General Category > Freewheeling

What makes a good cycling club?

(1/6) > >>

Noodley:
As per title. 

My club is going through a bit of a re-think* and trying to attract new members. 

So what is good about good clubs?

*I'm not sure if we are but we are thinking about 'stuff'.

drossall:
I think you actually need a range of clubs to suit different people. I've tended to belong to "family clubs", although the loss of the younger end means that my current club is not as "family" as it was. For some, a strong racing ethos will attract (and for others, it will repel). These days, if you want to attract the younger end, Go Ride is probably worth careful consideration.

Even for older people, there seems to be more need for short taster rides (whereas the approach used to be that, if you can survive our 120 mile club run, you can join - and this worked perfectly well).

I do notice that sportive and short Audax rides seem to attract significant numbers of non-club riders. It ought to be possible to build on that.

All just theorising though. My club is wondering how to attract more members too.

Rig of Jarkness:
How long is a piece of string ?  I would suggest that the existing members decide on what makes a good club for them and concentrate on that.  If you decide you want more members you need to be very careful about how you go about it - a small club with a particular ethos can easily see that ethos totally overwhelmed by an influx of new members who want different things from a club.
Personally, for me what makes a good club is a moderate size - say 100-150 - with a good mix of ages, abilities and interests, but where the interests are not self exclusive and everyone mixes and supports each other.  When I lived in Derby in the late 80's/early 90's I was very happy to be a member of the Derby Mercury RC, which exactly fitted the above.   By contrast, since moving to Edinburgh, I've been a member on and off of a club which has expanded hugely in recent years to over 400 members.  On the one hand this is a good thing, and certainly for many of those 400 the club provides exactly what they are looking for.  For me though, the club is too big and too disparate, hardly anyone knows each other.  To a large extent the road racers/testers/triathletes/mountain bikers/trackies/clubrun regulars just do their own thing and hardly anyone mixes.  But as I say, a 400 member club is a huge success in the eyes of many.  You pays your money and takes your choice. 

matthew:
for me it would be a club with saturday rides of ~50 -70 miles, but round here they all have the main weekend ride on a Sunday when I am at church.

Matthew

Si:

--- Quote ---What makes a good cycling club?
--- End quote ---


About 2.5 ft long, good grip at one end and a large spike at the other...they never overtake too close again.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page