Bedgebury Forest Cycle Club Newsletter 23rd Feb Yay! The forest sell off has been dumped (for now), so well done and thank you to everyone who signed petitions, wrote to their MP’s and generally made their feelings known. There is one downside though; I had a cracking April fool planned for this newsletter involving the new owners of Bedgebury (an Arabian Sheik), a billion tones of sand, a huge parasol, and a herd of camels to assist with trail building. Oh well, back to the drawing board…


Membership Renewals
You should all by now have received your renewal forms for the coming year. Happily the price has stayed the same as have the benefits, so you still get free showers, bike wash and 10% discount at Quench cycles as well as free parking (if you go for that option). This really does represent excellent value and can deliver big savings for regular visitors. Please send your forms back as soon as you can, so Carol and Geoff can get the new car park passes out to you before the end of next month. With over 250 members they really don’t want to be trying to process them all in the last week!

Nightrides
Nightrides should be a bit more regular now thanks to Ollie Ireland and Chris “Barkie” Barker, offering to help lead the rides. Many thanks chaps!

Trail Build
Thanks to those who rolled up their sleeves and helped with the trail build. We resurfaced the black run and it should be open again soon.

Coaching
Details of this years coaching courses including Junior club will be on the website any day now, so keep your eyes peeled for the opportunities for develop your skills whatever your age or riding abilities.

Outrides
This Sunday 27th sees the first outride of the year at Swinley forest near Bracknell. The postcode for satnav users is RG12 7QW. The meeting point will be at the Pagoda just outside the Look Out Discovery Centre at 10am. You will need to pick up your day permit to ride the forest which costs a couple of quid from the centre or you can save time on the day and buy in advance from https://sslrelay.com/www.mbsawebsite.com/sess/utn154d64f80c27cd1/shopdata/index.shopscript

Bedgebury Demo Day
This Saturday 26th February sees Specialized, Giant and Trek come to our forest with some of their great bikes for us to get all muddy for them. Details at http://www.thedemoseries.co.uk/

Best wishes,

Boris

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AGM Minutes Available To view AGM Minutes, Chairman's and Officers Reports Click Here

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Bedgebury Forest Cycle Club January 2011 Newsletter Hello, and a belated Happy New Year to all of you

Diving straight in this week without too much preamble or exclamations about the weather.


Ladies Ride

Ali is hosting another session of the Bedgebury ladies talking club during which she will invite you to occasionally l pedal to another scenic view point.
You may correctly deduce that these rides are more social than speedy and Ali would love to see all you ladies there at the bike wash at 10am this Saturday 30th January. Judging by the grins on their faces when they returned last time, these rides are really good fun, so why not join the party!

AGM

We had the AGM as planned for the second time at the beginning of this month. Many thanks to the club members who attended (both of you…). The good news is there were just enough people present to elect a committee. The bad news is I am still press officer so you have to put up with my deranged scribbling for another year. In all seriousness, when there are over 250 club members, it’s a little disappointing when less than 20 turn out. I know it was cold and dark etc but the whole club is being run by the same dozen or so people and we’re getting a bit stretched!

Night rides

On a similar subject, many apologies for the frequent cancellations of the Wednesday night rides recently. In simple terms, we don’t have enough people who will volunteer to lead it and can be sure to be there at the right time. So if the ride leader gets detained at work or in traffic, we don’t have any back-up to let the ride go ahead. Sorry. We are also stopping the Thursday night rides for a while as well. We'll review night rides when the evenings get lighter.

Trail Build

On a brighter note, thanks to those who turned out to build trails a couple of weeks ago. A few sections were patched up and a new easier climb has been cut going up the hill at the end of section 4. Nice work guys.
The club is working with the FC to repair the section known as Gloomy Wood – the section with the berms and no trees. Work should start shortly.

Coaching

Following a coaches meeting last week, we will soon be announcing coaching dates for this year. The Saturday Junior club will run again in an improved form and there will be many more informal adult skills sessions as well as more formal courses. Details as soon as we have finalised the dates.

Out rides

We will also be publishing a full programme of out rides for this year as well including such locations as Swinley Forest, Leith Hill and Cannock Chase.

Holiday rides!

If you look on the forum you will see details of a trip to Afan in South Wales on the weekend of the Royal Wedding. There is also a trip to South Scotland to rides some of the 7 Stanes trails. If you have any interest in either of these trips, please let me know or post on the forum.

And finally

You have doubtless seen in the news the government proposal to sell the Forestry Commission Forests. It’s certainly not my place to tell you what to think about this, but today a public consultation has opened. You can make your views known here:

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/england-pfeconsultation


There is also an online petition here:

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/save-our-forests


However the best way to make your voice heard is to write to your MP and local councillor. Details of how to contact them are here:

http://www.writetothem.com/


When you write, information to include would be:
What access to the forest means to you
What impact reduced forest access would have on your family’s life
What you think the social effect would be of depriving families the opportunity to exercise in the forest and interact with nature
The economic and environmental effects from maybe having to travel further to exercise in a traffic free environment
The effect of the loss of coaching facilities in a traffic free environment
Your feelings on the potential loss of community spirit which the club offers.
Any other benefits which you are concerned you may lose.



Best wishes,

Boris

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