GREENWICH CYCLISTS
Note of monthly meeting held at 7.30pm on Wednesday 2 May 2001 at Greenwich Forum
Present:
Rushton Aust, Jonathan Bangs, Man Birdi, Doug Bollen, Duncan Brown, Liz Delap, Ayako Dobson, Julian Dobson, Greg Englefield, Fanny Abramczuk, Kate Horne, Barry Mason, Linda Pearce, Claudine Rice, Andrew Rippingale, Simon Ritchell, Steve Roberts, Nick Williams, David Wilson, Bob Woodliffe (20)
Discussed:
1. BM welcomed all. We need a bigger meeting room. The notes of the last meeting of 4 April were agreed.
2. BM introduced Steve Roberts of Greenwich Council’s Home and Road Safety Section. 020 8921 8190 steve.roberts@greenwich.gov.uk. Steve explained that he’d recently started work for Greenwich and was working on Safe Routes to Schools. He’s an active cyclist and was a British Cycling Federation volunteer. His work priorities now are to continue to develop community development work, help provide cycle training for adults, and work on routes to schools, firstly in 20mph zones. He will, for example, be working out a Council presence at Crown Woods School event later in the year. He also hoped he could help pull together the various cycling strands of Greenwich Council’s work. He welcomed this chance to start to get to know Greenwich Cyclists.
3. Mayor’s Ride, 22 April 2001: BM gave a quick summary of the very successful day and thanked all involved. And early downpour at 9am didn’t put of 14 Greenwich Cyclists who signed the route clearly and provided stewards at key points. 350 riders turned up for the great photo-opportunity start. A net £3000 was raised before sponsorship starts coming in. The only problem worth highlighting was the 13yo on a trail motorbike who hit a 10yo on the ride, and did luckily did not hurt him despite wrecking his bike. BM is taking this up with Police, Road Safety, Thamesmead etc etc and is writing a full report on the ride.
4. greenwichcyclists.org.uk: BM has now arranged for Beth to pass codes etc to Doug Bollen. Beth has moved to Brussels and Doug has offered to run the site in future. Fanny Abramczuk will help with content.
5. Events: BM tabled the 2 May version of the rides list. Two rides this coming weekend. Twelve now coming on the St Ives trip, despite train booking problems. The rides list needs to be constantly updated on the website. The 9 GC events for Bike Week look really promising. The London Cycling Campaign is about to produce its annual leaflet of that event. We still need more shorter rides for children and families. GE and Claudine Rice will design a series of monthly rides.
6. Planning: GE told all that the Mast Pond Wharf stretch of the Thames Path was opened just in time for the Mayor’s Ride. That event forced its completion. The Woolwich Arsenal stretch was open for the day but will not open permanently until 27 May 2001 when the Firepower Museum opens. We have reminded all that the Riverside path round the outside of the Dome is required under planning conditions to open by the end of June 2001. It looks now as if this will happen. RA mentioned the blocking of Azof Street to through traffic: this is a temporary scheme being reviewed now. He and several others (inc Chris le Breton) are working to ensure the closure becomes permanent.
7. Greenwich Cycling Strategy: BM described a recent meeting he had had with Ian McBride of Transport for London and work being done there on a Cycling Centre for Excellence. TfL, for example, is now responsible for completing the patchy London Cycle Network by 2004. It looks as if the CCE will become a key focal point for London Cycling and that it will be expecting Boroughs to improve cycling provision, Camden Council has recently published a very progressive Cycling Strategy with 48 clear targets all endorsed by the Camden Cycling Campaign. Lewisham has just done a less comprehensive one. But there is no sign of a Greenwich Strategy. NW tabled that from 1992/3, very little f that had been done. It was agreed that GC work up its own strategy with a view to presenting it to Greenwich Council. NW then chaired a brainstorming session and took 20 key ideas. NW, LD, RA and Jonathan Bangs agreed to meet a present a draft to the June meeting.
8 Roles: GC also needs help distributing the monthly newsletter to shops and key sites. MB agreed to help BM. LP agreed to work out with LD how to look after the existing membership better. BM was sitting on a lot of contact information that needs to be sorted and used.
9 AGM: BM explained that GC now needed an Annual General Meeting at which elections to jobs were held, the last year’s accounts and an annual report were approved. Our funders past and present needed these, and it was a good way to sign off past work and move on. BM gave notice that the meeting on 6 June would include our AGM.
10. Annual prize: NW suggested GC should, at its AGM, present a prize to the best and worst cycle features in Greenwich, anything from bad potholes/junction to most helpful bikeshop/route. JD agreed to help on this and BW said he would make the trophies. A selection of good and bad were suggested at once. NW will get this ready for the AGM.
11. The meeting closed at 9pm.
12. Next meeting and AGM: Wednesday 6 June. 7.30pm.
The Forum@Greenwich
BAM
4 May 2001