With Christmas behind us it’s time to start looking to next season.
Race Dates
All the calendars have been updated now with our provisional dates for the winter and summer circuits, and track league.
There are Regional A Circuit level points (points band 4) races for both women and general entry in the winter series this year.
See the appropriate calendars for details.
Volunteers for races
We also need to start filling the volunteer spreadsheets. There is usually a coffee or two in it for you if you cover all day.
Remember: No volunteers = No racing
The volunteer page with links to the spreadsheet is here.
Vacant Positions
There are still some positions to fill to make sure we can race next year. If you are interested, you can email committee@scrl.co.uk or use the contact us form.
Note that only the promoter is an elected committee position. The others can be filled by any person at any time.
Promoter(s)
Organiser(s)
Sign On
Judges
Rider Whip
Marshals
Catering
The promoter oversees the running of each SCRL event, from registering with British Cycling, managing entries, organising volunteers, booking with our various suppliers through to managing the arena and the event on the day itself, and the follow up of posting paperwork to British Cycling.
There is a great bunch of committee members and willing volunteers who take a lot of that work away and can be relied upon to know what to do. You mostly have to oversee the operation and ensure all the roles are filled, look after the volunteers, liaise with the commissaires etc.
Current promoter will cover the Winter Series but a replacement must be found in time for track league and summer circuits.
You must be a BC member, and will have to undergo a short tutorial on the use of the BC Event organiser dashboard. This takes a couple of hours and can usually be done online via skype/teams/zoom etc.
Organiser(s)
This is essentially the promoter “on the day”. It allows a promoter to pass on the running of the event on the day to another person. This person must also be a BC member and have done the event organiser dashboard training as above.
If a regular pool of on the day organisers could be found, the current promoter would probably be happy to carry on in the back-office role …..
Sign On
The person responsible for sign on will print the BC start/sign-on sheets, arrange for the numbers to be collected/returned by riders, and manage on the day entry, day licences and other add-ons if appropriate
They will pass the sign on sheets to the commissaires/organisers and return them to the treasurer who will pay the levies and expenses.
Judges
A judge is there to track and record the finishing positions/points scored of each race we hold.
They will commonly be watching and tracking lapped riders (mostly an issue in a circuit race) and recording finishing positions for each race.
They will also learn to use an i-pad to record and verify finishes if necessary.
Judging can take a bit of practice but we can’t rely on the same people all the time. Some of them would like to race also! On-the-job training will be given at our circuit races and/or track league.
Rider Whip
Mainly for track races, a rider whip is solely responsible for ensuring that riders of the next race are prepared and brought to the edge of the track in time, ready to line up for each race. This keeps the racing flowing and allows us to make maximum use of our track time. It also frees up the other volunteers to concentrate on their primary role i.e. commentating, judging etc.
Marshals
We always need these! Their function is primarily to “guard” the arena and its entry points to inform the public that access is not possible. This is to keep both the public and the riders safe. Allez opi-omi!
Do not worry about having to “man-handle” transgressors or wrestle anyone to the ground. This is not a marshals job and physical confrontation is not encouraged. In the event of a “difficult” member of the public who jumps the fence or otherwise tries to cross the arena, a marshal will simply try to alert the riders and officials to their presence and the appropriate safety precautions can be taken i.e. race is neutralised or similar.
Catering (Track League Only)
We all like to make use of a cuppa and a star bar. Someone needs to be responsible for filling the urns with hot water, and bringing them along as well as setting up and packing away.
You don’t necessarily need to “run” the stall. We mostly left it as an honesty system last year and it seemed to work well enough.
