Chairman’s Newsletter – August 2018

Posted on August 5th, 2018

Hello everyone

A lot to fit into this Newsletter. I hope you have time to read it in between all these perfect-for-cycling days.

CLUB 25th ANNIVERSARY
Many thanks to all who turned up at Uffington on 21st July, both riding and just supporting – it was an an amazing sight to see so many people there, we counted somewhere between 70 and 80. Special thanks to Jon and Karen Townsin for organising the whole thing, and thanks to Chris for amazing cakes!

Many of you are now proud owners of the customised water bottles designed especially for the occasion (much thanks to Karen Townsin for organising this). There are a few left still and we are very keen to get them out there and being used. So, there are now two ways to get your hands on them:

1) there is a stash in our porch at Evergreen, Main Street, Grove, OX12 7JF. Pop in any time, the porch will be unlocked.
2) they will be available at the start of the next few Tuesday night rides, courtesy of Jon and Karen’s van.

Suggested donation is the cost price of £3.50, but don’t worry if you haven’t got change, etc – please take them anyway!

As already noted on Facebook, a final word from an email I received from Eve Thornton: “Just to say how much I enjoyed taking part in the Club’s 25th. I cannot remember when I first rode with Wantage CTC, but certainly in the early days. Best regards, Eve Thornton (at 80 surely the oldest participant)”

COMMITTEE ROLES AVAILABLE
As many of you know, the club year runs from October to September each year. At the AGM each October we elect the Committee for the upcoming year. We generally have a pretty stable Committee, but this year we do know that Sara Ward will be stepping down as Secretary and David Smith will be stepping down as Webmaster. They have both done a great job in these roles and we thank them very much for all that they have done. The opportunity is now there for others to do these roles. The Webmaster role is particularly interesting, as so much of the activities of the club are centred on the website – very briefly, what we are looking for there is experience of working within a hosted environment, of PHP 5.6 and PHP 7, MySQL and HTML to any level. Please contact me if you are interested in taking one of these roles on. I know that Sara and David are happy for you to check with them for background info, either on a ride or by phone.

CALSHOT VELODROME TRACK SESSIONS
Thanks to a contact originally made by Katherine, some of us have been fortunate enough in recent months to have had experienced track riding on the beautiful wooden velodrome at Calshot, near Southampton. I must say it is great fun! We have just heard that another series of sessions have been reserved for the autumn and winter coming up and I wanted to make this more widely available to members. Each session costs around £35 per person, including bike hire. Because it is such a specialised type of cycling, it is compulsory to ride in a beginners’ session under the watchful eye of a professional coach before carrying on with the standard sessions. This beginners’ session is booked for Saturday 15th September from 13.30 to 17.30. I can give you more details, but please let me know as soon as possible if you would like to book for that. I really can’t recommend it highly enough – this is a very rare opportunity to have exclusive access with a small group to such a prestigious track. There may be another beginners’ session later in the autumn in case you can’t make this one, so let me know if you are interested anyway.

CLUB CLOTHING
A few of you have asked about how to buy the club jerseys and other items of branded clothing seen on our rides. There is a tab on the website headed Club Shop. This has all the details, including a link to an online store where you can place your orders. Feel free to ask anyone you see wearing club colours about sizing, etc, although there is a good sizing guide in the store as well.

That’s all for now. Happy riding!

Best regards
John

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