Veteran - LVRC

Special General Meeting
It’s LVRC Ltd
No funding for international teams
Subscriptions rise to £8
The LVRC will not, after all, fund international teams of mem
bers. The Special General Meeting of 5 th January voted
against it by 42 votes to 12. The most influential opponent of
the proposal was Dave Watson who spoke eloquently of the spirit of
the LVRC. In general terms it was felt that the League is an association
of people no longer in their first youth (so to speak) who ride
primarily for enjoyment and most of whom can afford to fund their
own trips abroad, whatever the French, Germans or Italians may do.
The proposal that riders should be selected for representative
international teams was felt by many people to be divisive. One
regional registrar had taken a vote and recorded 115 against, only
12 for. Fairly large numbers of LVRC and other riders from the UK
already race abroad in Belgium, Austria and Spain. In addition
many members strongly oppose the imposition of a BCF licence
now demanded by the UCI for some events (the ‘Worlds’ at St
Johann, for instance). Having ignored the needs of veterans for
years the UCI (and the former BCF) are suddenly aware of how
much revenue they’re not getting. Paying another £25 for a BCF
licence will give you nothing – in effect, it’s a form of taxation.
Main points
V
V
V
V
V
LVRC becomes a
company with limited
liability
Annual subscriptions
rise to £8 to
offset slight loss
Regions retain £2 of
subscription
Race entry fee remains
at £5
1-mile Grass-track
Championship to be
added to the Calendar
V £1000 to David
Rayner Fund
V
V
No change to agerelated
category
system
100 members now
required to call for a
Special General
Meeting
Race entry fees therefore revert to
the £5 which has been standard for
the last few years.
But almost all other decisions
made at the AGM were ratified by
the SGM. There was no opposition
to the raising of the annual subscription
to £8. Indeed, Chairman Peter
Ryalls pointed out that, since the
events of 11 th September, insurance
premiums were likely to rise steeply,
wiping out some of the effects of the
increase.
The LVRC will still become a
company with limited liability, and
by the time you read this the process
will already be well advanced.
A One-mile Scratch Grass Track
championship is added to the LVRC
Calendar. It will be organised by
Roger Shayes as part of his grasstrack
meeting on 9 th June in Birmingham’s
Cannon Hill Park.
The LVRC will again donate £1000
to the David Rayner Fund.
Mick Ives was awarded the
Fourmies Trophy for success in
international events, particularly for
his second place in the Over-60s
Championship at St Johann.
Editor Ray Minovi, having done his
sums since the AGM, expressed
doubt that centralised mailing of The
Veteran Leaguer could be affordable
for the foreseeable future. Centralising
would cost around £3300 per
year at current posting rates. At the
moment the Association spends
around £100 sending the magazine
to regional distributors, and the
regions then pay for their own
distribution, often delivering by hand
to many members. But a central
database would have other important
uses, and a somewhat out-of-date
version already exists. It could be
quickly updated, and such a database
would be invaluable in the
event of a sudden change of officers
in a region, for instance. Colin
Dooley (Region 6) will look at the
practicability of setting up and
holding the database. Such a database
would, of course, come under
the provisions of the Data Protection
Act, and permission would be
necessary.
On the provision of first aid at
races, fears were expressed that
events could be cancelled because
the necessary first aider couldn’t be
found, or hadn’t turned up. As a
result it was agreed that the wording
of the relevant rule of racing would
revert to its original form: that is,
‘should’ rather than ‘must’ will
remain.
One new change was made to the
League’s Constitution. In future it
will require 100 members to request
a special meeting. The old figure of
20 had been on the books since the
League’s inception in 1986, at the
end of which year membership was
147 and no less than 14% of the
membership had to ask for an SGM.
By 2001, with membership over
2000, twenty represented only 1%.
Remarkably, the SGM only attracted
a dozen or so more members
than had attended the AGM.
Veteran Leaguer: Winter 2002 Page 5