Minutes of Camden Cycling Campaign Meeting on 8th May 2006
Present: Jane Boardman, James Brander, Stefano Casalotti, George Colouris, Jean Dollimore (chair), Richard Fletcher, David Hawkins and Meade McCloughan (minutes).
Apologies: Anne Boston, Paul Braithwaite, John Chamberlain and Helen Vecht.
Matters Arising
• Safer Routes to School – Phoenix School (College Crescent): we have now found out that the Traffic Management Order for this scheme will not emerge until May 2007.
• Summer Events Press Release: Jean to collate details and pass on to Anne Boston.
Summer Festivals
• It was agreed that, in addition to doing BikeFest (4th June), we should participate in the following events this summer (with name of lead CCC member):
– Calthorpe Garden Festival, 10th June (James);
– Primrose Hill (Chalcot Square Gardens), 17th June (Jean);
– Swiss Cottage Festival, 15th July (James);
– Kilburn Festival, 16th July (Meade).
• For each, we will have a stall with leaflets, maps, LCC membership forms and, if possible, ‘Dr Bike’. Care will have to be taken to organize materials –our lead for each even will have to liaise with whoever was in charge of the previous one.
• It appears that there will be no Hampstead Heath Open Day this year.
Rides Programme
• Richard reported on the plans as they currently stand. The intention is to have a ride every month from May to October. The first three are already on the website – see
http://www.camdencyclists.org.uk/rides06 Richard will organize one for August (probably the 6th) and James one for early October (8th October; Thames towpath to Richmond). James also intends to do his Rye ride sometime as well (100 miles).
• Some discussion ensued as to how we should grade the rides, e.g. from ‘easy’ to ‘gently-paced’ and ‘fanatical’.
• The value of organizing our own CCC rides was reiterated. Also that if individuals were going on other rides, they could e-mail the newsgroup to see if other CCC people would like to go too.
• The ‘Dunwich Dynamo’ takes place this year Saturday 8th to Sunday 9th July (see
http://www.southwarkcyclists.org.uk/dunwichfaqs.htm ). If a group from Camden wanted to go, the thing would be to arrange for a van to transport it back from Dunwich, rather than waiting round all day for the regular coaches.
• Meade said that he would like to organize a ride around Glyndebourne, but probably for next year.
BikeFest, Sunday 4th June
• Stefano to put out a call for volunteers; so far Jane, Jean and Meade have committed themselves.
• Stefano will stock up with materials from LCC (which can then be used for other festivals over the summer).
• TfL is organizing ‘Dr Bike’ services, so we won’t need to provide them.
• Last year we had the petition about cycling in Regent’s Park – it would be good to have some positive news to report on the day about how things are now moving forward. Stefano to ask the Royal Parks Authority what it would be happy with us saying and then use this as the basis for a statement we can use.
• Posters with details of what we are doing and other information (e.g. what is happening with Regent’s Park) would be very good to have – passers-by like to gaze at them. Jean and Stefano to produce some.
Bike Week 17th-25th June
• Jane to get the Breakfast planning underway. We should invite the new key Camden councillors, once we know who they are!
• James to lead a ride to the Olympics site on Sunday 25th and do his usual West Hampstead Dr Bike.
• We’ve dropped the idea of an evening ride; these haven’t been successful in the past.
• There will not a big event in Trafalgar Square this year, nor a specific ‘cycle to school/work’ day.
Membership/Publicity
• The idea of leafletting people at bus-stops was discussed, somewhat skeptically.
• The idea of encouraging our members to publicize and proselytize at their workplaces was received with more enthusiasm. We could produce small information boxes (maps, leaflets) for them to use. Various members who might be willing to pilot this scheme were mentioned (Lillian, Vivien, Stefano). Stefano to proceed with this plan.
• The variety of outcomes we want was emphasized: (i) more people cycling; (ii) more people participating in CCC events; (iii) more people joining LCC/CCC.
• At present, our membership is about 600, with 8 or so new members each month and the same number of members not renewing.
2006 London Cycle Community Grants
• see http://www.lcc.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=1019 (No Longer there 2.04.21)
• The deadline for applications is the 31st July. Various suggestions were made for schemes we could apply to have funded using one of these grants:
• supporting new cycle instructors – Richard pointed out that £300 grants were available from CTC/Cycling England for individuals to train as cycling instructors – we could use a grant further to subsidize members who wanted to take this up.
• CCC tool pool – has been tried before, doesn’t work.
• estate cycling project – training local people to act as cycling resources.
• cycling to school – training
parents to ride with groups of childen to and from school. This idea attracted the most enthusiasm. Two possible primary schools were mentioned – Hampstead Parochial and Gospel Oak. We are due to meet at the first of these in June and so will be able to sound out people there then. Stefano also to approach Bob Spellar.
Venues for CCC meetings
• It had previously been agreed to meet in a variety of venues across the borough (such as Primrose Hill Community Centre, Hampstead Parochial School), but this now felt to be a bit too onerous to organize and probably too confusing for members.
• It was therefore agreed that we should aim to have a regular base and have special meetings in other venues as and when the opportunity or need arises.
• It was agreed that the Primrose Hill Community Centre was preferable to Castlehaven and we should try to make it the venue for our usual meetings.
• For the immediate future, it was decided to hold the July and August meetings at Castlehaven and try for Primrose Hill for September and thereafter.
• Jean to try to get a speaker for September: various possibilities, such as Christine Mabey, Ken Worpole, Richard Bourn (Transport 2000) and Simon Brammer (LCC Director, and a good speaker). Stefano to ask Simon Brammer but if that fails, Jean
to work through list of other invitees
