Presidents Report 2017

Darwin Off Road Cycling Presidents report for 2017

Hi Fellow Mountain bikers.

As we are now well and truly into the build-up and approaching silly season we are due to have the DORC’s AGM, which is scheduled for 9 December. This coincides with our Christmas ride, so dust off your Santa suit and get ready for a good afternoon of fun.  The ride will leave at 16:00 opposite the Lee point Caravan Park and will be followed by the AGM at Tracy Village around 18:00 to usher in the new committee members who will drive the club forward in 2018.

This year the club has achieved a lot of great results, but the most exciting of these was the licence to use the land adjacent CDNP with the plans to create and build an additional 25km of trails. This gives the club a real future focus point, and gives the off road cycling community ownership of something tangible and highly visible. The club hopes the activity will attract members to our great club, so we can achieve our goal of creating great new tracks for all to use. To this end the club will continue with our ‘Be a DORC, I’m a DORC’ membership campaign to assist in securing the funding required to build these tracks.

I would like to run through some of the clubs achievements for 2017, so everyone can fully appreciate what has been going on behind the scenes.

This year the club has run:

• 19 social rides ;
• 8 ladies only rides;
• 12 skill courses consisting of ;
  • 3 x 6 week Fun D Mentals
  • 1 x Junior Fun D Mentals
  • 5 x ½ day courses
  • 3 x Women’s specific ½ day course
• 6 official maintenance days in CDNP with over 250 hours of maintenance work carried out to the tracks and weed spraying; and
• 7 race events with 145 people (!) as the best turn out;

The club has also had significant funding success, securing Northern Territory Government funds that have allowed us to purchase:

• BBQ trailer;
• Timing system;
• Gamba grass weed spraying of CDNP (on going); and
• Coaching up grade course for members.

The Committee have continued to be highly active (and I must say very hardworking!) and have:

• Had 12 meetings;
• Updated the clubs constitution;
• Lodged a submission to get MTB into the Aurfura games (we missed out);
• Employed and paid for the service of Ground Creations to create a Trail concept plan;
• Liaison with NT Parks (MOU on going), and NT Government for trail advocacy;
• Secured the licence to use the land adjacent of CDNP;
• Ongoing strategic planning; and
• Increase membership to 194 members (this is awesome number by the way)

In terms of the agenda for next year, the club has a lot planned, including:

• Increasing new memberships;
• A dry storage facilities for our ever expanding equipment stash;
• Securing funding for the addition of 20 – 25 km of trails;
• Continue to collaboration with CARR for the two clubs combined to achieve Peak Sporting Body status, and thus access to significant additional ongoing Government funding;
• Getting a junior program up and running for the club; and
• Social rides.

On behalf of the all the DORC members I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every committee member. The time and energy that they have devoted to the club so all club activities could run smoothly and efficiently is outstanding.  Their personal contributions means increased enjoyment of mountain biking around Darwin for all of us. Thank you again.

 

The 2017- committee members:

Emma Winterflood

Bill Murphy

Andrew Goldsworthy

Adrian Curry

Francene Anderson

Keogh Conboy

Camilla Wells

Kevin Wells

Dave Russell

Debbie Hall

Michael Gough

Russell Keith

Geoff Fox

 

I would like to encourage anyone who has a passion for mountain biking and would like to give back to our community to seriously consider become a committee member and help the club move into this exciting future expansion.  In particular the club is in need of a junior development person who can create a program from scratch.

 

Be a DORC, I’m a DORC.

 

Cheers,

 

Chris Hanson

President of Darwin Off Road Cyclists