UK’ in that order. The colours and type face on ‘We are Cycling UK’ will have to stay the same so proposal was made to change the ‘Calderdale CTC’ blue to the same as Cycling UK. Jason will ask Digital Renovators to try the CUK font on Calderdale CTC and send out the various options by email for a decision.
Some sadness was expressed about losing the winged wheel but jason reassured the meeting that the logo and its rich history will be on the history pages of the website.
Jason stated he was going to look at the current wording and edit it himself. He explained that the website will be regularly updated with articles and photographs and new things added as it is developed.
Jason explained that there were lots of ideas and he would like to see The CUK Calderdale page pointing readers to our website to fully showcase the club.
Jason now has Admin rights at CUK so he is going to send out a positive, uplifting email about the launch of the new website.
Chris Thanked Jason for all his hard work and enthusiasm which the whole committee endorsed.
9. Treasurer’s Report.
Jill presented her report. There were no questions.
10. Welfare Officer’s Report. John Whiteley
John had nothing to report. Colin updated the meeting that Dave Moore is recovering from Covid. He spent a few days in hospital but is now home. He also informed us that Brear Buckley’s wife died a couple of weeks ago. Colin/John will seek to find an address and send Brear a card from the club.
11. Rides Coordinator Report. Dave D
There was nothing to report except that folk are still posting on Facebook, ride ideas and maps of routes people might try whilst there is no group cycling or finding ride partners.
12. External Relations & Consultations. Graham
City Connect Advisory Group, December and January meetings
Bradley- Brighouse Greenway – amendments to the scheme have been incorporated, following the consultation exercise. These should be available to view on the WYCA website, but have been referred to in previous meetings.
Cross Church Street, Huddersfield – scheme delayed due to public and business objections
Castleford –Wakefield greenway – work on site commenced
Steeton – Silsden crossing – over 1000 responses received to consultation
Huddersfield Narrow Canal (Phase 2) – consultation has resulted in a number of concerns about design (width and surfaces), so scheme is delayed. Work on Leeds-Liverpool canal towpath will now proceed separately, without delay.
Once completed, these and all the other schemes will bring City Connect 3 to a close. Local authority districts have submitted their wish lists of cycling (and walking) schemes that could proceed, should DfT release further funding. I said the Calderdale list should be more extensive and proposed that the canal towpath from Todmorden to Summit be included. Greg Elwell (chair) and I are putting together a list for the next Cycle Forum (4.30pm, 2 February).
Transforming Cities Fund (TCF)
A discussion has taken place on governance arrangements as we move from one major funding programme (City Connect) to another (TCF). A new advisory group is proposed and the position of (paid) chair has been advertised for open recruitment. I have agreed to hand over representation of the Calderdale Cycle Forum to our chair, Greg Elwell, but I have agreed to stand in when he can’t make meetings (this may affect reporting back to this Committee). We need clear aims and Terms of Reference for the group, but the discussion focussed on whether the advisory group should cover wider, more strategic issues associated with walking and cycling policy, or detailed advice on project design. Views vary across the districts, but if a district has an effective cycle forum, detailed designs should be brought to that body for discussion by a wider group of people, in my view. However, it is more difficult to gather views on walking this way ie. through an Active Travel group, not just cycling.
North Halifax Cycle Route
Back in December, I posted details of a consultation meeting (via Zoom) on cycling in Ovenden, as part of a wider consultation on North Halifax routes. Julie Kerwin (and Martin) represented Calderdale CTC, as the live locally and have a good understanding of local issues. This was followed this month by a consultation on a full cycle route from Halifax town centre to Morrison’s at Illingworth. 14 people attended, including Julie/martin, Dave Dodwell, Reid Anderson and myself. I can circulate details of the proposal to anyone who missed this, but the scheme will be worked up on the basis proposed, using £3 – £7 million of TCF funding. Detailed designs focussed on the lower end, including Dean Clough, Lee Bridge, Shroggs Rd and Keighley road up to Ovenden Way.
Calderdale Cycle Forum
Our next meeting will take place on Monday 2 February, 4.30pm. The agenda will focus on current and proposed cycling infrastructure projects. These include Halifax Station Gateway (including Hebble Trail link), Elland Station Access package, Halifax- Huddersfield (A629), North Halifax (see above). Consultation on the Halifax Station Gateway went live last week and details were posted on our Facebook page. These are all big scale project using TCF funding and it is vital to get cyclists comments at the design stage (rather than moaning about things when it is too late!). As ever, the Forum meeting is open to all cyclists (contact me for log in details).
13. Cycle Queensbury. Dave D – Nothing to report.
14. Any Other Business
a) Club Mugs – Dave D
Colin had put together several designs on a mug for the committee to look at to aid discussion. There was further discussion about the winged wheel logo and Yorkshire Rose which was on a previous design by Colin. It was noted that the vote at the last meeting to drop the winged wheel from the logo only applied to the website. There is no reason why we couldn’t have more than one mug design. Dave has a supplier who will produce small numbers of Mugs.
It was suggested that Dave, Colin and John Whiteley work on producing two or three designs of various combinations of logos to present to the next meeting to see what we go on to produce for both giving as awards or general sale.
b) Annual Dinner – It was agreed that Jayne would post something on Facebook to notify members that we can’t have one this year.
c) Events – Chris
Chris informed the meeting that he is currently reviewing the first Audax’s in the events program on 11th April and would make a decision whether it goes ahead in the next week or so. With current restrictions it is unlikely to go ahead. The York Rally is off as is the L-E-L.
d) Graham updated the meeting that he had been helping Linda Keighley to move on John’s cycling gear. He had just sold one bike which raised £300 for Overgate Hospice.
14. Date of next meeting – 7.30pm Thursday 25th February 2021.