Cycling BC AGM - the state of racing in BC

This was posted recently after Todd was ousted as the VP for Road and Track on the Coast Website. http://www.coastalraceclub.com/ This is a pretty negative statement itself, I felt as if Todd was not listening at the meeting. He even seemed alarmed to notice that the average age of the BC Elite level road racer was 37! This should have set off alarm bells before he stepped aboard when the average age was probably about 35. I'd have been worried if the age crept over 25! Remember that Masters starts at 30.

Well, you can read his comments below but he seems to think that Cycling BC's sole purpose is to create national level athletes. This does not fit into any Long Term Athlete Development Program at all. Take a good look Todd, Elite don't build a sport, they are Elite because of a healthy sport system that starts young and services a larger core that's Elite members.

Below is Todd's post:

_2012 AGM Cycling BC
Well the meeting that people thought would never happen finally did. The large crowd stood in line in the rain to get into the building. Thank
goodness for me I was a director for 3 ½ more hours so I was able to cut the line!

The start of the meeting was informative with the President reading and making some big announcements. Plans for a new multisport facility were unveiled, this would include a state of the art Velodrome. This is a project that has been in the works for a couple years and has just been moved forward by
municipal and regional government. CBC was asked to provide artist rendering for concepts and the next step is a shovel ready plan. This will
undoubtedly change the landscape for cycling in this Province for years to come. Providing some one is left to do the work?

One of the biggest issues facing the AGM was the overwhelming negative mood of the membership. Much of this could be attributed to poor communication the biggest factor though was the work behind the scenes spreading malicious and erroneous misinformation about staff and management. When you have a
situation with a donor interfering with the operations of a society this should raise a red flag with membership. When Bernard Leroux stood up and asked where
his money went I just about fell out of my chair this is a man who runs a security firm asking where his money went? The man made a charitable donation for
which he was provided with a charitable receipt. It took chutzpah to stand up in public and ask a question like that. The point I make is that these kind of relationships are not ethical nor would they stand up to CRA scrutiny. The other item I will point out is that Mr. Leroux insisted that we have the auditor present at AGM that was a cost to the association of $1000.00 for his time to be there, Mr Leroux did not ask the auditor one question.

I would hope that future solicitations of donors would be handled much more professionally and that a special fundraising arm be set up through cycling BC to work with donors and that a proper channel is set up for donor to association relations. This is not transparent enough!

Other issues that people were grappling with were, should it be Cycling BC’s job to host events? I guess folks could ask the question should we be pumping money into a money loosing Velodrome? The short answer is yes sometimes it is important to make investments in your sport, one has to weigh the advantage over disadvantage but the bottom line is the board did a good job handling those issues.

Where does this leave the membership? Well with a full new slate of directors anyone’s guess is a good one. My hope is that some of the information that I and others delivered didn’t fall on deaf ears. I raised an alarming concern with aging statistics for the sport. When I was racing in the early 80’s the median age for elite male was 26-27. The current median age for the same category is 37. This tells us a couple things first racers are getting older and secondly there’s not enough youth coming up from the bottom. The sport is going to have difficulty with sustainability in Elite Male category if the erosion isn’t handled.

Cycling BC has made some inroads with reaching out to youth in BC schools. From March 2012 to current they have put 1000 kids through cycling programs in schools. These are kids 8-12 yrs of age with the focus on skill based training and fun. This kind of programming needs to continue and with the help of clubs and other stake holders we can then have some future programming including competitions and Learning to train (LTT’s). I have found that many of the career coaches are not that interested in this kind of outreach they are preoccupied with the sole purpose of finding the next star as this is what provides them with their point of relevance. Cycling BC mandate is and should continue to be growing the sport for all and this includes kids!

Our job is to get athletes to the national arena then CCA takes over. There seems to be conflict amongst the membership as to what our role is in development? In the short future we will have no place for U23 to develop in racing if the Elite category continues to erode. Thank goodness for time trials!

Last thing I will address is Richard Wooles. I was asked by Axel Merckx why Richard was not brought back to Cycling BC. If people only knew how hard
we worked to try and get an outcome that was amicable for him. I can assure you that not one business owner would have taken the steps we did in trying to keep Richard. I wish him all the best in whatever he chooses.

People ask me if I am I tired? Yes I am tired but I was happy to help out where I could. The fight is now for the next board to come to grips with the reality that faces the sport, negative publicity and the lack of youth involvement and the dwindling number of race organizers.

I can now put my feet up and watch the new board lead the way.

Cheers, see you on the road!

Todd Hansen
_

Did Todd put himself up for re-election? If so, then maybe this post is a little sour grapes after losing yesterday.

Power and Money.
The results were predetermined.

The road /track group came in with their slate and voted accordingly.
A earlier meeting to get their duck in line, uber organizing.
I call them the RW group. There was ealier talk of womens issues ,youth development,and equal opportunity for coaching,i don't think this was about that.
As I watched the meeting unfold it was quite obvious what was about to happen.
Guys in suits who had given big money for road events wanted it spent on their pet projects.
Wayne P, had earlier decided that money donated would go to where it was needed .
A possible 1/4mil. loss on the BMX supercross.
The only women on the board ,left crying ,this caused me a lot of pain and still does.
This was not about womens issues,or youth.
To me this was about RW or Axel Mercx becoming the next ceo and championing their cause.
The BMX vp were bit players in this,there was no need for speechs as they could of stood up and smiled.
The results were predetermined.
One more Agm and this highly organized group will have taken over the whole board.
Ultimate power corrupts.
G

If willing, I would like to know the position or vision that the Future of Cycling in BC has for the Downhill Racing scene under Cycling BC. Specifically what is wrong with it now and what would you like to see done in the future. I understand that Galen is the current VP of MTN Biking, but with four board members and a presumed outgoing CEO your vision and decisions will no doubt have an impact on my preferred biking discipline. Thank you..

Galen Kehler is the vp of mountainbiking.

Maybe I should have stuck it put past the election ballets but what roll does Future of Cycling BC play with CBC.

This was probably the most formal type of meeting I have ever attended. I wasn't sure of the protocols of when one could address questions. Wayne should didn't make it a welcoming platform when people did ask questions.

This year is a year for the board to bring forward some changes. Performance review for the CEO should be a high priority. Leaving all the board members and staff in the firing line was very poor and many questions remained due to his absence.

For VP BMX, I gave Michelle a chance to address the regional inequality of BMX in BC. She didn't provide any suggestion she was interested in cross sanction opportunities in BC.

The participants in room at the pre-agm meeting was only a portion of the participants at the AGM. FIOBC brought forth questions which opened up dialogue, but I believe there were enough people who could have voted another way.

SE Racing….you are right nothing wrong with the current mountain bike calander. it is one of the strongest and healthest ones put out by cbc in recent memory. nothing to change there at all

gary….you are right to be outraged. i too would be if a group of 70 passionate and organized members of an association that i belonged to were able to take over the other 230 plus peoples minds at a general meeting and convince those 230 plus people that the current board given the almost 1/4 of a million dollar loss in one event, the pending lawsuit with a former employee, the disconnect between 4 bmx clubs with said organization and 12 from another sanctioning body,the governing bodies ability to govern over ALL provincial cycling events and cycling clubs…. was doing such a great job.

on the other hand maybe those 70 passionate and organized members were looking forward to a day when the organization they believe in did not have a ceo at the helm that bangs his fist on the table and say "it is my way or the high way" and gets into yelling matches with its members or that said organizations president was not concerned with only who the next top UCI athlete to come from the organization was going to be but rather concern himself with why are there so many other bike events going on in the province that want nothing to do with my organization.

with any luck sunday's meeting was the beginning of a long overdue change at cbc so that this organization can become what its name implys cycling for all of british columbia and not cycling for parts of b.c. that are blindly following it is my way or the highway.

Gary…did you see how many BMXers were at that meeting? Seriously, it was a dominant showing, and knowing who attended, I think I am fairly safe in assuming the majority of those BMXers voted for Jeff. Why? They aren't happy w/ the status quo.

You can preach all you want about corruption, but in this case, democracy has paved the way.

No worries. The way those numbers were presented yesterday made me cringe as I fully expected people would believe that Cycling BC was giving that amount of money to the tracks.
The reality is that the clubs pay for the services we are receiving, if we do not receive grant money then we need to get those funds from elsewhere and the grant money is not a given. We were turned down a couple years ago and North Shore did not receive anything last year. Prior to the implementation of the club coaching this year I used to occasionally pay some of our senior riders to put on clinics for the kids. Some of the ABA tracks do the same sort of thing.

Andy's last two posts are bang on accurate.

As for the coaching, that is exactly what I did this year, except it was a coach from the North Shore I brought in and paid out of my own pocket. And would have brought him in again, had CBC not called him and advised that he was no longer allowed to offer coaching to ABA tracks.

Yes, a change is long overdue.

Power and Money…..

….Ultimate power corrupts.
G

are you sure you aren't talking about Keith?

… And would have brought him in again, had CBC not called him and advised that he was no longer allowed to offer coaching to ABA tracks…

This

From the FIOBC Discussions on FB.

"I think this is a great post Allan, and the major difference in philosophies between how a Keith Ryan wants to run the CBC and say someone like Richard Wooles, who has said to me, at the end of the day, when they show up at a World Championship, they're all Canadians, so who cares how they get there, AS LONG AS THEY GET THERE!!"

Crunching numbers from the Island, while 25% of overall membership in Cycling BC is from the Island, only 5% of the BMX riders are sanctioned with CBC.

The 4 Island tracks are ABA affiliated, and unless all 4 were to move over with a lot of red tape, financial disruption etc, you won't see a shift any time soon.

Are we sending the best in BC to international events or are we sending the best in the lower mainland?

Power and Money.
The results were predetermined.

The road /track group came in with their slate and voted accordingly.
A earlier meeting to get their duck in line, uber organizing.
I call them the RW group. There was ealier talk of womens issues ,youth development,and equal opportunity for coaching,i don't think this was about that.
As I watched the meeting unfold it was quite obvious what was about to happen.
Guys in suits who had given big money for road events wanted it spent on their pet projects.
Wayne P, had earlier decided that money donated would go to where it was needed .
A possible 1/4mil. loss on the BMX supercross.
The only women on the board ,left crying ,this caused me a lot of pain and still does.
This was not about womens issues,or youth.
To me this was about RW or Axel Mercx becoming the next ceo and championing their cause.
The BMX vp were bit players in this,there was no need for speechs as they could of stood up and smiled.
The results were predetermined.
One more Agm and this highly organized group will have taken over the whole board.
Ultimate power corrupts.
G

Gary, I will take this opportunity to thank you for all your hard work in promoting MTB and BMX. I have not been to any of your events but I also see the work you do with your Fraser Valley MTB Club. Cycling BENEFITS from people like you!

I do disagree with your perceptions of the AGM that just happened. You are right about the slate coming but this slate was a movement put forth by many disciplines within the cycling COMMUNITY. This community is larger than one region and not suprisingly, the members all had similar issues that were not getting addressed. I am a MTB XC Race promoter and a past club president. I have raced xc for years and I have even organized a couple of biathlon events so I have seen a wide variety of events with similar structures.

You have pointed out that this group, that I am a part of, did nothing about women's issues and I have to contest that. If you did some reading beyond this board you will find out that I personally donated $100 to the prize purse for Women's equal payouts at the Cyclocross event following the National Championships. As for youth development, I can give you a hand full of names for youth that I have helped in the past, you can ask Ricky Federau, I have been around a looong time. I have personally donated time and money to weekly mtb races in Victoria during the 90's and continue to do so in Squamish, outside of my event JABR. As for coaching, I want to see the number of participants come up but I also encourage elite athletes to give time to youths to help with their development whenever possible.

Now, for the guy in the "Grey Suit" that you mention, well that was a major contributor but beyond that you will find his race results from the 90's at the Test of Metal as well. The guy loves cycling, he was concerned about the direction of the organization out of his love for cycling. We are lucky to have people that give WAY more than they take!

Wayne P may not have decided where that money was to go, get more facts on that but most organizations do a pre-budget before raising or asking for money. Money is handed out based on those budget items.

The only woman on the board lleft crying? I could see that it was emotional but I am sorry, SKIFREAK pointed out best when she made no mention on the tracks on the island, I am in the same boat since I have a track in Squamish and she only talks of the few cycling bc tracks.

So, this is still VERY much a Women's and Youth Issue, the youth issue is still at a boiling point on our Facebook discussion page, I invite you to come and be part of the solution. The Women's issue is being addressed by getting youth (women start out as young girls you know).

As for Axel's and the GranFondo people's involvements, we are again lucky that they are even there to associate with us. Going forward this will be a way to increase our membership by a multiple of 4! I'll do the math for you, that would be about 20,000 members.

The BMX players were not bit parts in this as this was the most potentially volatile subject. Jeff handled himself with dignity, I will leave it at that because the membership vote on his approach to fixing things.

As for one more vote to take control? I doubt that it will take that long. Keep in mind that the problems we have now may not get fixed until 2014. Policies get motioned and then investigated before being carried out.

You are right about ultimate power corrupting, it demonstrated that when it was left with one person, Keith. That individual was not present and a "legal matter" was his excuse? Well, that's what Wayne trotted out.

So, Gary I again like seeing your involvement and your passion but keep em' holstered or take aim at the real problems. I look forward to meeting you in the future.

Dwayne Kress

The BMX players were not bit parts in this as this was the most potentially volatile subject. Jeff handled himself with dignity, I will leave it at that because the membership vote on his approach to fixing things.

I wish I'd taken a count.

But, you can tell by whomever the BMX folks were sitting with who'd they'd be voting for. We had BMX members come over from the Island, Squamish, and a huge contingent from Langley and the rest of the mainland to support Jeff. Many of the members, who I know voted for Jeff, ride for the CBC Team.

I am extremely confident- had the vote instead been structured so that you could only vote for the discipline you ride in- that the vote would have gone Jeff's way.

The BMX community is not happy with the status quo, and they came out and voted.