Sally’s report to the 2019 AGM

Welcome to the 2019 Annual General Meeting.

As you can see, the start of the evening is the reports from the secretary collective – I’ll give a general overview, Chris, acting fixtures secretary, will report on the championship, Kevin, membership secretary will give an update on membership and Brian, treasurer will present the club accounts.

We will then have the election of officers, the presentations, then something to eat and finally the legendary quiz.

Committee

I would first of all again like to thank the committee for their commitment and efforts through this year. The committee keep things happening behind scenes, and I hope when it comes to the election of officers, others consider getting involved as new ideas and energy are always welcome. Even if you don’t sign up, remember you are always welcome to come along to the meetings.

Unfortunately our Chairman Pete Hill can’t be with us tonight.

Other committee members are:

  • Tracy – social secretary – thanks to Tracy for organising the important aspects of this meeting tonight – i.e. food, drink and quiz!
  • Helen Parry who manages the Kit
  • Chris Tetley, our comms guru, along with Pete Fotheringham who manages the Strider
  • Lucas Jones – general committee member and of course Whaley Waltz manager
  • I’d also like to thank Alex Elsworth who carried out the fixtures secretary role until October

Although the committee have an important role, I think more than ever now we have many members who themselves organise runs, and recces. There is a lot of encouragement and motivation from fellow members to get involved, and push ourselves to do better – although at times I suspect it’s just to prevent public humiliation from others.

GVS@30

This was the 30th Anniversary Year for Goyt Valley Striders, and we started it at the last AGM with some of the founder members joining us for the evening. Lou Lomas, who started the club, is genuinely thrilled with the ongoing strength of the club, and Sue Stafford was particularly pleased to note the high percentage of women now in the club.

Much thanks has to go to Kevin Day and Rebecca Glen for the efforts put into organising both open and club anniversary races. Not only was the organisation of these events excellent, but we also benefitted from some beautifully presented mementos and prizes. My knitted fir tree had pride of place on my Christmas tree this year and our new mugs were adorned with correctly spelled logos! Thanks to both of you from all of us.

Club Runs

When the club first started, Sunday mornings were the main club run. Now, Sundays are still busy for many – with the aforementioned invitations to join up for runs, and Mr Ambrose’s Sunday mob – but we are also achieving good turn outs for the club runs on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday evenings and Saturday morning. It’s great to see so many turn up each week, whatever the weather. Thanks to Mark for continuing the training sessions over the winter months – I remember in the days of Andy Pead a call for involvement included the line “and you may even burp up a little sick”, I suspect this is still the case and I learned from Caz that there is a sense of pride in achieving this! Thanks to Steve Lowe and Chris T for pushing the Thursday sessions, which start from different places, but have an end in common – i.e. the pub. I know they would like more people to suggest runs for Thursdays, so if you have any ideas post them up.

It looks as though this year will see the resurgence of the social/beginners groups which are important to introduce new runners.

All the away runs were also well attended, thank you to all the away run leaders. If you would like to lead an away run this year we will be asking for leaders next month.

The members races were all well attended, the Magic Mile, Sting in the Tail, Terry’s Race . Look out for the dates of these 2019. All of these are based on estimated times rather than quickest times, giving everyone equal opportunity to win. I think the amount of home baking produced at Terry’s race is unprecedented.

Races

The races hosted by GVS were also well attended. Our thanks go to the race managers.

  • Buxworth 5, managed by Kevin Day had 179 runners and raised £705 for Action for Sick Children plus £300 for our new club tent.
  • Whaley Waltz, managed by Mary and Lucas, had 208 runners and raised £1,006, supporting the Thomas Theyer foundation again this year.
  • Eccles Pike, managed by Matilda Simon, had 171 runners and raised £582.30 .
  • The new anniversary trail race had 185 runners and made £1,200 with donations to the National Park and Taxal Loo, and some of which we have kept for club use. The good news is that Kevin has confirmed it will be held again this year.

That means that this year we have again made significant contributions to our favourite charities. Well done everyone involved as managers and marshals.

This year Lucas will be working with Mark Ruston with a view to handing over the baton of race director. Similarly Matilda will be working with Tracy to hand over the directorship of the Eccles Pike race.

Communications

Thanks again to Chris T for his work on the web site. It is always up to date and easy to navigate. For many it is the first experience of the club.

Our public on-line presence is via the public GVS Facebook page and Twitter account.  We also have a closed group Facebook page started by Lucas to share information between members. We aim to ensure this does remain a forum for members and club friends by checking against our membership list, so please remember to renew your membership so that you can stay in the conversation. We also have the new Cluster group set up by Chris, which has replaced the old GVS forum page. This is being well used, and it is worth copying your posts onto this forum so than non-Facebook users can be included.

This year the Strider Newsletter went online, thanks to Pete. This saves us money on printing and delivery costs and means articles can be posted immediately rather than wait for the next edition. Thanks to those who have posted articles, if you haven’t read these yet I can recommend a visit to the web site to have a look. It would be good to see some more articles.

We’ve now had to start paying for the Flickr account. We decided that this is worth doing as the photos put on Flickr are a much higher resolution than FB, giving us a great back catalogue of photos, so it would be good to see more uploading of photos to the account for sharing.

Any questions\suggestions about any of this talk to Lucas, Chris or Pete.

People

There have been some remarkable achievements this year. These are just some examples, There are too many to mention – but needless to say I am constantly in awe of what people in the club can push themselves to.

  • Pete Ambrose completed his challenge of 5 ultras for Thomas raising £3,585.00 for the Thomas Theyer Foundation.
  • Mark Ruston completed the 95 mile West Highland Way, the great North Run with Linette, and the Bullock Smithy.
  • Chris and Dave completed the Tour Monte Rosa and the Hong Kong Mountain Trail.
Chris and Dave at Monte Rosa
  • Steve Hennessey completed the Joss Naylor challenge.
One legend meets another: Joss Naylor and Steve Hennessey
  • Chris T, Tracy and Roy joined Pete and Mark on the Bullock Smithy, and Tracy joined Pete on a freezing dusk till dawn.
Pete and Tracy – Dusk till Dawn
  • Col, Amelia,Dave and Paul completed the Trigger Race and Paul and Col have just completed it again.
  • Dave Ardern gained silver at the European duathlon championship.

But for me, this year was definitely the Year of team GVS.

Most of the challenges above were achieved through the support and encouragement of other GVS members. This is through both support\nagging\bullying on the day, and supporting recces and planning before hand. The fell running community generally is known for supporting other runners rather than claiming individual glory, and the club has demonstrated this is buckets this year.

And talking of teams, thanks to Chris B we have once again become involved in the FRA relays, having 2 teams entered last year, and we will be doing the same this year. James was wounded on the race, and Tracy wounded by the Tannoy announcement when she tried to find him to take him to hospital. Both have recovered well!

And again thanks to James for organising the cross country teams, The senior men and ladies are in 4th positions in their league, so a chance that they may achieve promotion this year. The Vet men’s are 1st in their division so will be promoted, well done to them. Stand out performances from Moira Hunt, Megan King and Paul Oakley.

Awards

  • Overall Club Champion: Lucas Jones
  • Ladies Champion: Christine Hill
  • Men’s Champion: Lucas Jones
  • Mens Vet 40: Lucas Jones
  • Mens Vet 50: Matt Biglin
  • Ladies Vet 50: Christine Bowen
  • Summer Fell Men: James Hobson
  • Summer Fell Lades: Megan King
  • Chairman’s Award: Pete Ambrose
  • Keep on Running Award: Martin Didge and Maggie
  • Terry’s Race: Eddie Webb
  • Sting in the Tail: Rebecca Glen

Election of Officers

All existing committee re-elected plus

  • Chris Bowen: Fixtures Secretary: Nominated Kevin Day, Seconded Brian Holland.
  • Jane Adlard: general Committee: nominated Chris Bowen, Seconded Helen Parry.

Published by

goytvalley

This account is for the editor of the Strider. Currently that is Pete Fotheringham.

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