South Eastern Centre Motocross Combine Minutes October 2000

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE SOUTH EASTERN MOTO CROSS COMBINE HELD ON WEDNESDAY 18th OCTOBER 2000 AT BLINDLEY HEATH IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE DATES MEETING

PRESENT : 27 Delegates were present representing the following Club : Brighton, Chalgrove, Crawley, GEST, Greenwich, Kingston, Sidcup, South Eastern Marshals, Twickenham and the Gazette Editor. CHAIR : Me. Eddie Herd took the Chair.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE : Apologies for absence were received from Mrs. Hayden due to holidays and Mr. Dixon said he would be representing the Horsham Club.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING : Mr Batten felt that the point regarding COLOURED BACKGROUNDS should read "other codes " and not "the AMCA". It was proposed Mr. Burton and seconded Mr. Horton that the amended minutes were a true and accurate record of the previous meeting held on 12th July 2000 and should be accepted. Carried.

INTER CENTRE TEAM MOTO CROSS : Mrs. Clarke had written to Rugby as instructed by the last meeting, querying the ACU Moto X Committee's minutes and received the following reply " The last meeting I attended reiterated why they felt the event could not be run on Remembrance Sunday because the land used for Motocross is usually agricultural and the landowner usually a strong figure in the village/parish and the fact he would usually attend the church service on Sundays, it is assumed he would not like his land being used on remembrance Sunday ". The delegates had a job to withhold their disbelief at such an out of date reply, Mr. Dixon informed the meeting that the Woodbridge Club would be holding the event in 2001 and that it was expected to return to the old 5 member format.

NATIONAL MEMBERSHIP : Clubs had just received the information pack from Rugby and there was some discussion on areas which still remained unclear. Mrs. Clarke felt the way the system appeared to be set up at the moment for monies taken at meetings from either new members or day licences was complicated by using 2 different systems, she had appealed to Geoff Wilson to think about changing the procedures but as yet he still had to be convinced. It would mean changes for the gazette entry form and the form that is collected by the steward and used by Ken Piles when compiling the insurance return, clubs would also now be required to send in the day licence and any affiliation forms after the event. Also despite Mrs Clarke's appeals to the contrary senior officials would be required to be affiliated to the ACU and personally pay £5 although marshals and observers would not. It was generally felt that there would be a few teething problems to start with. The day licence fee had been increased to £6 but there was now no mention of the Clubs or the centre having a proportion to cover their administrative costs.

PARAMEDICS : Mrs. Clarke had written to Rugby as instructed by the last meeting in July regarding any progress reports the Medical Panel had on our original missive and suggesting some input from grass roots but there had been no reply from anyone. Mr. Dixon said he felt sure something had come back from the Medical Panel.

MARSHALS SEMINAR : Mrs. Clarke apologised to the meeting and said that she had just run out of time before the end of the season to do anything about organising the seminar. It was agreed to fix a date in February, at Blindley Heath and put the notification in the Gazette. Mr. Brown recounted a recent incident he had experienced when a rider actually broke the pole off in his hand when trying to slow riders down for an accident, Mr. Herd felt we must enforce the rules that deal with this sort of situation and make an example of someone.

PROGRAMME COVERS : Mrs. Clarke said that she had mentioned last meeting that she wished to pass the job of sorting the programme covers over to the Series Co-Ordinator as she did not have any spare time to deal with it at that time of year as it clashed with her British Championship event. Mr. Dixon said that he might have a problem this coming year as he was going to be in Australia for the whole of January, Mr. Wood volunteered to help him out and Mr. Herd said he would also be available. I

NTERNATIONAL CLERK OF THE COURSE SEMINAR : Mrs. Clarke had been notified that the English speaking FIM seminar would be held on 10th/11th February and that the National one would be on 14th January 2001.

CENTRE MANAGEMENT MEETING REPORTS : Mrs. Clarke said the minutes of these meetings had been printed in the gazette and that she would answer any queries. She pointed out that there was a problem with the voting for positions on the ACU Trials and Enduro Committee that had not been foreseen with the new set up within the Centre, our Centre had 2 Committees he could possibly vote for different people but the Centre was only entitled to one vote. The Centre Secretary had asked for nominations for the Pinhard Trophy and Mrs. Clarke felt Robert Batten should be proposed by our Combine. It was proposed Mr. Brown and seconded Mr. Lane that the Secretary does this.

SUGGESTIONS FROM ANDY WOOD TO STANDARDISE MEETINGS :

PRACTICE TICKETS : Sidcup had used a practice ticket at their last meeting which was a good idea but needed refining. There was some discussion where it was generally agreed to recommend using a small cable tie with a ticket attached to the handlebar, Andy Wood said he would produce some samples but a clear system of when to attach the ties could not be agreed upon as each Club favoured different ideas, but it was agreed that the ticket would be pulled off when the rider came to the start line for practice and the remaining cable tie denoting the machine had been scrutineered. Mr. Brown asked why machines were scrutineered and Mr. Herd said that even if a machine was nearly new there are times when things come undone and could make the machine unsafe, it also looked better if the need ever arose when a Club was questioned about a machine by some authority and could say the machine had been examined prior to racing.

STARTING PROCEDURES : Mr. Wood felt it would be good practice to adopt a similar system at all meetings to that as quoted in the British Championship conditions, this was agreed . Mr. Dixon pointed out that the green flag should go up when the first rider comes onto the start line and therefore the statutory 2 minutes would have expired by the time the last person arrives, thus negating the rule. Agreed to add the starting procedure to the centre Moto Cross Rules at the AGM.

BACKGROUND COLOUR OF NUMBER PLATES: Mrs. Clarke said that she had raised the question at the last meeting that a number of Fourstroke Yamahas were not using the correct background coloured plate and the meeting had felt it was not really an important issue. She had recently noticed the appearance of a dayglow yellowygreen background coloured plate with black numbers on it appearing in the 500 Class, she felt this must be the optimum contrast of colours to make the life of the long suffering lap scorers easier and suggested that as not much notice was taken of the difference in coloured plates that all machines have this one colour. There was some discussion and it was felt that we should submit our suggestions to the ACU Moto Cross Committee for a change.

ACU MOTO CROSS COMMITTEE MINUTES : Mrs Clarke read salient points from the minutes of the 4th & 5th meetings of the ACU Moto Cross Committee as follows :- UEM Non Championship Motocross licences will no longer be graded "A" and "B" Holders of National Expert Licences are eligible for both International Non Championship and Continental Licences. Holders of National Junior Licences are eligible for a Continental Licence. The National Steward raised the fact that the Club were allowing persons to marshal at the age of 14 years. When questioned the Club supplied written confirmation from the ACU that this was acceptable if they were members of an official organisation, [ Sea cadets, Army Cadets etc.] The Chairman would speak to the General Secretary about the matter. Mr. Bellars confirmed the above was indeed correct.

VOTING FOR THE VACANT POSITIONS ON THE ACU MOTO CROSS COMMITTEE : It was proposed Mr. Batten and seconded Mr. Burton that we instruct the Centre's NMC representative to vote for Eddie Herd and Roy Humphrey in the forthcoming elections. Carried.

INSURANCE RELATED DISCUSSION WITH EDDIE BELLARS : Mr. Bellars gave a short resume of the past year and the reasons why the rates have been forced up for 2001, on the positive side the permanent disability benefit had been increased to £20000 but the weekly benefit reduced to £75 and this would not start until the 14th day after injury. The Officials pay out would increase to £150 a week with £40000 for permanent disability. He was disappointed that the BYMX Committee had voted not to have any PA cover for BYMX licenced Youth events. Mr. brown asked about means testing and Mr. Bellars said this had been an unfortunate misunderstanding by Bradstocks using the wrong forms. Mr Batten asked about the reason behind the differential in prices for National events as opposed to Centre events and Mr. Humphrey said that ORPA showed their premiums differently as they had no 3rd party because it was inbuilt into their Public Liability cover. Mr. Bellars pointed out the reason the premiums were cheaper with other organisations was solely because the benefits were not so good.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS :

Gazette : John Bramall, the Editor, asked for clubs to think of the Gazette as a publicity machine for promoting moto cross and their meetings, not only in advance but by supplying the results and a write up after the event.

Bibs Bearing riding numbers: The Twickenham Club would like a formal proposal made of the recent recommendation regarding wearing of bibs or riding shirts with number on them when the Clerk of the Course deems the weather unsuitable for normal lap scoring. Agreed that this would go on the next agenda.

Letter from Sue Simpson : Mrs. Clarke read a letter from Sue Simpson who was the lap scorer at a recent Crawley meeting that experienced appalling conditions so much so that the Championship status was taken away and the Club permitted the meeting to carry on without adequate lap scoring with the agreement of the riders. She was extremely disappointed not to be supported by the Club and has decided that she will no longer lap score. Mrs. Slight said that she had written to Sue and apologised, Mrs. Clarke asked if the Clerk of the Course had evoked the bib recommendation, Mrs. Slight said that he had not.

Brighton MX : Mr. Bird said that the total workforce at the recent Brighton MX had only been 3 and that they felt they might have to cancel the event in the future unless they could get some outside assistance. Mr. Argent said that he felt if a little publicity had been given to their needs they would have got help as the majority of riders look forward to the annual trip to Brighton and would not want to loose the fixture.

Workers Tickets : Mr. Humphrey felt that the guy who worked should have an advantage over those that don't perhaps by issuing a workers ticket that would enable him to get a discount of say £10 on his entry. Mrs. Clarke said Sidcup ran a consortium scheme where a group of people put in a bid to erect and dismantle the tracks for Sidcup events and get paid for the job. Entries fees in general were discussed with the thought that perhaps meetings with better facilities should be able to charge at least the same as the opposition or more. Agreed to put the matter on the agenda for further discussion at the next meeting.

SE Centre Championships : Mr. Batten said that with Crawley's last meeting being cancelled and the Brighton date move nullifying the points the Championship was now finalised for the year with the following being successful :-

EXPERTS : Ben Taylor Greg Fitch Scott Robinson

JUNIOR : Rob McNealy Mark Robinson Daniel Mason

SIDECARS : Pelling / Kemp Philpott / Beavis Turner / Turner

FOURSTROKES : Scott Hayworth Rich Barber Russ Jarman

There being nothing further to discuss the meeting closed at 11.35pm