in this respect; submitting an entry form online with a date (and not postponing it at the last minute) constitutes the same thing, so if I get one and no further communication before the day I shall now take the entry as being spent with or without validation.
You've worried me here with this Martin.
Firstly, I looks like you've added an administrative task to your workflow (i.e. keeping tabs on it) that wasn't there before; and you've compounded the task by creating two different scenarios, one where a rider communicates to say he's postponing and one where he doesn't or does so too late. I'd ask you to consider what benefit such a situation really serves?
Second, you're effectively saying that if a rider has entered on-line and awakes to icy roads he can't postpone his ride until a later date without having to re-enter and pay another £2 - why? Might this encourage someone to ride when it would be more sensible to wait? Is the rider who fails to communicate postponement in time (and when precisely is the time deadline?) really so much less virtuous that he deserves a £2 fine and has to enter and submit his entry form all over again (and bearing in mind that so far as I can tell, these on-line entry forms can't be saved for re-use);
Third, this might be a unilateral effective change of rules that isn't applied consistently across the whole country (debatable this; I don't actually know if all other Organisers would follow suit, but from a "democratic" perspective, I'd go with the view that such a "rule change", if such it be, should be fully debated and voted on at AGM);
Fourth, as a generalisation I think extra hassle would discourage rather than encourage rides - contrary to our "mission statement". I can certainly say that having reached a situation where DIYs are very easy now with GPS, I shan't be inclined to continue my Audaxing at the elevated levels I've achieved over the last two seasons if the hassle factor is arbitrarily increased by fiddling with the "rules" for no benefit. I'll never be in the running for any Championships or Awards and I've used my "points chasing" merely as a means of motivating myself to try and improve my abilities. If the system is going to be made pointlessly more difficult just because certain factions feel it's necessary in order to pursue this ludicrous concept that Permanents/DIYs need to made more of a hassle, then forget it; I'll just go ride my bike.
(And before anyone comes back on this last remark, yes of course I have that option, whatever the AUK rule structure. The whole point of this discussion is - or should be - how do we arrange things so that AUK as an institution promotes and encourages long distance riding).
