Breaking away from a BC club & setting up another

An adult only club is fairly straightforward, but kids do complicate it, as you should already be aware. Key thing is the safeguarding related requirements, with the requirement for a safeguarding officer, and youth coaches having to be suitably vetted/trained.

The rest is pretty straightforward and more about general book/note keeping.

A constitution, a bank account and affiliation to BC (to maintain insurance and whatever else for the coaches).
At a guess, you'll need a chair, treasurer, secretary and welfare officer as a minimum.
From what you've posted, the sooner you break away and start fresh, the better.

Thanks all.

We already have 2 welfare officers on the youth side who are coming with us, so covered with that and all of us have enhanced DBS through BC.

Constitution is a good one - hadn't considered that. Presumably we all sign it and it gets held somewhere?

Yeah it's a bit of a nightmare at the moment with them. We need to sit down with them and negotiate an exit as we've purchased training equipment with club funds that's no use to roadies - so we need to be nice to them and see what they're willing to let us part with etc.

What a sad, sad situation you find yourself in. Sounds like making a break for it will be liberating for you. <br />it’d be a shame if the existing club suffered or indeed collapsed because of their shortsightedness 

Yes it would be a shame to see the club collapse, but it's like banging your head against a wall trying to interact with them.

We've had issues with the club secretary doing the affiliation paperwork for our section as they missed off half of our coaches and had to ask for details of what we do.......

We offered to sort our own paperwork out but we're told to keep our noses out of it...

They haven't done much to attract new (younger) adult members to the road side either - most of them are over 50, and unless the ride starts at Sainsbury's and turns right down the hill they aren't interested.....

Unfortunately lots of road clubs are dying due to this type of attitude, where they're stuck in the whole, this is how we've always done it mindset.

I had a brief chat with quite a good cyclist earlier this year at an event, who was asked to look at how to improve grassroot road cycling, and all his recommendations had fallen on deaf ears, and those responsible couldn't understand why previously popular regional events, were struggling to get enough entries to justify having podiums.

Check out Falkirk Junior Bike Club. They are a great kids club. From what I've been told, they were deliberately formed separately from Falkirk Bicycle Club as they didn't have the best of reputation, they are known to be quite elitest, so kind of the opposite of what you want a kids club to be like.
https://fjbc.scot/about-us

That's seems like a really weird situation. A club that's exclusively road at adult level and a youth side that's exclusively MTB. Do none of the adult riders ride MTB at all? Like not even as a supplement to their road riding? And you didn't try encouraging the kids to try road too, or is it a bit beneath you?

In my experience multi discipline clubs only work if there are crossover members interested in swinging both ways. Otherwise it's just factions bickering. Youth oriented clubs are great and I hugely admire those adults prepared to run them in their precious down time, especially if it's not because they've got their own kids involved. But adult only clubs are great too. It's perfectly fine to want to make that your focus and to attract members as they become adults and get interested in your sport. Thousands of clubs in a multitude of sports thrive very effectively like that.

It does sound like it'll be a positive split for both parties long term. Good luck with the new one next year. I've found chats with real humans at BC to sometimes be very useful. People who's personal KPIs involve making sure people like you can successfully do what you want to do.

@convert some of the older kids and a couple of the coaches & parents ride road - the kids are mainly those that race XC or CX.

We take kids from age 5 so for some it's not an option to ride road.

We have tried to encourage the 'road section' to join us on MTB rides - but they all decline - most of them don't ride road of it's wet.... At the AGM there was a 20 minute discussion on whether mud guards should be mandatory for winter road rides.

We organise our own socials & Christmas party as when it was combined there were complaints about the number of kids......

We're successful in racing and have had previous students pull on team GB jerseys for XC in various championships and junior Olympics - again no recognition from the other side of these achievements.

It is frustrating when it could work really well for both sides, at the moment we fell like we're just funding them.

Your issues sound a lot like my first cycle club in the mid/late 90's. MTB was booming and one guy in particular did huge amounts of work to get kids involved (which worked) but there were always a number of the Old Boys (for want of a better term) who were dismissive of it.

It's not proper cycling, it's not what the club is about, we didn't have that in my day...

In the next breath they'd be asking why no new people wanted to join the club - answer was that they have but they're all out mountain biking, not plodding through the lanes on the "winter hack"!

Re club constitution, BC have a number of templates on their website (somewhere within the Clubs section), it's all pretty basic stuff. All sounds very official and boring but it's all fairly straightforward.

Give BC a call on the Clubs number or talk to your regional person, they'll provide all the help and links you need.

Good luck!

Is there another local club you can defect (patch over) to - with a clear understanding what the junior section needs? It would save a lot of administrative stuff...

On the constitution,  BC steer you quite strongly towards their template.  I advise reading it and seeing if you can live with the terms.  You are not obliged to use it and the clauses on dissolution last time I looked were downright cheeky (Any unspent funds go to BC) . There was other self serving nonsense about needing BC membership to vote on committee stuff etc. I used a much more basic and egalitarian template and when the club did wind up, it was intended to be short term, I was glad of the simplicity.

Wouldn't it be simpler just to vote the current old farts out of office? It's the time of year for new beginnings, and I assume the AGM is coming up? If as you say, the junior section provides the majority of  members, or do the junior members, and their parents, have no vote?

Constitution -

As above: Not a fan of the BC template - it ties you into all sorts of BC crap.

The local council will have a community officer that can advise and should be able to provide you with a generic constitution,
Or - email a local MTB youth group and ask for theirs. 
(Haven't been a cycle club chair for 15 years but I doubt anything will have changed that will temper my intense dislike of BC)

Cycling UK - may also be able to help you.

Our club doesn’t cater for children, but we admit riders over 13 and have a safeguarding officer. In the area there is of course one very well known and large club catering just for children, Hillingdon Slipstreamers. Some of our coaches coach for that club. You might like to contact them for advice. There is also Palmer Velo at reading velodrome who also exclusively cater for children (I started MTB with them on their monthly rides at Swinley, which I then led).

I think this arrangement works well. No club needs to be good at all things for all ages, and it sounds as though you’ve found your niche. Leave the club to do theirs.

Thanks again all - appreciate the replies 👍

Will give the constitution a good look over and see what works, not sure about giving more money back to BC lol

We need to stay with BC because of the racing as I understand - club points & rankings etc.

We need to stay with BC because of the racing as I understand – club points & rankings etc.

Double check what the score is with transferring points and club/regional rankings - you may find that as a club you need to start over or they may be able to carry rankings across.

Individual points will carry over if a rider changes club.

At the AGM there was a 20 minute discussion on whether mud guards should be mandatory for winter road rides.

An aside......only a mtber or Jonny come lately roadie would write this 😄. Most 'proper' road clubs have had and will continue to have this as a rule. And very sensible it is too. Even as a roadie who MTBs (or an mtber who is a roadie - not sure these days - that's why my username is 'convert') 4 hours of getting sprayed in the face with road grime by an inconsiderate tosspot who doesn't want to put guards in his carbon steed as it'll spoil the looks is unpleasant. My old club used to eject anyone that turned up without guards in the winter or make them ride on the back.

My current club is a collective, mainly started as the main City CC is similar to the OP's, bunch of old farts who haven't had a new idea since the 15th Century and hate anything and anyone new. As for a 20min discussion on mud guards, that sounds quite amateurish, their committee would have managed at least an hour. Their main bug bear though is how to stop new people joining their rides. It's like the club actually wants to shrivel up and die.

Good luck to the OP, these old fart clubs just need to be left to die off.

Ribble valley juniors and seniors clubs were completely separate (from the start I think but not 100% on the history). If you are lucky they can sometimes be self sustaining as new waves of kids and parents come through to pick up the reins (rather than getting old and set in their ways).

Shibden is another club that has done loads for off road kids (with parents also racing for them).

Unfortunately lots of road clubs are dying due to this type of attitude, where they’re stuck in the whole, this is how we’ve always done it mindset.

Clubs without that attitude are thriving though.

Cycling UK may be an option but might restrict the racing side as you'd still need BC to do that.

The BC constitution may be changeable, but it does seem that a coup at the AGM might be the solution - propose your own candidates, get all the youths/parents there, sound out support from some of the more progressive roadies.....point out that financial/organisational incompetence will mean no roadie club either.

I’m afraid it’s not just cycling. My local cricket club are the same, the kids section bring in about 60% of funds but the senior members treat them as a nuisance and go out of their way to get them to leave and play elsewhere.

Despite it being pointed out multiple times, if the juniors members money didn’t come in, senior players wouldn’t play at it would be too expensive per match. They don’t seem to care…

It's straightforward. Plenty of clubs put their constitutions on websites. Look for some big local ones and steal the best bits.

Otherwise I see this as fairly normal. My road club has split a few times in the 15 years I've been a member, I'm a member of two variants. City RC and city vc. The kids section is completely separate under go ride.

Thanks for all the info and advice - greatly appreciated.

One question that came up at our regular coaches meeting last night was Tax and HMRC.

Anyone have an idea about HMRC CASC Tax (community amateur sports club) and how that works? (most of us are Engineers so have no idea about this stuff lol) As we'd essentially be 'not for profit' and all moneys would be put back in to the club for equipment, insurance, Forestry permissions and subsidised First Aid & coaching/guiding quals for the coaches, where do we stand TAX wise?

Obvs we'll speak to an accountant shortly but would like an idea of how this all works before we go.

Thanks

Afraid I've no idea...I steer well clear of the money stuff.

Not my area, but this may "help"?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-amateur-sports-clubs-detailed-guidance-notes

Anyone have an idea about HMRC CASC Tax (community amateur sports club) and how that works? (most of us are Engineers so have no idea about this stuff lol) As we’d essentially be ‘not for profit’ and all moneys would be put back in to the club for equipment, insurance, Forestry permissions and subsidised First Aid & coaching/guiding quals for the coaches, where do we stand TAX wise?

You *probably* don't want to be a CASC.  It comes with a bunch of conditions which are a PITA and are really designed for clubs that have a fixed base - e.g. a cricket pitch.   You don't have a tax issue anyway as a standard club, but you might want to consider becoming a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (I assume that is the english term - in Scotland we call them SCIO).  Essentially its a form of "company" run as a charity that means e.g. you can claim Gift Aid on somethings that you can't with a CASC but of course also some admin work.  What would be potentially nice about this, is you could *maybe* use that as a less confrontational exit form existing club.  e.g. "City Cycle Club" remains but "City Childrens' Cycle Charity" is formed and becomes its own entity - which might even have a very close relationship with the old club (so avoid parents needing to splash out on new kit etc?)

Although I am also wondering if there is enough momentum to simply become the dominant voices on the committee.