South Eastern Centre Motocross Combine Minutes January 2001

MINUTES OF THE MEETING FOLLOWING THE AGM OF THE SOUTH EASTERN MOTO CROSS COMBINE HELD ON WEDNESDAY 10th JANUARY 2001 AT BLINDLEY HEATH

PRESENT : 16 Delegates were present representing the following Clubs :- Brighton, Crawley, GEST, Greenwich, Sidcup, South Eastern Marshals and Twickenham.

CHAIR : Mr. Eddie Herd took the Chair.

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE : Apologies were received from Kevin McDavitt and Frank Dixon.

MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING : It was proposed Mr. Wood and seconded Mr. Burton that the minutes of previous meeting held on 18th October be accepted as a true and accurate record of the proceedings. Carried.

MATTERS ARISING THEREFROM :

Roy Humphrey : Mr. Batten asked if Mr. Humphrey had been invited to this meeting, the Secretary said he had not and it was agreed to invite him to future meetings.

National membership - Day Licences : Mrs. Clarke said the new affiliation scheme was well under way but that it would not directly affect Clubs that run Moto Cross Meetings save the executive officials at meetings must be affiliated to the ACU. Day licences would however still affect us and all old stocks must be returned to the Centre Secretary for refunds and new supplies pre paid at £6 a licence. There was a fair amount of discussion on the negative effect of the new pricing structure not benefiting the Clubs in any way, and whether it would be in order to put an administrative fee on top of the £6. Agreed that a mention will be placed in the Gazette that Clubs may be putting an additional handling fee on top of day licences.

Four Centre Experiment : Mr. Brown said that meetings had taken place with all of the Centres regarding amalgamating the Gazettes. The South Midland Centre had very nearly reached an agreement, the Southern Centre were still asking questions whilst the Eastern Centre had some hurdles to overcome. In his capacity as Centre Treasurer he will be proposing at the AGM that all regulations not matter whom they emanate from are printed in the SE Centre Gazette free of charge, the bill for this will be invoiced by the Gazette to the Centre. He hoped this would encourage further interchange of regulations from other Centre's being published.

ACU Moto Cross Committee Elections : Mrs. Clarke said that she was pleased to announce that both of our nominations of Eddie Herd and Roy Humphrey were duly elected.

Paramedic Cover : Mrs. Clarke said that following our last meeting Frank Dixon forwarded a paper to her that was going to be inserted into the new handbook regarding first aid criteria next year. The majority of it was workable but it needed some changes for example the heading implied it was for all disciplines were it was obvious it was meant for speed events. She wrote directly to Ted Bartlett asking for the matter to be discussed further at NMC and not just rubber stamped and was surprised to learn the whole paper had been withdrawn. He apologised for the lack of replies to our letters on the whole subject and invited Mrs. Clarke to attend the next Medical Panel meeting in March.

Marshals Seminar : Mrs. Clarke said that she had written to David Kearsey at the ACU because she had seen reference to the training of marshals in one of the ACU's papers, he had replied with a request form for expences but could give no physical help. Roy Humphrey had taken over the role of compiling a training manual for marshals from Dave Smith and Roger Brown had seen a draft copy. It was agreed to ask him for help, Eddie Herd to liaise, a date of 4th April was agreed, the Secretary to arrange the venue, advertising in the Gazette and Trials & Moto Cross News and to write to certain key figures who might be interested in attending. It was agreed the whole affair would be informal with no licence awarded at the end and it would be known as a forum to avoid confusion.

Workers Tickets : These had been discussed at the last meeting and no additional ideas were added.

Trophy Winners : Mrs. Clarke had written to all the Trophy winners and their Clubs asking them to make the presentations at their own Dinner and Dances or similar functions, GEST had already presented the Junior Trophy to Rob McNealy. Mr. Batten asked if we could present replicas down to 3rd place, Mr. Brown, wearing his Centre Treasurer's hat, felt this would be unacceptable in general as the Centre pays for the trophies and if Moto Cross had trophies down to 3rd place then all of the other disciplines would expect the same and it would be a huge expence on the Centre's finances.After some discussion it was proposed Mr. Batten and seconded Mr. Wood " That as long as the Combine had generated sufficient funds from advertising revenue it would buy trophies down to 3rd place for all of the Moto Cross Championships". Carried with Mr. Brown absteining.

Background Plate Colours : Mrs. Clarke apologised that she had a mapping problem but promised to get on board it as soon as possible.

Pinhard Prize : Unfortunately our nomination of Rob Batten was not successful.

CENTRE CHAMPIONSHIP DATES AND PROGRAMME COVERS :

Dates : Mrs. Clarke had received the dates from Frank Dixon as follows :-

Covers : Mr. Wood reported that before Mr. Dixon left for Australia he had managed to get agreement on 7 full pages and 5 half pages of advertising . Mrs. Clarke had written to all of the Championship winners asking them to supply a photo of themselves for the next cover but todate she had not received anything, Mr. Wood said he would contact Paul Durbajlo the photographer and ask if he had any, he would need them by mid February at the latest.

ACU MOTO CROSS COMMITTEE MINUTES : Mrs. Clarke read salient points from the minutes of the 6th & 7th meetings of the ACU Moto Cross Committee as follows :- Inter Centre Motocross 2001 : It was agreed that the event would be given to Woodbridge & DMCC on 30th September 2001. The format yet to be confirmed, however it is expected to revert to the old format. Marshals from Organisations at 14 years of age : Extract from the NMC meeting 28.7.99. " Members of scout or cadet troops who were under adult supervision could act as track marshals from 14 years of age". Stewards Reports : It was noted that three machines had been stolen from the paddock on the Saturday evening at the British. Championship Round at Farleigh Castle. Capacities : As from 1st January 2001 the Moto Cross Committee wish to modify the following classes and capacities - Adult Classes only :- Minimum Capacity Maximum Capacity 125cc [ 2 stroke ] 100cc 125cc [ 4 stroke ] 175cc 250cc 250cc [ 2 stroke ] 175cc 250cc [ 4 stroke ] 290cc 450cc 500cc [ 2 stroke ] 350cc 500cc [ 4 stroke ] 475cc 650cc Change to British Championship Conditions : Non registered riders - After the close of entries the Organising Club may accept Expert riders to replace any non starters or injured riders who will not be participating in the meeting. These riders will be given the chance to practice and qualify for the main championship races. The entry fee for these riders shall be £40. Non registered riders will score points and they will also be entitled to prize money. Any non registered rider who scores points will be given priority of entry for subsequent rounds, if places are available provided all conditions are met and contact has been made with the organising Club. National Moto Cross Clerk of the Course & Stewards Seminar : to take place on 14th January at Rugby. Future West Promotions : Supercross 2001 : In an effort to avoid clashes for 2001, Mr. Hellam has requested that 6th October 2001 be reserved for International Supercross at Sheffield Arena. It was agreed that this date would be granted provided the British Championship Motocross scheduled at Farleigh Castle on 7thn October is rescheduled to earlier in the year. It would depend upon other Championship organisers changing dates. The Chairman and Secretary agreed to liaise with Mr. Hellam on this item. ACU Training : Mr. Smith advised about a new system for Marshals training. Mr. Humphrey asked if he could continue with this work on behalf of the Committee. This was agreed. Any Other Business : c] Mr Fisk asked the Committee to look at licencing free style supercross jump competitors. Mr. Nicoll advised that this needs to be considered carefully and advise should be sort from the AMA before any decisions are made. Mrs. Clarke thought a more serious issue regarding the jump competitions could be insurance implications. She wondered if a separate policy was taken out to cover these competitions or did our general motocross policy cover them. If so, any claims from this side of the sport where riders are encouraged to take their hands off the handlebars etc. could put up our normal premiums.

NOMINATIONS FOR THE VACANT POSITION ON THE MOTO CROSS COMMITTEE : Mrs. Clarke read the circular from Rugby announcing the resignation of Dave Nicoll because of other commitments and thus making a vacancy on the ACU Moto Cross Committee for a 1 year period. There was some discussion but no one could think of any immediate name to nominate and it was agreed not to submit any but when the list of nominations came from the ACU, the Secretary would do a "Round Robin" advising the Clubs requesting instructions on whom to vote for.

SOUTH EASTERN CENTRE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE REPORTS : Mrs. Clarke reported on the recent Management meeting when the setting up of a Centre Website was discussed. A sub committee would be formed to pool ideas for the contents but briefly it was thought it should be of interest to new members and existing members alike. The former would be fairly easy to arrange but to encourage existing members it was suggested that online Championship tables would appear with each discipline keeping their own records up todate. Mrs. Clarke felt it was important that our discipline was not seen to be lagging behind in this new technology and asked Mr. Batten if he thought he would be able to update the Website. Mr. Batten agreed he was better with a spanner than IT matters but Mr. Gregory felt he would be able to offer the services of his wife. There had been a recent inquiry into an incident at a GEST meeting where an injury had occurred at a first bend crash but it found their was insufficient evidence to raise a court of prosecution .

GRASS ROOTS MOTO CROSS FORUM AT THE ACU: Mrs. Clarke said there had been no notification of this annual meeting.

CHANGES TO THE 2001 HANDBOOK : Confirmation of the change in cc rating in the various classes which includes up to 17 year olds riding either 125cc 2 strokes or 250cc 4 strokes. Mr. Horton asked if that covered Youths, Mrs. Clarke said she did not think so as she also had a copy of their changes and there was no mention of it.

RISK ASSESSMENT SEMINAR : Mrs. Clarke had attended a very informative seminar run by the ACU. She gave a brief summary and said her papers would be available to anyone who was interested. Health and Safety was spoken on at great lengths with the majority of it not applying to us as we were not employers, whom the act was meant for, and did not issue contracts of employment, reasonable expences did not constitute employment. BUT under Civil Law we all had a Duty of Care to others in anycase. We were all urged to think about having a Major Incident Policy in force, this was not to be confused with a serious accident but perhaps something like the local Chemical Factory giving off a cloud of poisonous gas, what would you do to evacuate large amounts of people that perhaps would also need medical attention, could extra ambulances get down your access road if lots of cars were exiting from the meeting? Finally a loss adjusters view where they gave a very convincing argument for the need to always have a camera at meetings even if it is a throw away one.

CHANGES TO THE SOUTH EASTERN CENTRE MOTO CROSS REGULATIONS :- It was proposed Mr. Wood and seconded Mr. Lane " STARTING PROCEDURE :- When all the riders are on the start line, the starter will hold up a 15 second board for a full 15 seconds, at the end of the 15 seconds, he will hold up a 5 second board and the gate/flag will drop between 5 and 10 seconds after the 5 second board is shown." Carried. This will come into force at all events. An amendment was proposed by Mr. Gregory and seconded Mr. Wood " RIDING BIBS :- Riders must have a number bib/shirt available AT ALL TIMES in case the Clerk of the Course deems the conditions unsatisfactory for the lap-scorers and decides that riders must wear them as an additional aid. The numbers must be shown on the rider's back and the size of the numbers must be the same or larger than the number plate figures." Carried. There was some discussion on whether to have a supply of bibs on hand to sell to riders who needed them. The Secretary to investigate prices from Stacy's in Essex with a view to asking the Centre for a grant.

PROPOSED CHANGE TO THE SOUTH EASTERN CENTRE MOTO CROSS CHAMPIONSHIP RULES :- 5 FORMAT & RACE TIMES : Juniors - [Delete prize money] Now to read in 3rd paragraph "only these riders will receive Championship Points and Experts Grading Points " Amendment proposed by Mr. Burton and seconded Mr. Brown. Carried.

ANY OTHER BUSINESS :

Mr. Batten would like the Combine to put forward to the Centre Management Committee that the Centre finances some good sized adverts in the Farming Press to try and secure some more sites for motorcycle sport. Mr. Brown, wearing his Centre Treasurer's hat, said he could see no reason why the Secretary should not officially request this and suggested enquiries were made of the farmer's Weekly and the NFU on prices.

Riders Handout : Mr. Wood showed the meeting draft copies of an idea he is working on to handout to riders at meetings for free. It included some of the rules and he thought it should also include details of how to get to tracks, a list of the Championship rounds and a list of the advertisers. Mrs. Clarke also felt it could be aimed at those who perhaps could not ride for any particular reason but were sufficiently interested in the sport to perhaps help if they were pointed in the right direction, she also thought the grading rules should be printed.

LARA Book Mr. Horton said he had received a LARA book on registered tracks and some of the SE Centre ones were included but no application form was included with his.

2 Minute Start Line Rule: Mrs. Clarke wondered following Mr. Dixon's definition at the last meeting if this was fair on the last riders to go to the line, there was much discussion with the majority of the meeting feeling enough time was wasted on the start line as it was at the moment.

There being nothing further to discuss the meeting closed at 10.45pm.