1. Welcome & Introductions
17 attended
2. Notes of January meeting and matters arising from January Meeting
January notes were agreed
Matters arising December notes: none
3. International Womens Festival
Events are to be advertised in the Greenwich Time. We have had no volunteers to coordinate events so there will be no involvement from Greenwich Cyclists this year. Anyone interested in organising a list of events can contact Hilary at hilary_samuels@yahoo.co.uk or on 07929 722 973.
4. Pedal Power
Steve will drop off the photocopies at the Forum@greenwich to be collected for distribution on Monday of next week. Liz and Jason will collect the copies and Andy, Liz, Anthony and Hilary will distribute from the usual places, Jason will distribute around Greenwich.
The deadline for articles for next month is 15th February Please email Julian with your articles.
Suggestion for articles included information about the Wild Wales Challenge in Bala and an update on our planning issues.
5. 28th January Council Meeting
Barry M reported that Greenwich cyclists raised 12 written questions and received 12 written replies.
BM then listed the assurances given in those 12 written answers, he said he needed to do more work on analysing these responses and they are very worth recording for later use, but - for example - they include these:
Nick's also commented that the answers were very Greenwich Council......no firm dates, no targets, nothing concrete....
The lesson we learnt from this first venture is to be more careful with our follow up questions so that we can get more precise answers about deadlines, targets and firm aims.
Greenwich Council offered us a follow up meeting on 4th March with Margaret O'Hara and Peter Brooks at Woolwich Town Hall from 6-7pm. Liz, Dave, Hilary, Anthony and John agreed to attend and Julian if needed.
Barry got an email asking us what we would like to discuss and it was agreed that a pre meet should be arranged to decide the main areas for discussion. The pre meet is arranged for 26th February at 6.30 at the Forum @ Greenwich.
Tom from the LCC had heard about our Council meeting and asked Barry to write him some details of the event so that other Borough groups could learn from us. Barry has agreed to complete this.
Nick tabled the planning document detailing:
Cycle Liaison meeting
Specific Concerns about LCN+
The Council meeting
Sports strategy
Thames Gateway Cycle strategy
Maze Hill scheme
Nick also thought that we should start a campaign for the Riverside path issue and this was agreed. It was agreed that we would bring this issue up at the meeting with David Moorhouse on 23rd February. Nick agreed to scan the strategy document for distribution.
6. Thames gateway London Partnership cycling strategy
A copy of the web page "developing a Thames gateway cycling Strategy and Action plan" was tabled and Greenwich cyclist members are asked to respond to the document via the website at www.thames-gateway-cycle.org.uk.
Interestingly, there is no deadline for responses but sooner rather that later is best for responses.
Greenwich Council has also earmarked money for cycle parking and suggestions were asked for.
A couple of suggestions were made:
Maze Hill near the DLR
1 Narrow road
2 Divert cyclists along Vanbrugh Park
It was decided that Nick should take a view and feedback to the group.
Nick also stated that there was a Public Transport Conference on 3rd April (Saturday). This is a great opportunity for us to ask the Council what they are doing about a cycling strategy for Greenwich. We need to liaise with Alex grant and Graham Verge and decide what we want to do on the day. Do we want to set up a cycling subgroup?
Suggestions such as:
"Bicycles on DLR"
"What plans are Public Transport making to encourage cycling"
"What plans are Public transport making to encourage cycle carriage"
"What Plans are they making for cycle parking"
Hilary agreed to email the egroup for more ideas.
Nick agreed to contact the GLAssembly
Thanks were given to Nick for all his hard work with the planning issues.
7. Visit to City Hall
Jenny Jones the deputy mayor has invited GC to have a tour of the City Hall on 15th April from 3.30-5.30pm followed by afternoon tea with her. Numbers will have to be restricted to about 20 and since this forms during the Easter holiday, children will be welcome as well. Hilary will remind people about this nearer the time but do let her know if you are interested in attending. For security purposes City Hall will need to know names in advance. Hilary agreed to contact Jenny Jones' office to see if we would be able to raise any issues that we have with regards to cycling, more formally. If we can do that, those who intend to go will need to arrange a pre meet to decide which issues to raise.
8. Spring into Action Campaign
The subgroup has now met.
The plan is to start the campaign on 12th April with a stall at CSG on that bank holiday Monday. A number of before worker and after worker rides are planned between the launch and the start of bike week. In addition to the regular programme of rides, it is planned to have rides each Saturday, Afterworkers each Wednesday, cycle training and a 4-week maintenance course. Suggestions such as road skills training were also made.
9. Bike Week
This is taking place June 12th -20th, so we need to start thinking about what we are going to do. Jason agreed to take the lead on this with help from Andy
10. Rides
There is an easy going ride on Saturday and we need a cyclist to help on this. Dave agreed to be the back rider.
Next weekend event is the Whitstable weekend on the 21st February. Details on the website.
Next big event is the Dunwich Dynamo on 31st July. The cost of transport this year is £13 and details are on the website. It was agreed that this year any profits would go to Southwark Cyclists and not Greenwich Cyclists, as agreed last year.
11. Finances
We have £640 in the bank of which, £590 is the grant from LCC for last year.
We are also expecting another £5,000 from a community Chest grant and still have to claim the £6,160 neighbourhood renewal grant.
It was suggested that records of how the money is being spent should be presented at the meetings together with the value that we are contributing to cycling. GEMS will be completing an evaluation of the Schools project. Hilary agreed to provide written details for the next meeting on how the grant money is being spent.
12. AOB
The £9,250 Key Fund grant is to run another school's project in the summer term. The subgroup are currently working on this and will report back at next month's meeting.