April Online Meeting

Four items are posted below for the April meeting. Each item is its own post, please comment on each item and offer suggestions etc. If you want to add another item please comment to this post.

1. Promotion
2. Plates
3. Commissaires 
4. Canada Cup

A couple of documents will be posted shortly where I am looking for input before they are published - please keep checking this site.

Also, I am looking for a volunteer to track the MTB Cup points and the inter-club competition, any takers?

Thanks,
Hal Loewen
MTB Coordinator

April Online Meeting - Promotion

These cards where designed as a promotional tool for our MTB races. The idea was to have business cards beside cash registers in the shop and have them hand them out, directing people to our web site for more information.

I priced out that it is roughly $100 for 1000 cards. We have roughly $120 in our budget for these types of promotions. 1000 cards distributed to roughly 10 supporting shops might last a few days or a week or two, do we want to pursue this? Can somebody get a better price than this?

April Online Meeting - Plates

Last year we used the plates from the previous season, saving a lot of money. Our inventory is running low and we will need to get new plates for this season. We have lost a lot plates over the last two years, mostly at events where we use the plates and they do not come back at the end of the event.

We are currently pricing them out the cost of getting new plates but we need to come up with a strategy to get the most use out of the plates we order; what are your ideas? Here are a couple to get started with:

1. Issue a plate for 5 years - the only time you change the plate is if you go to a new category, you would then have turn in your old plate to get the new plate.
2. You loose or break your plate you need to pay for the replacement.
3. Buy a bunch of tyvek sheets  with numbers to hand out at events that are not races or to participants who are not MCA members - if they do not get returned no biggie, also, it makes it easier to distinguish who is and who is not an MCA member (don't know if that is important).
4. Other ideas???

April Online Meeting - Commissaries

After many attempts to try and organize a commissaire training course this spring we came to the conclusion putting a session on this year is not possible. Our only qualified commissaire who can teach this course was unable to do so this year. We tried to bring someone in, but we could not make it fit our schedule.

After speaking to our head commissaire we decided that we have enough current commissaires to run this year's schedule., which is fine for this year but does not bode well for the future. It is imperative that we continue to train commissaires so we have officials for our races. To accomplish this we have three options before us:

1. Continue with our one current commissaire who is qualified to teach new commissaires
2. Look to bring in out-of-province commissaires to train new commissaires
3. Send one of our commissaires to get the qualifications to train new commissaires

Both #'s 2 and 3 are costly and our budget's are tight. I am inclined to go with #3 - thoughts?

April Online Meeting - Canada Cup

Since we are shooting for a Canada Cup in 2012 there are a couple of things that we can do to prep:

1. Prepare a course - this we are starting to do by holding Provincials at the likely venue for the CC, Falcon Ridge. Falcon Ridge has been secured for this year's provincials and will have to be the location for next year's provincials as well. The MTB committee is in charge of the provincials and we'll be going out early to scout a course. We will meet with the organizers of the other events there this year to see how much we can work in conjunction with our events - maybe by helping each other out we can enhance all the events there. We will call a meeting of all of the organizers who are putting on events at Falcon to plan this.
2. There is a Canada Cup in Edmonton and Canmore this summer. Edmonton is July 11th weekend (same as weekend as the Swan River Cup race) and Canmore is the following weekend, July 17-18 (same weekend as the Training Coop event). Any one who is interested in going to one of these and is also interested in assisting with the CC should contact me - I would like to go to see how it is organized and what we are getting ourselves into.

February Online Meeting - New Agenda Items

Five items are posted below for the February meeting. Each item is its own post, please comment on each item and offer suggestions etc. If you want to add another item please comment to this post.

The posts for the online meeting are:

1. Race Categories and Movement
2. Online Registration
3. Documentation 
4. Promotion
5. Participation Series

Race Categories and Movement

Riders who raced well enough to move to the next competitive category will be contacted and asked to register in that category. Also, this year we'll have an Elite category as enough racers have been identified to make this category viable.

Online Registration

This item is added to the February Online meeting agenda - we need to follow through on the option for online registration. Last year we agreed to have online registration for the Cup series: $25 for individual races and $100 for the series (the money collected for the series would be split evenly among all the organizing clubs). We'll also have online registration available for all the other mountain bike events. We'll find out what the set up costs for this would be and come up with a time line for clubs to submit the costs of their events, and appropriate contact information.

February Online Meeting

Three items are posted below for the February meeting. Each item is its own post, please comment on each item and offer suggestions etc. If you want to add another item please comment to this post.

The posts for the online meeting are:

1. Documentation 
2. Promotion
3. Participation Series

Documentation

Make sure that all the following MTB documentation is up-to-date and ready for publication by the end of February, this includes:

• Race organizer's manual
• Racer information package (to come shortly)
• Enduro rules
• Cup points

Promotion

Promotion of the MTB season:

1. Print 11"X17" posters listing the MTB schedule and distribute to shops and recreational centres (based on last year's design by Kevin). Distribute these posters by the beginning of March.
2. Follow the deadlines on the race information form
3. Have detailed "race bibles" for each event that can be distributed to websites (MCA) and blogs at least 2 weeks prior to the event
4. Agree that Cup results be distributed to media for publication. This will be the top three in each category, men and women. This is the responsibility of the race organizer.

Participation Series

The idea is create a participation series for mountain biking that is similar to the road and cyclocross series. These series reward participants with the opportunity to win prizes based on their participation in MCA sanctioned races. If we agree, the mountain bike participation series will be base on a similar set of rules as the road and cyclocross series.

The first order of business is to find sponsors who are willing to contribute prizes to this series. One suggestion is to have each club who is sponsoring a MTB race contribute a prize to the series; please indicate if your club is interested in contributing a prize

Participation Rules:

1. Participants must hold a full race license
2. There will be two category of prizes: 18+ and U17 (If Olympia put together a Chris King package it would not be quite right to see it go to 9 year old Stephanie to put on her pink "My L'il Pony" bike - having said that the kids deserve to have prizes as well).
3. Participants will have their name entered into the draw for prizes for every MCA sanctioned mountain bike race (Cup, enduro, downhill, event)
4. The draw for the prizes will take place at the MCA AGM 

 Clubs contributing to the series (to-date):

• Olympia Cycling Club

online meetings

How about one more kick at this cat (not a real cat because that would be cruel)?

In an effort to try and accommodate people's busy lives, travel restricitons (Dale, Greg, Pat), and the current difficulties in finding a meeting space I propose that we try the online meetings again. Here is one way that this could work:

1. We alternate between in-person and online meetings
2. Online meetings for 2010 are February, April, June, August, October, December
3. In-person meetings for 2010 are March, May, July, September, November
4. For each online meeting I will post a list of agenda items, each agenda item will then get its own post
5. Committee members can then comment on each post as a form of discussion
6. After a set time (say, 3 weeks) the comments will be closed and I will summarize what has been said, and if warranted, asking for a vote on some items in order to make a decision
7. If the online forum does not work, we can carry the item to the in-person meeting

In-person meeting will continue as they have in the past. One thing we need to decide is the preferred day to hold the in-person meeting. We've tried Mondays and Tuesdays, what is your preference.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

halATshawDOTca