atomant Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 Following This Thread on trials clubs getting observers, it begs the question, What is a Trials Club?? I ask the question as I dont see it currently as a club due to the way the centres work!!! My club is in the Midlands Centre so if I ride in the Mid Wales Centre I have to join one of their clubs to ride in that centre.. and so forth around the country. I believe getting people interested in one specific club is somewhat hindered because of this. I would like to see someone be able to join 'ONE' club and ride anywhere in the country under that clubs name, the purpose being to get brand loyalty. This would make people want to get more involved if they felt part of something especially if you have some riders that get about a bit. (Good advertising ! ) If you go to another centre to ride in their championship then they can charge a one off levy ( same as having to join their club) to ride but still keep your clubs name. Comments or any other suggestions please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 My centre (South Eastern) is split in to 3 combine groups and within each combine group you have 10+ clubs. I'm a full member of one club and affliated (at a discount rate) to a second club in one of the other combine groups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
essex rider Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 is it castle colchester you are affiliated to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdc Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 That system already exists. From 2006 a club can apply for on Open or Restricted permit. Obviously "open" means open to anyone and "restricted" can mean restricted to anybody the club chooses, ie. club, centre or any combination of clubs or centres. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atomant Posted February 13, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 That system already exists. From 2006 a club can apply for on Open or Restricted permit. Obviously "open" means open to anyone and "restricted" can mean restricted to anybody the club chooses, ie. club, centre or any combination of clubs or centres. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What I am saying is make most of them open trials. Theres not many clubs that have enough members to run trials just for their own members (who actively play a part in the clubs running) are there? I'm interested in stimulating conversation and ideas on getting more of a 'club' aspect than it is now. More of a community thing maybe.. Hopefully so more people would come forward and play a part in the club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scorpa3 Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 Getting youngsters involved should be one of the most important things for a club to concentrate on. No disrespect to members of our club, but take out the over 60's and there aren't many active members left. Take out the over 40's and there is no one. Doesn't look good long term. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desperado Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 Scorpa it begs the question why have you no younger members in your club. Is it this Midland Centre problem that nothing has been done to encourage the youth riders in the past?. Do you have a youth beginners class in your trials to encourage the very grass roots ? Atom, Trials Central, myself etc keep harping on about the Youth (yes sometimes we are a pain in the arris) but you have hit the nail on the head. We at Breidden Hills (and our neighbours South Shropshire) have a flourishing Youth scene because we activly involve the lads/lasses and encourage and help them. We have Youth Beginners / Clubman / Inter & Expert classes. Perhaps a few riders need to tolerate the youngsters a little more not tut and moan when they are behind them in a section. They are tomorrows organisers ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilco Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 maybe we should have a league like football. club to club competition's where one club goes to the other's ground and so on, i think that will give it more feel of actually being part of a club and not just a user of one. that way the small clubs would still be able to survive. on the other hand nobody seem's to have time to be part of a club in depth these day's all they want to do is turn up on the day do the trial and then go home.so yes you've given us food for thought i think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scorpa3 Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 Scorpa it begs the question why have you no younger members in your club. Is it this Midland Centre problem that nothing has been done to encourage the youth riders in the past?. Do you have a youth beginners class in your trials to encourage the very grass roots ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> For the first three years that I helped to organise our five round club championship we had four routes. Youth A, B, C & TY80 (previously there were just two routes,) putting on the extra routes doubled our entries over night. Each route had a championship with a points table attached to every set of results and trophies for the top three at the end of the season. Eventually due to lack of interest in the D class we dropped that and ran just three routes for a couple of years. Last year at the prize presentation evening, I took home more trophies than I gave out. Lack of regular entries has caused us to drop the championship. There were just three youth riders who rode in every trial. If four routes, a championship for each and triophies down to third place doesn't help attract the youngsters, I am at a loss as to what I can do? I whole heartedly welcome any suggestions or ideas on how to make our events more appealing to young people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bilco Posted February 13, 2006 Report Share Posted February 13, 2006 Scorpa it begs the question why have you no younger members in your club. Is it this Midland Centre problem that nothing has been done to encourage the youth riders in the past?. Do you have a youth beginners class in your trials to encourage the very grass roots ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> For the first three years that I helped to organise our five round club championship we had four routes. Youth A, B, C & TY80 (previously there were just two routes,) putting on the extra routes doubled our entries over night. Each route had a championship with a points table attached to every set of results and trophies for the top three at the end of the season. Eventually due to lack of interest in the D class we dropped that and ran just three routes for a couple of years. Last year at the prize presentation evening, I took home more trophies than I gave out. Lack of regular entries has caused us to drop the championship. There were just three youth riders who rode in every trial. If four routes, a championship for each and triophies down to third place doesn't help attract the youngsters, I am at a loss as to what I can do? I whole heartedly welcome any suggestions or ideas on how to make our events more appealing to young people. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> first thing i'd look at is try and find out where they went did they give up because they found the section's to hard and did'nt like taking a fall,when they watch the pro's jump up a cliff face from a standing start they think they can do it, when i was a youth rider many years ago we could only dream of doing that on our old lumpy twinshock's,in them day's every rider was more or less equal not the case nowday's.That's probaly what your up against how capable are the rider's,confidence run's out quick with kid's. Did you have practice day's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scorpa3 Posted February 14, 2006 Report Share Posted February 14, 2006 Our trials are almost always easy. As a rule (there are occasional slips) each route is won on single figures or even clean. Of course there are riders who choose to ride up a route and loose 100+ but that is their choice. It just seems as if the younger riders have gone? I can't do more than offer four routes where the winner almost always looses under 10. I wish I had the answer. I would be really pleased to see 30 or 40 young people turn up to ride for a championship at every trial. This season hasn't started yet. If anyone has any suggestions as to what would make them (or their sons/daughters)ride with us, I would be more than happy to consider implementing those ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desperado Posted February 14, 2006 Report Share Posted February 14, 2006 There is certainly no magic easy answer. If your location is such that there are no riders then there are no riders. Over here towards the Welsh border we do have a lot of youth riders. We at Breidden Hills attract 30 - 50 at any one event, South Shrops the same (roughly half the entry at some events). The majority are on the White Beginner route and most have Dad that rides (probably a very important factor). The sections are straighforward where the winner will lose 2 but having to cater for such a wide skill factor the last Youth will come in on 80 - 90. We activly encourage the younger members to help clear for trials, seek their advice when laying out sections and invite them to the few socials we have during the year (though we don't have enough of those- yet) One of the major problems if a rider is in the middle of the Midlands Centre with a shiny new bike costing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desperado Posted February 14, 2006 Report Share Posted February 14, 2006 Picking up on Atomants comments I really think we should look at riders joining just one club that would enable them to ride in any centre. That would make for more club loyalty which would help the organising side of things, would enable more social functions to take place and would encourage more 'club teams ' to compete in the likes of The Group trial series. We do have a light hearted Breidden Hills versus our neighbours South Shropshire team competition but even that is difficult because we have joined each others clubs to be eligible for awards at the end of the year! On the membership at the moment I feel we miss out because our first trial is held early March by which time riders have signed up with the first club who run a trial in their centre. That really needs adressing quickly. Very few riders feel part of a specific club. Many don't want to but even they should be encouraged to be 'club members' of a specific club. It worked very well when I went AMCA motocross a few years ago. Again keep the thoughts and ideas coming that we can take to the ACU and make changes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabie Posted February 15, 2006 Report Share Posted February 15, 2006 in my end of the world (same as spud - SEC) we're spoilt for events really also our centre is still very active in all four sports (Trials, enduro, MX, grass track) and some clubs cover more than one sport for example my club is huge - we finished last year with 400+ members, while other clubs in our Centre are inactive and some active clubs have only a handful of members even with "members" not all member organise anything / help out in anyway. on one hand you can go "AMCA MX" style and have a rigid group system with controlled membership to events ratio and forcing everyone to work. alternatively you can go to the Tony Ford / SMX extreme and run it as a business - charge a lot, put on a not very high standard event but the riders are happy in the knowledge they don't have to help out in any way at all what is the answer ? well that is really the $64,000 question..... anyway back to AtomAnt's original point - the new permit system for 2006 is designed so that yes you can enter any open event as a member of any ACU club - so i should be able to turn up to one of your trials as a Sidcup member, no problem. some places are going to more strict, by running events as group trials, LEPs, Restricted invitation, centre restricted, etc, etc --> IMHO this is unnecessary but the bureaucracy of some centres actively discourages some trials from being big (ie club have to pay for permits, pay for stewards, etc) - we silly southern fairies just pay a levy on each rider and get a free steward and permit, thus encouraging clubs to "think big" the system has been running unofficially in MX, Grass Track and LDTs for some time and should work well for trials as to how to build a club atmosphere, that is also a difficult question - in our opinion it does help to run the odd small club trial just for your members. we also run a club championship and have an awards do in a pub in the off season to award the prizes. a local enduro/trials club has all its members (at enduros anyway) wearing a club shirt. recently we've run training days with British enduro champions for our club members. riders want benefits beyond the club card, and with that you create (to an extent) an community and hopefully gain a few more volunteers. practically we're never going to get all 400+ of our members to work for the club but we do get a little bit which in our opinion makes it worth while. it doesn't stop some club stalwarts from getting upset and saying we need an AMCA MX type system (ie force everyone to work) a lot of tough questions, no real answers rabie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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