Attendance
21 Attended- see attendance sheet
1 Welcome and Introductions
Introductions and welcome to all new members
2 Notes of June meeting
These were agreed as correct
3 Matters arising
The bike maintenance class is to be held on 24th July at the Greenwich Arts Centre and thereafter run on a monthly basis
4 Bike Week 2003
Highlights of the week’s events will be published in the July edition of Pedal Power.
The Camden ride was noted as being really enjoyable, being mostly off road along the Regents Canal. Requests were made to do the ride again.
250 people came on the Sunrise Ride, which is a record for us, and 86 people were at the Cutty Sark Gardens start for the Greenwich Cyclists (another high)
The training events were highlighted as particularly successful and worthwhile, making good use of the grant from the LCC. TfL have expressed interest in this approach to increase cycling.
Lots of the rides were duplicates of last year and they were well attended by new comers.
The morning treasure hunt was postponed, as the weather was poor. This may well be used as part of the Car free day celebrations. This will be discussed at our next meeting.
The afternoon treasure hunt was a great success and feedback from the participants confirmed that they had had a great time.
There were lots of pre bike week events, which were well attended, and the maintenance classes went really well. We need to now think of ways of how to maintain the new cyclists after our events.
The information stall and the Dr Bike session were considered to have been a great way to promote the bike week events and many folks came along to the bike week events as a result of this pre bike week event.
It was suggested that we should venture out into Kent a bit more often, with less emphasis on using the Thames path as a basis for some rides. Suggestions to venture into Kent and Sussex were made.
Action Jonathan agreed to develop and lead some rides into these areas
5 Thames River Crossing
The subgroup met in the last few weeks and has made a recommendation that we should reject the proposal for the road bridge. A document detailing the 5 proposals was tabled for discussion.
There was a lot of discussion about whether we should submit a Greenwich Cyclists collective opinion or not and if yes what our collective view should be.
The main points of the discussions were:
There are 5 crossing options, which are not mutually exclusive.
We should not view these developments in isolation and we need to consider other developments that are taking place, for example, the Greenwich Council planning application for the Peninsula and the Olympic bid proposal.
Should we be less/ more specific about which public transport system to recommend? There are plans to develop a North and South Thames tram section. Should these be connected?
It was suggested that an economic case does not exist for the development of a public transport system, which does not include a toll system.
The Woolwich Ferry.
The Woolwich Tunnel.
It was suggested that a speaker from TfL be invited to come along to the next meeting and to have a 5 or max 10 minute slot to answer questions and provide more information on the bridge. Friends of the Earth have already been to speak to Greenwich Cyclists so it would be good to hear from both sides
After much discussion it was agreed that:
1 We should form a collective view on the issue.
2 The subgroup should adopt a positive approach to what we do support and detail how that could be beneficial to cyclists.
3 The sub group will publish their view on the email list by the end of July and bring the information along to the August meeting for final discussion/approval.
Action Doug as lead of subgroup
Hilary to try to get a representative from TfL to come to the next meeting
6 Pedal Power
July’s edition is not quite ready for publication and it is planned to have it ready by Monday of next week (7th July) for printing and early morning distribution on Thursday 10thand on the email list by Tuesday 8th.
The deadline for the submission of articles will be the 3rd Wednesday of each month, for review by the management committee by the 4th Wednesday of each month for final agreement in time for issue at the monthly meeting.
Hard copy to Steve by the last Monday for photocopying in time for the Wednesday meeting.
Any comments or articles for submission should be sent to Pete at cycleyoursay@hotmail.com
Distribution systems need to be more formalised
Steve has agreed to photocopy the newsletter for us on a monthly basis.
Terry has agreed to distribute to Halfords in Charlton and On Your Bike at London Bridge.
Jason has previously agreed to distribute to Harry Perry in Woolwich
William has volunteered to distribute to the cycle warehouse.
Hilary will check out the situation at Decathlon.
Liz, Terry and Andy have volunteered to help Pete with the distribution of the pedal power next Thursday.
It was suggested that we should include an article about the Dunwich Dynamo in the July edition. This was agreed.
Action Pete to include in July edition
7 Dept of Transport Grant
Thanks to Nick, Kate and Hilary for submitting the successful bid and we have £11,200 to spend on the schools’ project. They met last week to discuss how to take the project forward and have met with Greenwich Council who will decide which school should be involved.
The project aims to strike a balance between:
Whole school activities
Training
Trips to the velodrome etc
Provision of bike parking facilities at the school
Eltham Green School has been suggested as it has specialist sports centre status.
We need to match fund the £11,200.
Neighbourhood Renewal Innovations Fund has approached us about funding £5,000
The main challenges are:
1 We have not yet met with the school
2 We plan to launch in September so we have a short timescale for planning
3 We need to monitor cycling use now to get a baseline to compare with and evaluate the project on. GEMS can do this for us.
4 We need to link with the schools travel plan, which has the emphasis on safety
5 We have a funding gap. We may be able to discuss this with Greenwich Council who have been allocated £10,000 for car free day. We may be able to use some of this.
We need some help with this project. We need a coordinator and others to help out. There is an event at the school on 12th July and we could get a stall there but it does clash with the Dunwich Dynamo that will take place that night. It was agreed that whilst it would be good to have a stall on the 12th July the school had not yet agreed to be involved with the project and that it might be inappropriate to promote the project there if they were then not going to be involved
Andy offered to help on 12th July.
Ray, Liz and Pete were keen to join the subgroup
8 Finances
The group agreed to open a new bank account with Co-operative Bank. There will be three signatories, (Karen Marks, Karen Servadei and Hilary Samuels). Only one signatory will be required to sign cheques (usually Karen M), but only with approval from the co-ordinator. It was agreed to update the constitution to this effect
Balance is £1,000. We also need to write a report on how we spent the money during bike week.
Action Hilary to produce a report on how the bike week money was spent and to update the constitution
Karen Marks to organise opening up the new account
9 Car Free Day
Nothing at all happened in Greenwich last year. We have traditionally done something around Cutty Sark Gardens. Car free day is a Monday this year. We could link it in with the schools project or join in with Eltham Team extreme.
Action Schools project subgroup to try to link car free monies in with schools project funding
10 Dr Bike Sessions
Hilary suggested that building on the success of the recent Bike Stall at CSG we now hold regular Dr Bike sessions / bike stalls. These could be on a monthly basis in different parts of the borough. Julian has agreed to run some of these but volunteers will be needed to run the stall and assist with the Dr Bike session.
We need to think of other areas where we can have the sessions, for example in Eltham.
11 Ceilidh
Barry has agreed to oversee the arrangement for this, which is planned for 13th December.
The band and venue are booked. It is planned to start work on the remaining planning in September. Help will be needed with posters, tickets etc.
12 Rides
Call for volunteers to lead rides.
If you wish to lead a ride please contact Barry or Hilary with details.
Day of the ride
Meeting place and time
Brief description of the ride
Approximate mileage
13 AOB
There is a car free party on Saturday of this week. Jonathan will post details via the e list
Easy ride on Saturday. We need volunteers to help with rickshaws.
Ray agreed to help.
Dunwich Dynamo. 68 tickets sold and going fast.
Herne Hill planning meeting. Outline planning application was passed 5:1
Planning report for last year was tabled. Nick will publish on the elist and any comments to Nick at bikepest@hotmail.com.
14 The meeting closed at 9pm.