How does your club organise activity?
GavH
Posts: 933
Happy New Year all! Interested in your advice/thoughts based on the below rant/observations as I prepare to move jobs and location and hence start looking for a new club to ride with.
I have omitted to mention the name of the club in question on purpose, for reasons which as you read, ought to be apparant. Suffice to say some nice folk, but not one for encouraging new members
After several years of riding on my own and almost convincing myself I actually liked it that way, I took to going out with a mate from work who was new to cycling back in May 12. It quickly opened my eyes and prompted me to join a local club on one of their Wed evening 'no one gets dropped' rides. The first ride with them was an enlightening experience and I quickly resolved to join them again. After my third outing, I felt honour bound to pay their introductory joining fee and make it a more formal arrangement. That proved to be a challenging assignment and I got the impression at that point that despite being an old, well established club, they really weren't all that bothered about increasing their membership (they number approx 40-50 'paid up' members but rarely get more than 12-18 turn up for a weekend group run. By contrast, the next nearest club (about 7 miles away) I'm told has over 440 road members alone and has been known to send out an A, B1, B2 and C group most weekends). I was eventually able to force my money on them and assumed that in itself would open up a few more lines of communication but to be frank, it has done no such thing.
I went out on another few group rides and then had to go abroad with work for a couple of months and when I got back, went out on another Wed night run. I got the general impression that whilst I'd ridden with some of the characters that turned up before, no one really recognised me. That was fair enough; I had been away and I was still 'the new guy', but when the Club Secretary started telling me that there would be no club run that weekend as they were all off on a club weekend away to mark the end of the season, I began to wonder how I'd missed that. He went further by adding that it was normally 3 days away, but due to "lack of support" from across the club, they were only doing 2 days. I was welcome to ride "some of the route" but couldn't go the whole way as "accomodation is already booked and paid for". As a paid up member and a new one at that, I'd have relished the opportunity to support that weekend as a good way of getting known, but of course, I knew nothing about the event. On getting back home that night, I scoured the Facebook page and club site and there was no mention of the weekend away. To add insult to injury, they managed to drop two new guys in the first 20 mins of that 'no one gets dropped' ride and then one member (who I gathered was fairly senior) had the audacity to whinge about the loss of another possible new member. Since that night in Sept I haven't been back and noone from the club has made any attempt to text, email or message me on FB to ask why or point out any forthcoming rides or events. I've been riding at weekends with a friend, his mate and a work colleague so haven't missed the social side but have missed the faster paced riding and the sense of being part of something. That said, I've enjoyed spending 2-4 hours of a Sat & Sun morning with people who at least know my name, so to be fair, the effort on my part to meet up with the club hasn't exactly been noteworthy in its own right.
What prompted my post was tonight, one club member posted on the FB page that they were looking forward to the club ride organised for tomorrow. Again, as a paid up member of the club, I know nothing about it, nor is listed on the club site nor the FB page. Am I to assume that this was obviously 'word of mouth' organisation and that such organisation of club runs is common place amongst clubs? In any case, it prompted me to look up the club local to where my new job is in Hampshire (moving in 4 weeks) and was surprised to see they have practically a training programme going a month out on their website and it is jam packed with clearly up to date info - Quite the contrast to the 'nod and wink if we like you' approach the club I'm currently a 'member' of appears to take! Is this to be believed or are club activities more likely organised for the benefit of those who bother to turn up regularly on the basis of word of mouth? I can't make up my mind if the club really is that much of a clique that it doesn't care about new members or if I've managed to offend them somehow! Or am I just being a fudd who needs to zip up his man suit and get on with it!
In short, my recent experience has put me off joining another club: am I in for more of the same if I join a new club when I move, or, did I just experience a small club that doesn't do expansion? Thoughts?
I have omitted to mention the name of the club in question on purpose, for reasons which as you read, ought to be apparant. Suffice to say some nice folk, but not one for encouraging new members
After several years of riding on my own and almost convincing myself I actually liked it that way, I took to going out with a mate from work who was new to cycling back in May 12. It quickly opened my eyes and prompted me to join a local club on one of their Wed evening 'no one gets dropped' rides. The first ride with them was an enlightening experience and I quickly resolved to join them again. After my third outing, I felt honour bound to pay their introductory joining fee and make it a more formal arrangement. That proved to be a challenging assignment and I got the impression at that point that despite being an old, well established club, they really weren't all that bothered about increasing their membership (they number approx 40-50 'paid up' members but rarely get more than 12-18 turn up for a weekend group run. By contrast, the next nearest club (about 7 miles away) I'm told has over 440 road members alone and has been known to send out an A, B1, B2 and C group most weekends). I was eventually able to force my money on them and assumed that in itself would open up a few more lines of communication but to be frank, it has done no such thing.
I went out on another few group rides and then had to go abroad with work for a couple of months and when I got back, went out on another Wed night run. I got the general impression that whilst I'd ridden with some of the characters that turned up before, no one really recognised me. That was fair enough; I had been away and I was still 'the new guy', but when the Club Secretary started telling me that there would be no club run that weekend as they were all off on a club weekend away to mark the end of the season, I began to wonder how I'd missed that. He went further by adding that it was normally 3 days away, but due to "lack of support" from across the club, they were only doing 2 days. I was welcome to ride "some of the route" but couldn't go the whole way as "accomodation is already booked and paid for". As a paid up member and a new one at that, I'd have relished the opportunity to support that weekend as a good way of getting known, but of course, I knew nothing about the event. On getting back home that night, I scoured the Facebook page and club site and there was no mention of the weekend away. To add insult to injury, they managed to drop two new guys in the first 20 mins of that 'no one gets dropped' ride and then one member (who I gathered was fairly senior) had the audacity to whinge about the loss of another possible new member. Since that night in Sept I haven't been back and noone from the club has made any attempt to text, email or message me on FB to ask why or point out any forthcoming rides or events. I've been riding at weekends with a friend, his mate and a work colleague so haven't missed the social side but have missed the faster paced riding and the sense of being part of something. That said, I've enjoyed spending 2-4 hours of a Sat & Sun morning with people who at least know my name, so to be fair, the effort on my part to meet up with the club hasn't exactly been noteworthy in its own right.
What prompted my post was tonight, one club member posted on the FB page that they were looking forward to the club ride organised for tomorrow. Again, as a paid up member of the club, I know nothing about it, nor is listed on the club site nor the FB page. Am I to assume that this was obviously 'word of mouth' organisation and that such organisation of club runs is common place amongst clubs? In any case, it prompted me to look up the club local to where my new job is in Hampshire (moving in 4 weeks) and was surprised to see they have practically a training programme going a month out on their website and it is jam packed with clearly up to date info - Quite the contrast to the 'nod and wink if we like you' approach the club I'm currently a 'member' of appears to take! Is this to be believed or are club activities more likely organised for the benefit of those who bother to turn up regularly on the basis of word of mouth? I can't make up my mind if the club really is that much of a clique that it doesn't care about new members or if I've managed to offend them somehow! Or am I just being a fudd who needs to zip up his man suit and get on with it!
In short, my recent experience has put me off joining another club: am I in for more of the same if I join a new club when I move, or, did I just experience a small club that doesn't do expansion? Thoughts?
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Comments
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The thing about clubs is that they're all very different so don't be put off trying another few clubs in the local area.0
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GavH wrote:....they number approx 40-50 'paid up' members but rarely get more than 12-18 turn up for a weekend group run. By contrast, the next nearest club (about 7 miles away) I'm told has over 440 road members alone and has been known to send out an A, B1, B2 and C group most weekends).
There's a reason why club 'b' has so many members, you've probably just found out why! Don't worry about it, move on :-)0 -
Most clubs are decades old so Facebook and web pages are relatively new to them.
Don't forget that it's run by volunteers so it's not a professional thing.
You do need to make an effort I find and sometimes it takes a while to get to know people and them to get to know you.
You've ridden with them 8 times or so ? Have you been to club meetings ? Have you marshalled any events ? Do they have a club AGM or Xmas do ? All good ways to get to know people. I doubt you've offended them - just that they don't really know you yet.
That said- you do get funny people in cycling clubs. I think you will have to be released from the first club of you want to join the second.0 -
cougie wrote:You've ridden with them 8 times or so ? Have you been to club meetings ? Have you marshalled any events ? Do they have a club AGM or Xmas do ?
I haven't been made aware of any of that. Either they haven't held any, or just like much of the riding activity, I haven't been told about it.cougie wrote:I doubt you've offended them - just that they don't really know you yet.
TBH, that's what I had hoped was the case, that I was just the perpetual new guy having been unable to attend every weekend run, but in any case, not knowing about club activity doesn't inspire me nor does allow me the opportunity get myself known.0 -
I've dabbled with clubs at various times over the last 30 years or so, they really do differ. Some are massively keen on getting new members, they'll even have a membership manager to ensure there's a constant stream of new members and old ones are kept in the club.
The problem is, you also have some pretty weird people involved in cycling and it's them you notice more, especially on group rides. That's what we're all there for, isn't it? The riding?
The second club you've discovered sounds far better, just move on and know that you've experienced being a member of a crappy club. They'll wither and die eventually as new members are put off.
Personally, I don't bother with clubs any more, I just like to have the freedom to swing my leg over and pedal off whenever it suits me, perhaps occasionally with a mate or two.0 -
Our club text/email with updates on rides, event etc. So once your details are on their list you get the info - simples.
Then ofcourse there are weekly meetings at the clubhouse (we are lucky to have such a base I think) where you can get other snippits of info.Yellow is the new Black.0 -
My club probably falls somewhere in the middle. The website is kept fairly well up to date and we have a mailing list, which is good for the majority who are online. There are also cliques (or simply, groups of friends, depending on your point of view) within the club, some more exclusive than others, so there's always plenty of riding and other activity going on that you only get to hear about if you're mates with a few key people. Probably that's going to be the case in any club with close to 100 members covering a wide range of ages, locations, abilities and personalities; I've given up taking it personally when I find out about something after the event.0
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My club has embraced the internet as a very effective way of publicising rides, training camps, socials etc... We have a club website and Facebook page; also a newsletter is sent out regularly to all members via email. The website has a programme of events on it which shows the regular rides, in addition we use the Facebook page to organise ad-hoc rides; this has proved quite effective in finding a ride buddy if a couple of us have a day off or some unexpected free time inn the week. Seems to work very well, luckily we have a hard working committee to back it all up!0
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MOK: I get that and it's useful to point out that cliques are part of any organisation, but these rides im not getting told about are main club events, not a couple of blokes snaking off to do their own thing.
LD: sounds like your club has moved with the times and is operating more effectively for the benefit of its wider membership rather than, as my current club seems to, just for the benefit of a select few.
I suppose to draw a line under this, it's one to put down to experience and any future club i join, i'll need to ensure i ask to be added to any mailing lists or whatever. The thing that hacked me off the most is the fact I handed over cash to join, only to get no benefit from membership whatsoever. Had they at least told me about club events (email, texts, Facebook or notices on their website) and I had chosen not to attend well that's down to me, but to not even know about various events in the first place that defeats the purpose of being a paid up member!0 -
Loretta Damage wrote:My club has embraced the internet as a very effective way of publicising rides, training camps, socials etc... We have a club website and Facebook page; also a newsletter is sent out regularly to all members via email. The website has a programme of events on it which shows the regular rides, in addition we use the Facebook page to organise ad-hoc rides; this has proved quite effective in finding a ride buddy if a couple of us have a day off or some unexpected free time inn the week. Seems to work very well, luckily we have a hard working committee to back it all up!
+1 our club is much like this. In fact it has been the new members who have helped to pull us into the modern age. Plenty of stuff organised with out hassling the committee to do it for them. We never used to do much off road riding but a group of riders have been organising winter off road rides on a sunday morning instead of the normal club ride, all of this done on FB or Twitter with anyone free to join them. Has to be the way to go. For the OP best to look at their web sites/FB pages and see how much info is being shared and base your decision on that.Norfolk, who nicked all the hills?
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Loretta Damage wrote:My club has embraced the internet as a very effective way of publicising rides, training camps, socials etc... We have a club website and Facebook page; also a newsletter is sent out regularly to all members via email. The website has a programme of events on it which shows the regular rides, in addition we use the Facebook page to organise ad-hoc rides; this has proved quite effective in finding a ride buddy if a couple of us have a day off or some unexpected free time inn the week. Seems to work very well, luckily we have a hard working committee to back it all up!
Yes you have..
found all the Shropshire reliability runs 2013 easy enough web trawling 0 -
We have 500 members :shock:
There are two forums for the club (just a legacy thing) and rides, training, trips, racing happening all over the place. Everyone posts on the forums so you can always turn up and they generally advertise general length and speed so you don't get into the wrong group.
Whilst there is the traditional Saturday rides which have followed the same route for ever, the others are all adhoc. Meet at one of two cafe's and off you go. The more serious racers keep to a clique, but you can understand that as they want to do seriously fast rides and their chain gangs are not for the faint hearted.
Friendly, varied and very open. You can end up in a group of three or a group of twenty ....... you never know.0
