AGM Provides Excuse to Reflect

Cycling Southland held its Annual General Meeting this week. It provided a rare opportunity to pause and reflect on the last 15 months’ work. Each and every week I am continually blown away by the support this organization receives from such a passionate group of people and each week I am captivated by the opportunity which exists for the sport and for Cycling Southland. For the purposes of an annual report we calculate the number of volunteer hours which go into the sport – we just stopped counting when the number got above 50,000. The past year has been a transitional one with my arrival and the on-going implementation of this new structure. To trade our way to a small cash operating surplus was satisfying in a year of such great change and it points to the great things we have ahead of us.

The sheer volume of work delivered by this organization is staggering. In the last 15 month period we have hosted New Zealand’s premier elite and junior road tours, two National Track Championships, three track carnivals, an incredible corporate event and a full programme of junior and senior road and track racing. And it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Over the next 13 months we will host National, Oceania and World Track Championships along with the Yunca and PowerNet Tours as well as assisting the Wakatipu Club with the Oceania Road Championships in March. I can’t think of another club, anywhere in the world, that would have all of that on its plate. Can you?

Significant progress has been made at a development level which is something I’m most proud of. We now have a Learn to Ride fundamentals programme which has been successfully piloted in seven Southland schools with outstanding results. We have cycling accredited with NZQA for NCEA performance standards and we have increased the number the children entering our Wheelers introductory programmes four-fold. The exciting part is that we are just getting started.

The AGM also saw the end of Steve Canny’s seven and a half year stint as President. His contribution cannot be over-stated. It was Steve’s voice on my answer-phone a couple of Christmas Eves ago which changed my life and got me into this game. I have had the treat of working alongside him closely over the last few weeks as we presented to the Ministry of Economic Development in Wellington and worked with SPARC on our hosting of the 2012 Junior Worlds. Watching him at work is a sight to behold and I have now seen first-hand the skills he and his mates employed to get the ILT Velodrome built. I’ll be making sure his many skills are not lost to our organization. I am also absolutely delighted Tony Ineson will fill the shoes of another legend, Sonny Broad, as our new Patron. But ultimately it is the Cycling Southland member, to whom I offer most thanks. 

And together we’ve all got some ride ahead of us.

Corporate Pursuit Life-Changing Experience

Cycling Southland’s Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit is to be held over the next two weekends with the Grading Time Trial on Sunday and the Finals Day on Sunday 31st July. Over 200 riders in 34 corporate teams will line up to take on the clock and the competition. Last year’s winning team was YMCA Education. They were anchored to their victory by Karl Watson who today tells us why competing in the event last year was truly life-changing.

I fell in love with track cycling after participating in the Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit for the past two years and riding for the YMCA.

Initially, our team entered in the competition as something fun for our staff to do as we had heard how much fun other businesses had been having. Also, I thought the concept of going as fast as you can over a short distance on an oval track was really exciting.

As Invercargill is a relatively close-knit city I knew people from the other businesses which really brought out the competitive edge and a lot of friendly banter amongst the competitors.

As the weeks progressed, we all improved and we got faster and smoother and the times kept coming down. Then on the race day, it was amazing how the crowd and the excitement of the day took more seconds off our time.

The amazing thing about the Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit is that it is not just a corporate event, as it is an event that brings what would normally only be experienced by our elite athletes to normal people, with potentially a far more raucous and involved crowd.

I have since ridden at the track nationals and a number of cycling carnivals, and I believe that the corporate pursuit provided a great platform for me to do well at these events. The experience of participating in the Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit has been life changing for me. I have no doubt that if I had not taken part in the Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit I would not have represented Southland at our national track champs.

Come see why there is such a buzz about the town and experience this unique opportunity on the 31st July from 9:30am.
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Our 34 teams line up on Sunday from 12.30pm at the ILT Velodrome. Each will ride solo against the clock to confirm seedings for the Corporate Pursuit finals which will be held one week later on Sunday 31st. It is not only a great event to compete in, the crowd has created an atmosphere all of its own with fancy dress costumes, banners and a heck of a lot of noise. Entry fee is only $2 for adults and children are free and we’ve got a heap of activity off the track planned, including the chance to win a Specialized Mountain Bike from Wensley’s Cycles. Good luck to each of our teams as they put the finishing touches on their build-ups. To find out more visit www.cyclingsouth.org.nz/corporatepursuit.

Corporate Pursuit Rookie Report

Cycling Southland’s Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit is approaching fast. 2010 rookie Diane Lindsay offers a newcomer’s perspective on the event.

Well that time has come around again the Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit, I undertook this daunting sport a year ago (one tick on my personal bucket list).

Our very first training session was very daunting and blooming scary as we thought about the height of the cycling track, but nothing prepared us for arriving at the ILT Velodrome and seeing the track. Oh it was so damned high. But wait, at the end of the session all of us were riding to the top of the track.

Off we went into our weekly routine of training sessions and our own personal training as well, (my legs have never looked so good). We learnt so much and really understood the word ‘pursuit’ - we really did get close to each others wheels and we looked great. That is what the coach wanted - nice and neat and he got it.

Time trial night came and as you would imagine our nerves were rather fraught, as we were all under the spot light with our co-workers and family members all present in support of us all. We had followed the instructions to the book, even eating the correct pasta!

We lined up and had our last minute advice from the coach, wow when we had finished we were all so elated, our family and co-workers were all so impressed, and so they should have been. What a great feeling – Friday night drinks comes second to that feel good feeling.

Then a week later came race day and what a festival - competitive atmosphere, and run so professionally with warm-up bikes, designated team areas and, if required, a physiotherapist.

Our team was first up and had a great race. I completed my second leg of the pursuit feeling very good with myself, went up high and promptly feel down from the top taking out another rider with me. After being picked up and looked after by officials and team members, off I went and introduced myself to the physio.

Our team had another race, which I did not race due to feeling quite sore in the shoulder. Having the opportunity to stand down and yell at the team from the side line made me very proud.

Our final race of the day, and what the hell, I had nothing to lose so I asked if I could ride again. That race we all flew and we did a new personal best time.

Coming to work the following day I asked a doctor’s opinion on my sore shoulder and the diagnosis? One broken shoulder. We do breed them tough down south. Go Waihopia Health Services!
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The Harrex Group Corporate Pursuit Grading Time Trial is on July 24th with the Finals on July 31st. Entry is only $2 for adults and children free. Get along to the ILT Velodrome to see business at speed.

Sports Funding - The Future

On Friday I was fortunate to act as MC for the ILT Southland Sports Awards,as we recognised the outstanding efforts of our sporting achievers.

When you bundle together the premier individual and team performances from throughout the year, it shows what this province of ours achieves year after year, often against better resourced and more highly fancied opponents.

We relived some of last year's most special moments, watching footage of Nathan Cohen powering home to win World Championship gold, Aaron Barclay holding the finishing tape aloft at the Youth Olympics, the Stags defending the Ranfurly Shield so proudly and born and bred southerners having Commonwealth medals draped around their necks.

The burning question is can we keep that up?

Around the world right now, the on-going funding of sport is in the headlines. In the United States the NFL and NBA are in simultaneous player lock-outs as team owners and player representatives negotiate terms in an attempt to fix a flawed system.

The NBA has just completed one of its most successful seasons ever. Attendance numbers, television audiences, merchandise sales and general interest are all up, yet 22 of the 30 teams will lose money - a combined total of $300 million dollars. The good news is that's an improvement on the last two seasons' deficit.

Now like most things in the US, the scale of the issue is on another planet to ours, but the principle appears the same. Those sports are trying to sustain a broken model. That's hard enough in good times let alone in the challenging revenue environment we now operate in. The major difference is that in the US billionaire owners fund these deficits. In New Zealand the red ink falls to the sport and ultimately back to those who fund the sport - in most Southland cases, our community funders.

There are two issues. One is franchise sport, vital as our shop window to the sporting nation. The other is regional sport which, as Friday showed, also does an outstanding job of generating huge success. While they are two very different scenarios with two very different challenges, they are inextricably linked.

In round numbers $10 million dollars is invested in sport in Southland each year and the pot is getting no deeper. Yet for some reason sports' only strategy (and we're all guilty of this) is to go knocking on the same doors for more money. We have been incredibly fortunate to have funders who have in the past generally answered the call positively. But that simply can't continue.

Is sport using the current investment as efficiently as it can? If we started with a blank sheet would it look like how we operate today?

The sport sector must take ownership of this issue, otherwise, quite rightly, an end result will be imposed on us and we'll be told to make it work somehow. That will bring winners and losers and we will only have ourselves to blame.

Now is a time for real leadership, otherwise it's my belief the performances we celebrated on Friday night may become fewer and farther between. I think we all agree that would be a massive tragedy.