Nomads News 30 Oct 2017

Dear Nomads

This week’s news comes from a very tired nomrade so many apologies in advance for any typos, repetition or repetition.

First of all, a massive thank you to the volunteers, riders and spectators that turned out for the Hill Climb yesterday. The club has received a great deal of praise for the event, and in particular, we got a wonderful email from the newly crowned Women’s Scratch and Veteren’s champion Maryka Sennema which I wanted to pass on to you all:

Thanks very much again for a great event, and thanks especially for the parity in women’s prizes!  It’s much appreciated as many clubs don’t view the women’s winner the same as the men’s and often the prizes are very distorted.  In fact, prize parity is a big selling point for me when I’m talking up races to encourage other women to enter.  It’s not even about the money, just about the respect and equality for all competitors.  So thanks for that. 

This is an issue that has been raised by Gemma and her predecessor Sally in their role’s as women’s representatives on the committee over several years, and the above is really a tribute to them in particular – chapeau!

Which leads me neatly onto the fact that our AGM has been arranged for next Monday 6th November starting at 7:30pm at Hurst College. Apologies for the late notice, but finding a suitable location and date has proved difficult. Obviously, the more members who can go to the AGM the better it will be. In particular, you can:
– find out what the committee members have been doing this year;
– ask questions and make suggestions to the committee about how the club is run;
– vote for who you would like to have on the committee for the next year.

If you’d like to help the club by actually being on the committee you should in the first instance contact Will Faas. We warmly encourage all members of the club to have a go at being on the committee, whether you’ve been in the club for years or just joined, so that the it can make decisions which truly reflect what the members want. The committee roles that you can apply for are:

– Secretary: post currently held by Will Faas (involves organising meetings; being the external point of contact for the club; being the voice of reason when things get a bit ‘tetchy’ – qualities needed: neat handwriting/organised/diplomatic – like that lady that used to be on ‘The Apprentice’);

– General Secretary: post currently held by John McSorley (involves being the ‘enforcer’ for the secretary and stopping meetings from going on forever. Need to be able to read the secretary’s writing and get people to ‘shut-up’ in a nice way – like the Sergent major in ‘It aint ‘alf hot mum’.);

– Treasurer: post currently held by Yuriy Tymchenko (Need to be good with numbers and spreadsheets and graphs and stuff like that but also not at all dodgy – sort of a ‘geeky role’ like the accountant in Brewster’s Millions);

– Membership Secretary: post currently held by Derek Middlehurst (need to be organised, and good at chasing people for money and forms and stuff – a friendly face to get new punters in whilst disguising the chaos that goes on behind the scenes – a bit like Angie Watts from Eastenders);

– Time Trial Secretary: post currently held by Adrian Morris (involves lots of forms and being able to hold up Mike Thyer, operate a stopwatch and look out for traffic all at the same time. Must look good in a fluoro-vest);

– Clothing Secretary: post currently held by Adrian Morris (involves a massive amount of logistics and the ability to keep a straight face when people come round your house to try a skinsuit on – would suit that John Inman character from ‘Are You Being Served’;

– Club Runs Secretary: post currently held by Ben Graves (involves knowing Sussex and Garmin connect like the back of your hand and the ability to come up ever-more creative ways of getting 50 plus riders of varying abilities to converge on the same cafe at the same time safely – would suit that fellow who used to present Treasure Hunt with Anneka Rice);

– Hill Climb Event Organiser: post currently held by me (involves doing very little for most of the year and then panicking in September and asking Adrian loads of questions on a daily basis – would suit a simpleton);

– Women’s Ambassador: post currently held by Gemma Hobson (involves trying to overturn any residual old school ‘Golf club’ mentality in the Nomads – definitely not for anyone who has got a stack of Benny Hill DVDs at home);

– Road Racing Secretary: post currently held by Stephen Chinn, Gemma Hobson & me (involves organising at least one race and trying to convince members that they really should give racing a go as it’s perfectly safe whilst being riddled with injuries and scars from the previous season – would suit that Knight in the Monty Python that copes with getting his arms lobbed off);

– Social Media & Marketing Secretary: post currently held by Sally McSorley (involves keeping the Nomads Facebook page going, wrestling the Twitter account back off me and making sure that the rest of the world knows about the Nomads – would suit someone with a penchant for over-sized ’80’s glasses);

– Website Manager: post currently transitioning to James Hedley from Ashley Knowles (involves knowing all kinds of complicated things about WordPress and plug-ins and being the person that deals with problems as and when they arise. More geeky than the Treasurer you will definitely get most of the gags in the IT crowd and secretly have a crush on Johnny Ball).

If you are interested in taking on any of these roles please contact Will ( willfaas@btinternet.com ) in the first instance. In particular, Adrian has made it clear that he’d like to relinquish his role as the TT secretary OR the Clothing secretary, so if you’d like to take on one of those roles either on your own, or even in partnership with someone else, please let Will know asap. Alternatively, you can also join the committee without having a specific role – turning up to meetings to add an extra voice to the decision making process. Again, if that interests you, please get in contact with Will.

Even if you don’t want to join the committee please try and make it to the AGM and/or email Will with a list of questions. ideas or issues you’d like to raise.

Other stuff…

Whilst Ditchling Beacon was getting pummeled yesterday in our Hill Climb, Gemma Hobson was taking part in the national Hill Climb championship in Northumberland. Gemma’s training and top-secret diet paid off big time with a really respectable result – see below!

Pain-Faces

If you’ve not seen them already, take a look at some of the wonderful photos from yesterday’s hill climb in the event forum – they range from the sublime…

to the downright scary!.

Many thanks to Clive Jarman and Claire Goldsmith for the above photos – please get in touch if any of you have got any more to share, or post a link to them in the forum.

No time for anything else this week – bye for now –  Alex