Cycling Ireland yesterday held its AGM in the Cavan Crystal Hotel, with the federation electing Rory Wyley as its new president. Miceal Concannon stepped down after several years at the helm, referring to the introduction of one governing body throughout Ireland as one of the biggest achievements in that time. He will remain involved in the sport, both in a local level and also as a board member of the UEC (European Cycling Union).
Wyley’s move saw Niall Brosnan appointed as treasurer in his place.
There were two positions up for election on the board and the outgoing holders Orla Hendron and Anto Moran were re-elected. Karl Fullerton had also gone forward for one of the positions but finished third in the ballot. James McArdle, who had previously been listed as running, did not ultimately submit his name.
Both vowed to work hard for cycling. Hendron said that she was glad to give representation to Ireland’s female riders, as well as dealing with general issues.
Honorary life membership was allocated to three individuals; Morris Foster was described as ‘one of the real heroes of the sport of cycling, and one of the really nice guys of this world.’
British Cycling’s Barry Broadbent was given the award for his help in bringing about the situation where one federation is governing the sport in Ireland. “I don’t think that without his drive that this would have gone through,” said Concannon.
Longtime board member Jack Watson was the third to get life membership.
Several reports were presented, with CI CEO Geoff Liffey
Several motions were debated, with four being carried. These were:
1) That all Regional Commissaire appointments be submitted to Cycling Ireland Admin for
publication.
This was nominated by Balbriggan CC, and was taken after several commissaires failed to turn up at races that they had been allocated to.
2) That All National Commissions hold their Annual General Meeting at a weekend in a location
central to the whole of Ireland, avoiding clashes, so they are more easily attended by interested
parties with official notification and agendas of such meetings available to the members and
Provincial Secretaries a minimum of two weeks in advance.
Nominated by Cycling Ulster Executive – the aim was to ensure that it was as easy as possible for people to attend such meetings.
3) That the minutes of all such AGMs are distributed to the Provincial Secretaries and are available
for Download on the Cycling Ireland Website within one month of the AGM.
By Cycling Ulster Executive
4) The maximum permitted distances for Youth racing in an uncontrolled Road Race should be
increased as follows:
Age 16/15 60Km to 80Km
Age 14/13 25Km to 30Km
Age 12/11 10Km to 15Km
(Note no changes recommended to gearing restrictions)
By Youth Commission Cycling Ireland. This was to help those going abroad to race longer distances, and thus to fare better in races such as the youth Olympics. It was stressed that these distances are new maximums, and should not lead to an automatic lengthening of such races. It is envisaged that only a few races will lengthen each year.
Several other motions were withdrawn. These were:
1) That in compiling the annual Cycling Ireland Calendar, clubs who are willing to apply for race dates and who do not intend running underage races should not be discriminated against in the allocation of race dates. By Balbriggan CC
2) That Clubs who do not apply to promote an open race on the annual CI calendar, should offer to provide Marshalls/Stewards (Min 2) to adjacent clubs who may be running an event, offer failure should result in the doubling of affiliation fees and these fees would be allocated to promoting clubs in the area. By Balbriggan CC
3) That the draft Version 0.1 (Jan 11th 2009) on the Proposed division of tasks for Commissions and Provinces be implemented. By Cycling Ulster Executive (Document referred is in Appendix A)
4) That the Road Commission grades all applications for National Championships, prior to submission to the Board for approval, on points based on those applications which demonstrate that interested clubs have taken into account the criteria for such events. We would also propose that the Provincial Calendar coordinators and the CEO of Cycling Ireland be in attendance at the grading so that it is open and transparent. By Cycling Ulster Executive
The last of these was withdrawn after Gary McIlroy of the road commission promised to help ensure transparency in such decisions.
Finally, a commitment was made to have a working group study the following two motions, which were not voted upon:
1) That One Day Licences as they are presently administered should be abolished. By Balbriggan CC
2) That One Day Licences should be replaced by One Day Licence Vouchers in a similar design to be
administered by Cycling Ireland Admin. A cyclist could apply to Cycling Ireland Admin for a book
(Min 5) of vouchers for €50. When a cyclist wishes to enter a race, they would then submit a
completed voucher to the relevant Commissaire who will then submit it with their Comms
Report. Unused vouchers can be returned to CI for refund or re- allocation the following
season. By Balbriggan CC
It was pointed out that the issuing of one-day licences was hugely time consuming for commissaires. Balbriggan CC argued that the voucher system would be best, but it was pointed out that this might dissuade newcomers from trying out a competitive event, on the grounds that they would need to financially commit to five of them.
A working group will be formed to look into the question and see if there is a quicker way to enable newcomers to try out racing.
The various reports which were presented yesterday are available for download from this site. To get a full picture of the information which came out of the AGM, Irishcycling.com suggests reading these reports.
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Some points which came out of yesterday’s AGM:
Track commission: Liam Walker will stand down, letting someone else take over as chairman. However he will stay involved in some capacity.
Coaching commission: Aiming to appoint a coaching administration manager in the next two to three months. Until now, they feel that they’ve only been educating coaches by running course – this would help to make a much stronger commission.
Women’s commission: Valerie Considine said that the commission have a much improved relationship with Cycling Ireland, thanks in part to Geoff Liffey. She said that Phil Leigh was far easier to work with than the previous high performance manager.
She said that she hoped that things will become more fair; “12 percent of the members are women but the spending on women’s cycling isn’t 12%. We’d like to see more equality,” she stated. The work Orla Hendron has done on the board was highlighted as being important, and she said that having a presence there is good for both the commission and the sport.
Considine also said that due to the huge workload, she stated it is very difficult to run women’s races throughout Ireland without the help of other clubs. She said that she hoped that clubs could agree to hold one or two events a year, giving female riders a regular programme of racing.
Paracycling/Disability commission report: Denis Toomey highlighted the excellent campaign at last weekend’s paracycling world championships, saying that the highlight was a “fabulous silver win on the track – that is a huge, huge boost, and that’s partly due to to all the work that people have put in over the years.”
He pointed out that the riders had several top ten finishes and broke seven national records. Toomey thanked Cycling Ireland for being one of the first national federations to fully embrace paracycling.
Outgoing president Miceal Concannon commented on the plans to change the Olympic track programme, confirming that there will be five events each for men and women. This will see several key events disappear. He also said that London is likely to be the last Olympic Games where a time trial will feature; after 2012, it is likely that BMX will take its place.
He said that such decisions are finalised between the UCI and the IOC – the national federations and the UEC have no input.
The new president Rory Wyley said that he is now starting a two-year term, and would hope to be re-elected after that. He referred to the new strategy document and called on members to do what they can to help with that. Wyley said that when commissions apply for funding, they will be asked what parts of the strategy they can help CI to achieve.
He said child protection was one of the most important aims.
Geoff Liffey gave his CEO report, and said that the membership has increased by 20%. “However there’s a lot more potential there. Swim Ireland has 12000 members, and that’s facility based…we need to keep chasing people to join.
“There are lots and lots of people out on bikes who are not members of Cycling Ireland. Also, in the first two weeks of Dublin Bikes, they had 16,000 subscribers. It is up to us to get more people involved.”
He said that one area of concern was the low numbers in many junior races. Overall, the message was that while the membership is improving year on year, CI needs to keep looking to build on this.
Phil Leigh gave his first report as High Performance manager and said that some very good results were achieved this season. The newly-launched high performance strategy has been laid out with the following target:
‘To identify and prepare a group of riders across all CI’s competition programmes, with a goal to qualify a minimum of 8 riders across the genders for each of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Game, and achieve a minimum of a top 8 result.’
He committed to helping to achieve greater parity vis-à-vis women’s racing. He also said that CI is targeting all major championships, not just the Olympics. That will include cross country and mountainbike competitions and, to that end, CI wants to get a MTB coach.
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Some short interviews from the AGM will appear on this website in the days to come.
