ACME Miscellany

[tippers_kiwi]

Folks, I just ordered 2 tickets for the Spin London bike show at the Truman brewery starting tomorrow. http://spinldn.com/

Seems you can get free tickets for tomorrow between 13:30 and 20:00 of which I got 2.

Anyone about the City that fancies an hour or 2 there tomorrow after work?

[Redlight]

I think you might have got in under some wire as they are coming up at £13 a shot now

[jsabine]

A moment with Google should find a code for free tickets, although TK's link doesn't.

I've got mine anyway ...

[huggy]

WARNING:  A boring grown up post
Referencing recent heads-up posts regarding finances and Cycling UK membership for the main purpose of ride leader insurance, please refresh knowledge so far shared and scroll down...

Money and insurance, grown up stuff - sorry ...

Our little trips to the velodrome are dependent on us as a "club" having insurance, plus each rider needs to have their own public liability insurance too.  Thus far the ride leader insurance that Witham Cycling has through being affiliated to the CTC (or Cycling UK as they are now) has dealt with the club side of things.  And, if riders have needed to get insurance they can do so for sub £20 £24 per annum via WC's CUK affiliation.  This personal insurance is a good thing in general, all proper cyclists ought to have it.

The WC's affiliation has also had some other benefits.  Obviously it allows us to run formally led rides for WC; this might not be of much interest to the good people of yacf although some of you are here because you rode with WC originally.  WC's affiliation with CUK was also very useful in helping huggy set up himself up as the Witham AUK organiser, a development which has contributed to the formation of ACME.

In recent years GK's in Witham have paid the £60 annual insurance premium but times are a changing.  Firstly, the premium has gone up to £75 and needs paying in a few weeks.  Secondly, GK's have said they don't want to pay it anymore.  This is fair enough in my view, their support of WC hasn't led to much incremental business for them so I think it was good of them to support WC for as long as they did.

Me and huggy have been giving the matter much thought.  We have decided that it is worth continuing our affiliation with CUK, principally so we can carry on going to the velodrome.  Alternative sources of insurance have been considered but we still think CUK is the best option.  We also think it's no bad thing to have a "formal" club to fall back on and WC's links with CUK gives us that.  As I said huggy found this very useful when sorting himself out with AUK, who knows when it might be handy in the future?

Given we think being a club is a good idea we have also decided it might be worth the club having a small amount of cash, this would be mainly used to pay the annual insurance premium.  £75 needs to be found ASAP so huggy has nobly volunteered to cough up 75 of his own UK pounds - a rash move which sees him being promoted to our treasurer.

Clearly he's going to need paying back, your ideas will be most welcome.  We've already come up with a number of money making wheezes which are up for discussion: charging a bit more for future velodrome trips, adding a quid or two to the price of ACME jerseys, charging a little extra for future Witham audaxes including Tomsk's winter series, selling refreshments at the aforementioned audaxes, running some WC led rides and asking for a small donation from those who turn up.  Also, if you're reading this and have enjoyed the velodrome evenings we have run so far and fancy riding the boards again you might want to press a few coins into huggy's sticky hand when you next see him.  He's talking bank accounts and spreadsheets so rest assured he is taking his new role seriously - we'd expect nothing less!

Later in the evening Huggy decided that we should have one of his grown up discussions about the future of ACME.  He can explain the detail somewhere but basically it revolved around money, insurance and being responsible.

At the ad hoc ACME committee meeting in the King Billy yesterday evening certain fund raising and float creation ideas were discussed.  One that met with general approval to present here is for a voluntary contribution be paid by the active members of our gatherings for our own benefit of the CUK insurance and all that allows us to do with some peace of mind.  It is stressed that any money parted with in to the ACME start up fund is entirely voluntary and in no way compulsory, donations will remain anonymous (except to me of course).
Our most immediate expenditure is the CUK ride leader membership which certainly allows us trips to the Velodrome and such.  As stated this is £75 for the next 12 months.  Some or all of this may be able to recouped via subsidy on Velodrome fees or ACME Audax event entry fees but there is no doubt that covering it sooner rather than later is preferable and any excess accrued throughout the year can go towards next year's premium.

So, that said, if you feel moved to make a donation to help the ACME funds get to ground level and maybe a little above then here are a few handy links that will help you:
I would like to donate £1
I would like to donate £2
I would like to donate £5
I would like to donate £10
I would like to donate another amount that I will enter

Your volunteered treasurer Global CFO,
huggy

[tippers_kiwi]

Ted, are you riding the VC Oyster Sportive on Sunday?

[tedshred]

No. I am at the Young Farmers Show.

Might be helping out later on.

Familiar roads and reasonable numbers so worth a go.

[The Retiree]

No. I am at the Young Farmers Show.

Might be helping out later on.

Familiar roads and reasonable numbers so worth a go.

I take it you're entered into the scarecrow competition!!! I'm sure you have a great chance of winning - good luck

[tippers_kiwi]

No. I am at the Young Farmers Show.

Might be helping out later on.

Familiar roads and reasonable numbers so worth a go.

Tiptree Velo are going so I might join the fun depending on being able to get a pass

The only question is......fixed or carbon...

[Oaky]

http://www.audax.org.uk/results/detail/2016/listclub/?Club=Audax+Club+Mid-Essex

137 points (114 point 6-rider total)

[tedshred]

Tiptree Velo are going so I might join the fun depending on being able to get a pass

The only question is......fixed or carbon...

Fixed obviously.  Provided you overtake as many as possible for maximum annoyance.

[Oscar's dad]

http://www.audax.org.uk/results/detail/2016/listclub/?Club=Audax+Club+Mid-Essex

137 points (114 point 6-rider total)

It would appear me going up and down all those hills on The Shark hasn't enhanced my contribution    It's an outrage.

[huggy]

Subject to Home Office approval I'm thinking of riding my A Little Essex R&R 100k route one day next weekend (28th/29th May) if anyone is interested in tagging along.  To be a proper route check for traffic & control options departure should be about 9am on the Saturday.

[jiberjaber]

I was going to do Stour, but I haven't entered, so might ride the 100 with you Grant... subject to ... etc..

[tedshred]

29th might work for me. Subject to...

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[Tomsk]

Just a quick call for helpers on 'Kingdom of the East Saxons' 400km on 2/3 July. I don't really need that much help with the start, though perhaps anyone riding might consider making tea etc before the off at 11:00, but a couple of teams to break the night shift into two [20:00 to 01:00, then on to 05:00] would be good.

I already have offers from Team Brunner and tedshred, plus Agi and Robert, but a couple more would be ideal. You could sleep at the hall, before transferring to the Angel and Harp for breakfast [at 09:00] and maybe hang on for the last ones in just before 14:00, though running a pub control is hardly onerous [but great fun and very sociable!].

If anyone wanted to do a helpers ride, then weekends either side would be ok, though I can't ride the weekend before due to other commitments*. As I've checked the route recently in three stages, then that aspect has been covered already. Helpers could come here for a short kip and a feed between the two loops if required [*I'll be here on the Saturday night /Sunday morning for feeding etc!].

[Tomsk]

...In other news, I saw Stuart Carmichael at the new Flitch Bikes shop today - due to open in the near future. Sign painter coming this week and lots of details to sort out. There's car parking on-street by the Doctors Pond and a couple of dedicated spaces at the back of the shop. Way back when, the shop was Whybrow's sweet shop and general store - I used to get the school bus from right next door.

Web address is now:  www.flitchbikesltd.co.uk

New phone number: 07940 328342

Just in case anyone is interested, Stuart is selling a large [58cm] Scott cyclocross bike for a friend. Carbon frame and forks, Ultegra CX groupset, cantilever brakes, plus helmet and size 11 shoes [spd]. It's been on Ebay for £600 but is probably worth more than three times that. It'd make a great Audax bike - I was tempted...

[bobb]

I may have just registered the audaxclubmidessex.org.uk and audaxclubmid-essex.org.uk domain names.

Good people of ACME, which domain are we going to use? As things are moving forward with the jerseys (and the website) we need to make a decision:

audaxclubmidessex.org.uk

or

audaxclubmid-essex.org.uk

?

Obvioulsy, we can make both point to the same place, but we need just one for our marketing purposes.....

[huggy]

I cast my vote for audaxclubmidessex.org.uk

However, just doing a quick poke around available domains I found that we could have acme.bike 

[tippers_kiwi]

audaxclubmidessex.org.uk

from me....

[Oaky]

I cast my vote for audaxclubmidessex.org.uk

However, just doing a quick poke around available domains I found that we could have acme.bike 

Yeah... I looked at that, but decided it was a bit pricey... if funds allow, we could esily make that the main domain though and have audaxclubmidessex.org.uk redirect there...

[SirSquirrelNutkins]

No hyphen in the address - google will think it is dodgy.


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[bobb]

No hyphen in the address - google will think it is dodgy.

Not if the non-hyphenated version is registered to the same person.


I do like acme.bike 

The problem is, we really need to decide and stick to it. It's easy enough to swap around various domains - not so easy to change them on a bunch of jerseys...

Edit: Do we even need it on the jerseys?

[Oaky]

No hyphen in the address - google will think it is dodgy.

Not if the non-hyphenated version is registered to the same person.


I do like acme.bike 

The problem is, we really need to decide and stick to it. It's easy enough to swap around various domains - not so easy to change them on a bunch of jerseys...

Edit: Do we even need it on the jerseys?

Probably not, thinking about it.  It's not hard for someone to google "Audax Club Mid-Essex" to find the address if they need to.  Probably easier than them trying to remember whether it was .org or .org.uk or whatever (although acme.bike is very nice and easy to remember, so if we bought that I'd lean towards putting it on there)...

[huggy]

acme.bike registration and recurring annual renewal is $34.99 Name.com
(about £25/year)
or £29.99 on freeparking.co.uk

eta: in addition to what Oaky has already laid out for the two domains registered

Also available on freeparking.co.uk for £7.49/year is acme.uk

[tippers_kiwi]

Yeah, acme.bike is cool if that makes sense.