Motorcycle Action Group
North West Region Annual General Meeting
Blackpool
Attendees:
Alyson Ayrey, Rolf Wadsworth,
Apologies: none received.
Tony opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and inviting
Steve W to act as chair. Everyone was supplied with a copy of last year’s AGM
minutes and asked if they had any comments. The minutes were accepted as a true
account of the meeting.
Matters arising: it was noted that the Manchester Congestion
Charge has been rejected in a referendum, the results of which were announced
yesterday (12th Dec). Steve Wykes mentioned that a similar poll in
The
Regional Rep’s Report
Another busy year kicked off with the Manchester G-Mex (aka
‘Central’) bike show, on the first free weekend in
January. This event is fairly low-key compared with the NEC and
Tony has also made regular trips to attend the Board and NC
meetings, and the Annual Group Conference.
In February we had the fourth Red Rose MAG Fred Hill Run in
Also in February Tony went to a meeting of the RideSafe
BackSafe forum. MAG has been involved with this project from an early stage,
since it is felt that we can promote safety issues to a wider section of the
biking public. The scheme appears to be working, since the number of accidents
involving PTWs is going down in the NW region, a reduction not seen elsewhere.
During April, Tony took the MAG stall to both You’ve Been
NABD and the Northwich Thundersprint event, which take place on the same
weekend. We are invited to attend the Thundersprint for free, since we
volunteer to marshal part of the event; and since MAG was instrumental in
setting up NABD, they are keen to have us on site. (Our presence at NABD gets
several new memberships and requests for tickets, whereas very few punters sign
up at the Northwich weekend)
Also in April the MAG stall was present at the
One of Tony’s main duties during the year is to take the MAG
stall (on behalf of MAG
Some members asked whether MAG still sponsored riders; it
appears that Trevor Baird is still involved with MAG-sport but we don’t have a
direct sponsorship deal with any racers.
At the end of June, Blackpool MAG held their traditional
rally at the new site – this
In Mid July we were asked by the Friends of Stanley Park to
host a bike show as part of their family fun day. Joining forces with the
Goldwing Owners, we used the event partly as a fundraiser for the Air
Ambulance. The local police and the FOSP were both very impressed by how well
organised our show was (sec’s note: why,
what did they expect?).
In September, MAG was invited to help marshal the Goldwing
Owners club run from their Pontins weekend, and Bill Green took the NW stall
along to give us some more publicity. Meanwhile, in October, we had arranged to
present a cheque to the Air Ambulance from our fundraising efforts. Their rep
turned up early and departed, so we improvised a publicity shot and sent them
the money, keeping everyone happy.
Also in October, Tony attended the Scotland MAG AGM as an NC
observer.
November brought two major events: the NEC B’ham Bike Show,
and the Manchester Salvation Army Toy Run. After missing out on one appearance
at the NEC, we have managed to negotiate a less ruinous fee for appearance at
this event. Grobo, one of our members, has an impressive Ducati Chop which he
lent us for the show, and this attracted a great deal of admiring attention
(rather too much, in the opinion of some other stallholders). See the front
cover of BSH, issue 297 for a shot of this creation.
We had a great deal of discussion of the NEC show – the
importance of MAG’s presence at the show (it was noted that the BMF didn’t
appear this year) and the fact that we sign up lots of new members. The B’ham
event is bigger and better than the G-Mex show and we find it much easier to
attract volunteers to work on the stall. It was also mentioned that Howard Cartledge
(organiser of the G-Mex event) is a keen supporter of both MAG and BMF, and
helps us to liaise with other event managers.
Tony related how he is regularly approached at the MAG stall
by riders asking ‘What has MAG done for us, eh?’ when the individuals concerned
have never actually been members.
Other Regional Issues: there is still ongoing debate about
the proposed ‘multi-purpose test centres’, which will be the only authorised
venues for bike tests. The actual centres are few and far between and
(naturally) running behind schedule for their operation. One proposed centre is
in
We still have a problem with Liverpool City Council, who refuse to allow bikes to use parking bays (even when tickets
are paid for). Bill Green has been round the city to identify the parking
situation, and David Short has been discussing bike parking with the council.
And finally, some members in the Rossendale and Lancaster
regions have asked about setting up local MAG groups.
After this hefty report we agreed that Tony deserved thanks
for his hard work and we voted to accept the Regional reps’ report (prop
Howard, sec Jay, carried U).
Regional Accounts report.
As in previous years,
the regional accounts carried very few entries; these were mainly connected to the
Blackpool MAG rally and the regional AGM (again, there was much discussion
about the need to formally notify all members in writing). Our Regional
Treasurer, Lynda Pouncey has decided to stand down after several years in the
post, and until a replacement officer is appointed, Tony has agreed to hold the
fort. He has also kept costs down by carefully using private printing
facilities rather than a commercial copy shop.
In the meantime, Jay has joined the committee as a
signatory, and Justine (national Treasurer) will also be invited to join so that
finances are correctly administered. It was noted that the proceeds from the
The accounts were accepted (prop Bill G, sec TN, carried U).
Election of Regional Officers
There have been several changes since last year’s AGM; Mike
Card had resigned (due to ill-health) as Deputy Regional Rep, Lynda Pouncey
stood down as Regional Treasurer, and Tim Norris has decided to resign as
Secretary because of work commitments. Tony explained to the meeting our system
of having local reps’ meetings at Ormskirk, at which the decisions from NC meetings
were channelled down to ordinary branch members. These meetings also included
the regional committee members.
At present, we have the following Regional Officers:
Tony Cox, Regional Rep
Bill Green, Political Officer, and
Daz Busby, Webmaster.
Alyson has offered to take over as regional secretary,
following Tim’s departure, and following Lynda’s departure, Wendy Arrandale has
volunteered to stand for election as Treasurer. Since there were no other
candidates for any of the committee posts, we invited the meeting to vote on
the election of all officers together. A new Regional Secretary will be
appointed in the near future.
There remains a need for more local groups, so that members
can keep MAG central informed about issues in the NW region. It was suggested
that an e-mail newsletter could be set up, inviting local members to organise
their own meetings rather than waiting for instructions from the Regional Rep.
We discussed various methods for promoting MAG in the NW
region; ask local members to tell us about biker-friendly venues, for instance.
Steve Wykes mentioned that an item had been raised at the NC meeting by Nick,
who wanted to increase local campaigning; he had suggested having brainstorming
meetings to deal with local transport policy issues.
Jay enquired if our corporate members could help to increase
interest in MAG, possibly by offering free membership
with new bike purchases (apparently we’ve already explored this idea). There
was also a lot of discussion of social networking sites such as Facebook, where
owners’ clubs have their own dedicated pages. Could NW MAG set up our own page
on these sites and target riders with a mixture of social events and political
activism? We could also send requests to members of owners’ clubs asking for
help with marshalling MAG events, or offering to take the MAG NW stall to their
rallies.
Any Other Business
Rivington Barn: someone has heard rumours that the local
council is planning to convert this huge venue (to which hundreds of bikers
flock in summer) into a pay-and-display Car Park. Daryl Whitby (DNA MCC) may
know more details, being fairly local to the area. Apparently all local
Councils are under pressure to increase revenue from parking facilities, and
many have made no provision for bikes (Steve W pointed out that local transport
plans should normally try to encourage PTWs in order to reduce congestion).
Health and Safety: there are now many small firms offering
‘professional’ guidance on how to organise public events in order to comply
with H & S regulations and so avoid ruinous injury claims from eager
litigants. Some of these companies have been offering (at a price) to carry out
risk assessment and safety training for bike rallies, using scare stories about
problems caused by lack of first-aiders etc. MAG central already has support
for local branches wishing to hold rallies – but it was suggested that we could
issue a general H&S template document/checklist for bike clubs to use when
planning events (which would bolster the idea of MAG as a safety awareness
organisation).
Meeting ended about 19:10 to make way for the B’pool MAG
Xmas party.