South Eastern Centre Motocross Combine Minutes April 2002
MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE SOUTH EASTERN MOTO CROSS COMBINE HELD ON WEDNESDAY APRIL 10TH 2002 AT BLINDLEY HEATH
PRESENT : 21 Delegates were present representing the following Clubs :- Brighton, Crawley, GEST, Greenwich, Sidcup, Twickenham S.E. Marshals and the TSM Editor.
APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE : Apologies were received from Mr. Dixon and Mrs. Hayden.
CHAIR : Mr. Eddie Herd took the Chair and welcomed the delegates from premier MX a new club applying for affiliation to the Centre.
MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING : It was proposed Mr. Horton and seconded Mr. Lane that the minutes of the previous business meeting held on 16th January 2002 be accepted as true and accurate. Carried.
MATTERS ARISING THEREFROM :
Programme Covers : These had been completed and were in evidence the previous weekend on the Horsham programme. Everyone thought they looked good, Mr. Wood [ the printer] said he would amend the fixture list on the inside as appropriate, he had tried to incorporate as many pictures on the front cover that were made available to him of the 2001 champions and also the 2000 champions who never got to be featured due to the foot and mouth cancellations.
NFU Adverts : Mrs. Clarke apologised to the meeting that she had not had a chance to action this point. She would write to the Centre Treasurer requesting the funding. Mr. Wood mentioned that Mr. Claridge had made previous forties into this area and Mr. Clarke confirmed the correspondence had been passed on.
Background Plates : Mrs. Clarke said she had not had a written reply to our letter but that she had read in the MX minutes the Committee at Rugby had approved a change from 2003 to yellow background plates. She felt this was unacceptable, if a change was going to take place it had to be to Day-Glo yellow with black numbers as that was the best contrast option. There was some discussion as to the availability of obtaining a Day-Glo colour and whether or not it would reflect sunshine or be a problem when televised. Mrs. Clarke was instructed to write again to the MX Committee with our views.
Riders Handouts : Mr. Wood said this was still ongoing as he had experienced difficulty gathering all of the information in that was required, this he now had and would go ahead with a proof copy, both Mr. Batten and Mr. Herd volunteered to proof read it. Foot & Mouth Restrictions : Mrs. Clarke read a memo from the ACU which had already been circulated to all Club Secretaries officially lifting all restrictions.
TTC's : Mrs. Clarke said she had received one for Canada Heights after their British Championship Meeting with the new wording upon it, Mr. Batten said he had sent Twickenham's off to Ken Piles. Mr. Brown explained the new procedure, firstly there would be a complete site inspection of any new track. Then TTC's would only be issued for each permit, the senior steward on the day will inspect the track and confirm it conforms to the TTC and endorse it so. This would mean that at closed to club events the senior steward most likely would be the Club Steward, Mr. Herd felt that any closed to club on a new track should have a centre Steward present. Mr. Clarke said he knew Mr. Bellars would like all master TTC's to be held at Rugby, this, historically, had not happened to speed TTC's in the South Eastern centre but he felt it might well be the right time for them to fall into line with the rest of the country. Mr. Batten asked how changes to the track would be dealt with, Mr. Brown said they would be approved on the day by the Senior Steward and endorsed on the plan of the track.
Clerk of the Course / Stewards Seminar : Mr. Herd said this had been very well attended with 26 people all passing with an average mark of 94 %. There had been 2 requests to the Management Committee from people who could not attend the seminar and it had been agreed they could complete the paper at home and have their licences extended for 1 year. Mr. Clarke congratulated Mr. Herd on his efforts.
London Federation of Sport : Mrs. Clarke said she had paid the money to join and although she had heard nothing further she understood Mr. Wood was now on their mailing list. Mr. Wood said he had received notification about obtaining a benchmark if youngsters were looked after in sport and wondered if any of the Clubs with Youths would be interested in it. He also reported the CCPR had set up a working party to look into risk management in sport.
New Club : Mr. Powell from the Premier MX Club said they were running their first event this coming Sunday at Warninglid near Gatwick under a closed to club permit and expected to run from 85 small wheel through to open class adults. They asked if the Combine had any restrictions on non standard silencers, there followed much discussion about after sales pipes being noisier but it was confirmed there were no Centre rules regarding this matter other than the standard noise levels as printed in the handbook, although if clubs wished they could place their own restrictions to safe guard their land. Mr. Herd said that Colin Moran of the Technical Committee of the ACU has written a paper disputing the way the measurement of noise is done and that it would be submitted to the FIM Technical Committee. Mr. Brown said the centre had just purchased up todate noise testing equipment which could be used at any Club's meeting if they wished. Mr. Horton said when Premier MX had been introduced at the last Centre Board they had assured everyone there would be no clashing of dates and he was concerned to be approached afterwards by them requesting a clash with the GEST Club on July7th. Mr. Powell said it had been very difficult trying to fit their dates into the calendar which had already been agreed and they had selected a track that was as far away as possible. Mr. Horton said GEST was not objecting to the meeting running but wanted to make a point they had gone back on their word.
CENTRE MANAGEMENT MEETING : Mrs. Clarke said it had been reported that regulations must be sent in by 10th month because due to the size of the TSM it was no longer possible to squeeze late comers in through the back door. Mr. Wood reminded delegates that if they wished they could submit a whole year's regulations in one go and he was willing to update any changes by phone at a later date . A new personal accident scheme was thought to be in the pipeline , which has subsequently been published in the TSM but it would only pay out if wages were lost due to the injury. An error had been discovered in the Centre handbook regarding acknowledging entries and would have to be changed when next printed. Mr. Horton would be representing the Combine at the next meeting.
ACU MOTO CROSS COMMITTEE MINUTES : Mrs. Clarke read the following extracts from the minutes of the First Meeting of 2002 in January.:- Correspondence : It was also decided, following a proposal from the South East centre, that from next year all adult number plates in any class will be yellow background with black numbers to facilitate easier manual lap scoring. British Sidecar, 4 Stroke, Under 21 & Challenge Championships : The scheduled first round for all three solo classes at Brampton is now cancelled due to work to the farm access road and will be replaced by Finningley, Doncaster on June 23rd. Any Other Business : For 2003 both the Motocross Committee and BYMX Committee are to include transponder purchase within the registration of the Championships.
LOTTERY RQUESTS : Mrs. Clarke had sent out a round robin asking clubs if they wished to apply for lottery grants it had to meet a deadline for 2001/2002, she had one reply from Greenwich which has been duly submitted. This has now been acknowledged and Greenwich are hopeful of success, the money applied for is to run a Millennium Moto Cross which can be used by anyone in the Combine.
THE SPORTING MOTORCYCLIST : Mr. Bramall asked if any clubs had experienced any difficulty in using the new entry forms, no one had so far. Mr. Wood said there were plans afoot to develop an e mail system for regulations for Clubs to submit when applying for permits which will run side by side with the manual version. Mr. Bramall felt a new look had to be used with minutes, he felt that with the addition of the other Centre's the number of Committee minutes has increased and to make the magasine readable to wanted to make the content varied, lively and interesting. He would like minutes to be précis own to one page of bullet points. Mr. Brown felt the minutes should be printed in full even if it meant going to more pages and costs. Mr. Clarke wondered if we should now be thinking of extending the Combine membership to the other Centres. Mr. Bramall appealed for someone to write a Moto Cross gossip column each month.
Advertising : to put the name regularly in front of competitors it had been agreed to have some banners made promoting the magasine and in the recent British Championship programme a special offer had been advertised which had been taken up by several people. Mrs. Clarke felt a supply of TSM's together with subscription forms should be on the signing on table at events to give to those riders who were obviously not receiving a regular copy.
CENTRE CHAMPIONSHIPS : There had been a mix up over Premier MX wanting to use the Hellingly track on a date already granted to the Crawley Club for a Centre Championship round for Juniors, Experts & 4 Strokes. Although no longer being used by Premier, Crawley moved their date to Monday 6th May, seemingly without seeking permission, although they were aware they would lose their Championship status the regulations somehow still got printed bearing Championship status. On further investigations it would appear the wrong calendar of Championship fixtures appeared in the TSM showing the May 5th/12th Dates of Crawley and Twickenham being reversed. It was agreed that the Twickenham problem was beyond their control and will still retain Championship status but Crawley would not. The Secretary was instructed to publish these details in both T & MX News and the TSM. Mr. Batten said the first Junior round at Golding Barn had been abandoned after the 2 heats had run and therefore no championship points would be scored. He also raised a point at both the recent Sidcup and Horsham events some names had not appeared in the programme. Apparently they were not late entries bearing 300 numbers but either had been omitted from the programme or been received before the closing date but after the programme had gone to the printers. After some discussion it was agreed these riders had entered the meeting correctly and it was not their fault their names had not appeared in the programme so they would be eligible for points.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS :
Bibs : Mrs. Clarke reminded everyone that she held the stock of Combine bibs.
National Membership: Mrs. Clarke said following their recent meeting when she was checking membership cards on the signing on table she came across several MR Thumper cards and one or two far away club cards. Bearing in mind our 4 centre experiment it seemed churlish to refuse someone with a MR Thumper card when you were taking someone from say the Southern centre and she felt it was about time again we tried rocking the boat on the national membership idea. There was some discussion on the ramification of making the meeting a national and so incurring additional permit charges. It was agreed that between the Secretary and Mr. Brown they come up with some wording for the next NMC meeting either adding to the regulations " anybody not a member of the above regions will be automatically be made a day member as long as they are a member of an ACU Club" or lifting the restriction on Regional Restricted events in NSC's.
300 Numbers : Mrs. Clarke said at the recent Sidcup meeting they received a lot of complaints from riders of lesser ability who objected to have to race with the quicker 300 [ late entry ] numbers and felt unsafe and she wondered if now was the time to put the late entries into their correct ability grades but still refusing prize money and points. Mr. Batten felt the whole problem was in accepting late entries, Mr. Dixon felt it unfair that a rider either pays the same or more as a late entry and does not get the same benefits. After much discussion including thoughts on limiting events to 4 classes it was agreed to take the subject of not accepting any late entries back to the Clubs for voting on at the next meeting.
14/28 Day Rule : Mrs. Clarke warned delegates of the impending green paper regarding proposed changes to the Planning Act that all motorcycle events ran under. She had a copy from the DTLR and more could be obtained from the Internet.
Website : Mrs. Clarke said she felt weighed down with the thought of producing the meeting minutes and then going through again to produce something for the TSM when she felt everyone, especially riders who did not attend should have the chance to read our minutes. She had spoken to Jamie Clarke who had come with proposals to launch a free website for the Combine on which the minutes could appear in full and be downloaded. Mr. Clarke circulated some ideas and said he would be willing to set the site up, he felt it might only be temporary if the centre went ahead with their proposed site and therefore did not propose a dot com name. Mr. Brown proposed and Mr. Clarke senior seconded that a dot com name should be sort and all the Club chip in to cover the costs. Jamie Clarke would investigate SECMX and report back.
Crawley Meeting : Mr. Batten had received complaints from his membership about the cancelledCrawley British Qualifier and Junior Championship meeting. They wanted to know how the meeting was allowed to start by the ACU Steward if it was later cancelled because the first aid cover was inadequate, Mr. Clarke said he would ask to see the stewards report at the next management meeting. Mr. Batten also said no one had received the promised refund, whilst Mr. Selmes said they had received their one that very morning. Mr. Dixon who was the Clerk of the Course apologised and said he was unaware until the day that only one ambulance had been ordered and that the Club had agreed to refund half of the entry fee, pay prize monies due and refund any gate fees. The Secretary was instructed to write and ask why the meeting was allowed to start.
Helmet Fins: Mr. Burton [ national scrutineer ] had been informed of another change to the interpretation of helmet fins, it was felt this fashion was on the wane now.
British Championship Meeting : Mr. Brown felt it should be recorded that the recent British Championship meeting run at Canada Heights was an excellent event.
Radios : Mr. Herd wondered if it was time for some centrally held radios to be bought for all Clubs to draw on. Mrs. Clarke said the radio licensing laws were about to change and it might be prudent to wait and see in the meantime Mr. Herd would source some prices.
There being nothing further to discuss the meeting closed at 11.15 pm.