Dear Member,
I am writing to you to inform you of my intention to run for the position of President to Cycling Ireland in the upcoming AGM on November 7th 2015. I would like to outline some priorities below that I feel would improve the effectiveness of Cycling Ireland If elected to the role of President of Cycling Ireland. I would hope that your club will vote for me on the basis of my experience of 35 years in the sport. I am still actively racing and riding leisure events today and mountain biking in the winter, I rode at national and international level in my earlier years, I have spent 4 years previously on the board of Cycling Ireland. I was Cycling Ireland representative with the Irish Sport Council for 6 years and in those years increased Cycling Ireland funding by 300%.
Today Cycling Ireland seems to lack visibility and accountability to its members, there is no relevance to the ordinary member of Cycling Ireland and the board activities. Cycling Ireland has a reputation for being an organisation that doesn’t focus enough on members needs and one that fails to engage with members and other stakeholders. It is time to change and promoted a culture of engagement, transparency and accountability between the organisation and the members and recognising that the members are the central stakeholders of the organisation.
Below are some of the priorities I would like to address if elected to the position as President, but will need your support on the day to implement the many changes that are necessary.
Safety – Road Closures:
This year we had a number of event cancelled due to Garda and Fingal County Council pressing for road closures to be put in place to increase safety for road races in the area. After Cycling Ireland’s open meeting on road closures last May in City North Hotel, the meeting highlighted the lack of understanding from Cycling Ireland of this developing crisis and with application now being sought for next year’s calendar this issue needs to be urgently addressed before the end of this calendar year.
High Performance:
A review of the current HP plan, to include the track, road, U23, Junior, Off–Road to include Cyclo Cross, BMX and MTB, emphasis on why the U23 road squad missed out on competing in this year World Championships due to not competing in enough of Nations Cup races. It was highlighted in April that we may struggle to achieve enough points but no plan was put in place to turn around the deficit.
Commitment to have an Irish team in next year’s Án Post Rás, we need to have a national team in our flagship stage race.
Participation/Membership: Sportive/Recreation Cycles:
Cycling Ireland to promote their own brand of leisure events across the country and to have a more visible presence at sportive and leisure activates.
Introduce new membership packages to cater to the growing leisure popularity.
Communications:
Websites and social media play a big part in communicating to members; generally improve communication at Cycling Ireland HQ to its members.
Cycling Ireland have a policy of not answering the phone lines, Cycling Ireland is part of the service industry and it needs to better service its members and a key element to establish the reputation of an organisation is its ability to assist with queries, the phones will in future be manned during business hours to assist our members.
Provincial Executives:
Set up agreed yearly board objectives with the provincial executives, bringing closer ties between the board of CI and the provincial executives. The CI board are trying to have to much control of the day to day sporting activities when in fact they should be giving the assistance to the provincial executives and the commissions who are the subject experts in each of the areas to run the sporting aspect of our sport.
Commissions:
Give the commissions the authority and assistance to run their respective disciplines, this to include the commission having control over their own financing activities and those finances to be distributed during the season from the agreed yearly plans.
At present there is no working Road, Leisure, Youth, Coaching or HP commission even though those were the areas identified in Cycling Ireland Strategy Plan 2015-2019 as key areas in the success of the organisation in the future.
A general increase of funding needs to be allocated across the areas that are increasing with popularity, particularly the areas of Youth, Women and Off Road.
Marketing/Sponsorship/Commercial:
Cycling Ireland need to improve how they are perceived by the membership. It’s becoming more important to the overall success of sporting organisations to demonstrate an affinity with its members and have a strong national presence. We need to attract a title sponsor for our organisation, with national visibility increasing for cycling due to the volumes of people cycling, it’s a major opportunity for Cycling Ireland to partner with an organisation that is looking to increasing it brand awareness.
Grading/Calendar:
The grading system has been in operation a number of years and is by and large performing well, there needs to be some rebalancing of the rewarding of points to alleviate the high volumes in the A3 category and push greater number in to the dwindling A1 & A2 category, I would see an active road commission group conducting this activity.
Look at the rebalancing of the racing calendar, to much emphasis on the early season events. (32 events in March compared to 10 in September)
I would appreciate the support on the 7th so we can start making changes.
Regards
Ciaran McKenna