Minutes of KDCS Committee Meeting - Mon 29th June 2026
Present: Anne Brookes (Chair), Dave Wills, Brian Woodward, Tim Goffe, Phil Morgan, Jim Carson, Will Beck
Apologies:
Martin Slader
1. Membership
Anne
reported that 6 new members had joined this year, since January. Only 2 had responded to the Welcome email and
requested to join the email lists (Jane Hodgson and Peter Hicks); the other 4
were not known to Will on the MTB rides.
Action: Anne to send follow-up email to new members who are not on email lists.
2. Ride reports
MTB (Will)
Will
reported that the MTB calendar was filled until September and that they had
managed to put on a ride every week so far.
The talk then focused on the major incident that occurred on Thursday 4th
June when Caroline came off her bike on gravel in Grisedale Forest and
sustained serious injuries to her shoulder, suspected neck, and arm. Phil was with her and quickly assessed that
the emergency services were needed and called Coniston Mountain Rescue (CMR) to
assist with moving Caroline safely to the access point for the ambulance. The incident raised several issues, which
were discussed:
·
Emergency
contact details – Phil found the ICE number for Caroline from Will’s pre-ride
email. He said he could not have moved
Caroline to look for her phone on her person. This prompted further discussion
on the importance of having ICE details for all riders in a group, which is not
routine on the road rides.
·
Emergency
Blanket – no one had an emergency blanket to keep Caroline warm while waiting
for the rescue team. Phil was advised by
CMR to consider carrying one in future and passed this advice on to the
Committee.
·
Wearing
helmets – Phil mentioned that without a helmet, Caroline’s injuries would have
been significantly worse, such was the nature of the impact. The club does not have a mandatory
helmet-wearing policy although Will stated that he insists on all MTB riders
wearing one – and they do. We agreed
that the club would not make the policy mandatory but should make it clear in
the Code of Conduct that we strongly advise that all riders wear one on all
types of rides.
Action: Update the Code of Conduct to strongly advise
that riders wear helmets on all rides (Anne)
·
Back
Marker/Sweeper in group – Phil happened to be at the back of the group just
behind Caroline and so was quickly on the scene. The rest of the group had gone ahead and it
took a while to contact them and for them to return. In general, no one is
appointed as a sweeper in the MTB groups but this incident highlighted the
danger of someone dropping off the back of the group and not being missed for a
while, if an incident occurred.
·
Subsequent
to the meeting, Brian proposed that KDCS make a donation to Coniston Mountain
Rescue. All committee members were in
favour of this and agreed to make a donation of £100.
ACTION: Arrange payment of £100 to CMR (Martin and
Anne)
Road rides (Anne)
Anne
reported that the road rides calendar has been reasonably well-populated but it
is slow-going to get volunteers and there is nothing planned for August and
beyond yet.
Other rides
Tim
reported that the new EWCAN rides (Easy Wednesday Café and Natter) have
been supported with groups of 6-8 riders and he is happy with that number. There are on and off-road rides planned and a
café stop. He expects that a wider group of riders will take part after more
time. The details are posted on the KDCS Home page and in the calendar and this
seems to be sufficient notice, without requiring emails.
Jim
reported on the Easy Tuesday rides, which he has ridden most weeks. They are well-attended with up to 12 or more
riders and the format is working well, with enough people knowing the routes
not to need a guide. There is a full programme of rides until 8th
September, although the rides for August onwards still need to be added to the
KDCS calendar.
ACTION: Add August & September ETs to the
KDCS calendar
In the
absence of Martin, who proposed the ETOS rides (Easy Tuesday on a
Saturday), we did not discuss these, other than to say that the first took
place on Saturday 23rd May.
The
committee members who had been on the Away Trips to Isle of Man (April)
and Rosedale (June) reported that they had gone well. The 3rd trip
to Northumberland is happening in mid-July.
3. Leader responsibility
Since the
discussion at the AGM on ride ‘leaders’, responsibility and insurance, Phil has
been finalising documents with the committee of Garstang CC (GCC) and shared a
copy of their ‘Best Practice Guide for Ride Coordinators, which we
discussed. There had also been
suggestions from Martin and Andy Gillham on wording to use to explain to
members where responsibilities lie.
Essentially,
the term ride ‘leader’ should not be used because this conveys responsibility
for all the riders and culpability if anything goes wrong. Under Cycling UK guidelines, ride leaders
must undergo training and must ensure that all riders’ bikes are safe and
roadworthy. We agreed that KDCS does not want to go down this route because we
assume that no members would volunteer rides any more. GCC use the term ‘ride coordinator’
abbreviated to ‘RC’ on all club communications.
Will also stated that Kendal CC do not use the term ‘ride leader’ for
all road rides for the same reasons. The
Committee agreed to adopt the term ‘ride coordinator’ (RC) for all KDCS rides
and to update all club communications accordingly.
ACTION: Adopt the term RC in all communications
about rides (ALL)
Importantly,
the insurance afforded to the clubs (GCC and KDCS) through affiliation with
Cycling UK only indemnifies “the Club and its Officers” against claims brought
by third parties when carrying out Club roles.
Individual members (including the Officers when riding as
individuals) are not covered the by the Club’s insurance against third party
claims. Therefore, everyone is
strongly advised to take out their own personal insurance either with British
Cycling, Cycling UK or another insurance provider. We discussed this and agreed to adopt similar
wording in the KDCS Code of Conduct and in communications with new
members. It was also suggested that we
ensure that every member has agreed to the Code on an annual basis by renewing
membership.
ACTION:
Update the Code of Conduct for riders and RCs regarding personal
responsibility and insurance. (Anne)
ACTION: Create a membership renewal system to
be instituted from 2027 (TBC/Anne?)
4. Club Communications – Email, Website
& Facebook
KDCS website/Blogspot
Jim has
joined the committee to assist with maintaining and upgrading the KDCS web
presence, taking over responsibility from Dave.
He reported that he has not yet had a chance to start on this because of
pressure of work and difficulties accessing the kdcsweb@gmail.com account. He expects to retire from his work in
November and so hopes to be able to devote more time to the website in due
course.
We
discussed the use of emails for club communications and acknowledged that many
people are no longer or using email or rare check it (Jim included) and so the
club should consider alternative methods in the future. Phil reported that GCC use Facebook almost entirely
for all coordinating club activities and that it is widely used by the 40+
generations. KDCS has two Facebook
accounts but does not use these for the main club business. GCC also use Google
Groups as a method of communicating with groups of members (such as Ladies
Group). Anne agreed to investigate this
method as a way to get round the issues with Hotmail not allowing emails to be
sent to lists of Contacts without additional verification.
ACTION:
Anne to investigate use of Google Groups
5. AOB
Dave
restated that he wished to resign from the Committee (after over 20 years of
involvement in various capacities) and we accepted his resignation and thanked
him for all his efforts.
Brian also
expressed his wish to withdraw from the committee activities and this was also
accepted and Brian thanked.
ACTION:
Send out communication/talk to members to ask for new committee members
(ALL)
6. Next Meeting
The
committee agreed to meet again in late September – suggested date Monday 28th
September 7.30pm (TBC)
