flyingdab

Important Club News After many years involvement in helping run a number of clubs, both Dave and I feel it is time to step aside and give other people a chance to take the reigns. It is our intention to continue until the end of this year and are looking for people to take over as secretary and chairperson during this period. We will of course give guidance to the new officials. If anyone is interested in taking either position or just helping out with club duties please contact us via the email address on the club web page or just by talking to us if you see us at an event Russ D

Just picking up on some of SH points. We as a club have offered incentives to observers in the past, free entries, tyre raffle, etc. and still struggle for observers. Due to the weather at this trial, we gave each observer a voucher to spend at the butty van. It was unfortunate that some were unable to use it due to the lateness of some riders finishing and also the van running low on stocks. In future we will start at the advertised time, whether or not the signing on has finished. I agree some riders just turn up as the trial is starting and that they will do this at most trials they attend. The only way to sort this would be to close the signing on at the time stated in the regs and turn riders away. Unless all clubs were to do this, just one club making a stance would lose those riders in the future. One of the main problems we as a club have is the lack of depth in resources and I don't think we are the only club to experience this. Maybe we should go along the AMCA motox route. When an event is held by your home club, unless you can provide a helper you must give up your ride and help, other sports have similar rules (for each horse riding club my wife wishes to join, she must put her name down at the beginning of the year for 2 duty days, otherwise she will not be able to join that club the following year). This way more people will actually see what it takes to organise an event. As a lot of people who have added comments in this topic will know, it's not just a case of throwing a few markers in the ground, there are a significant number of items that happen before and after a trial. We did make errors of judgement on the day and we will endeavour to rectify these in the future. Please approach me with any ideas, areas of concern or most importantly offers of help, not only at our events but any that you see me at, or email me.

Nice to see people thought the sections were about right. I think Gaz has highlighted the problem of people who help organise club trials, they are more than willing to help other clubs (thanks for the offer Atom, we may well take you up on this in the future). The problem is, if the same few faces do the work for all the clubs, then there is no incentive for any one else to get involved. We all know that most people would just rather turn up, ride and go home. A lot have commitments outside of trials. There are just too many alternatives to trials for people's leisure time now, that doesn't involve the family standing out in a field in the cold and wet. I personally don't know what the answer is and the situation will probably get worse, as there appears to be no involvement in organisation of trials events (in our centre at least) by the youth riders who are moving up to the adult ranks. These are the people who should be taking control of the clubs for the clubs future.

Firstly I