I would like to thank my fellow Committee Members for their support and assistance during the 2012/13 membership year. Additionally I would like to thank those Members (non Committee) who frequently offer their assistance and time, and all Members & Sponsors for your continued support of the Wellington Mountain Bike Club.
We have seen growth in our Club Membership this year (149 vs 56 in 2012), this has been largely in part to our expansion of club shuttle days and offering discounted memberships with our event entry.
A year of change
In December 2012, WMTBC become a Registered Charity. This is huge! it makes the WMTBC more desirable to funding organisations & has meant we could receiving donations from the general public and as you will see in the Financial Report, they have already started coming in.
In previous years, the committee have been ‘front-end’ focused with running plenty of events - whereas this year, the committee has focused on solidifying the club’s foundations. A lot of time & effort has gone into streamlining ‘back-end’ management systems.
- Website
WMTBC’s new website went live in July 2012. This streamlined our membership & event management systems & also allowed us to receive online & credit card payments.
- Accounting
Utilizing ‘Cloud’ based systems, our Treasurer has streamlined our Accounting System.
- Document Storage and Collaboration
Our Secretary installed and streamlined the way the Committee stores and shares its files.
I would like to thank all those who have been involved with these projects, the Club as a whole has benefited greatly from your hard work.
Events
The Club has continued our strong relationships with both Revolve & PNP in support of both there and our events.
Once again, the Clubs Mt Victoria Super D & Miramar Enduro events were a hit. Competitors of the Miramar Enduro turned out with huge smiles, despite the abysmal weather. Mt Victoria Super D pleased the punters, but was run by skin of teeth this year. Major factors were the weather, time of year & a low number of volunteers.
The Club are still struggling to get the volunteer numbers required at our events.
Our shuttle days have proven to be hugely popular with both members and non-members. By running these events both within and outside of Long Gully, the Club has also attracted new riders who would normally shy away from DH events.
Unfortunately, we were unable to run any DH races over the last year due to time & resource constraints, but rest assured, we are gearing up to run a Wellington DH Series in late 2013.
However, this will still a huge challenge for us if we are unable to source volunteers to help with our events – this is particularly something the Club needs in order to remain successful.
Looking ahead to 2014, we’re planning more enduro style events as they are attracting new riders & members to the club.
Community engagement
Over the last year, the Club have officially taken on the trail management of Mt Victoria & Polhill (Brooklyn Trail Builders) in our ongoing effort to expand our trail presence in Wellington.
We welcome Craig Starnes and Kev O'Donnell from BTB to the team.
This means WMTBC are now managing trails in Long Gully, Miramar, Mt Albert, Karori (98 DH), Mt Victoria, Brooklyn & are currently working with the Wellington City Council (WCC) to officially incorporate the Portal trail into the WCC trail network.
WCC kindly donated a small amount of WMTBC Trailhead markers, so you will start seeing these out on the Wellington trail network. The Trailhead markers let other trail user know that the Club built and/or maintains that trail and invites them to contribute to our efforts.
Diggers summit.
Held in association with Wellington Trail Alliance, the Diggers Summit was an opportunity for all volunteer trail builders in the Wellington region to get together, listen to talks from internationally regarded trail builders and swap their own stories so they could learn from each other. Wellington has a strong volunteer trail building community and the Summit was about making it stronger. The summit also helped expand WMTBC’s presence in the community and we will building on this when we host the MTBNZ and NZ Trail Fund conference here in September.
Wellington City Council approved contractors.
BTB were donated $5,000 from the Wellington Marathon Clinic to go towards paying trail builders to carry out work on their trails, so the WMTBC have had to register as an employer so we can pay employees. Before work could start, the WMTBC have had to gain approval from the Wellington City Council.
After 4 months of paperwork, the club is the final stages of becoming an approved WCC contractor. What this means the club can do in the future: carry out paid work for WCC. We believe this is a first for any MTB club in the country to become an approved contractor to a local council and is a testament to the expertise of the trail builders in our club, and the quality of trail we can deliver.
WMTBC in MTBNZ
Two of our committee members have been elected into the Mountain Bike New Zealand committee.
- Jordan Moss: President
- Ben Wilde: NZ Trail Fund
The club acknowledges the hard work that these two are doing to sort out the issues between BikeNZ and MTBNZ, and to establish the Trail Fund.
Trails
Long Gully:
Thanks to Jono Baddiley, Tony Harvie, Adrian Armstrong, Dan Smith & everyone who has volunteered their time to maintain the Long Gully trails. Tony has been keeping the Race Track in top order, and Adrian has been fettling away on 420. During the beginning of the season, we had no owner for Jaw Bone, and it was getting quite overgrown. Thanks to Dan Smith, Dave Nendick, Brett Turia for getting this track open again and their continuing efforts along with Jono and Mike.
Karori:
Thanks to Tony Harvie for his continued efforts in Karori on 98DH. There have been some issues with young kids getting in there and altering the track, and Tony has been working with the Council Ranger team to work through this issue and he has been repairing these features.
Mt Victoria:
Steve Wallace has taken up the leadership role in managing the Mt Victoria trails as part of agreement with the council. This has included maintenance work on existing trails such as Hippy’s and TTS, along with helping out PNP with maintenance of the Zig Zag track. The Mt Vic Trails crew have also put in two new lines on the Super D track, including a short jump line to get riders off the walking track before the saddle and then a new line on Mt Alfred, once again to provide a more interesting alternative to the walking trail that leads into Rod’s Drop
Miramar Track Project:
MTP started off the year with an accolade, receiving an Wellington Airport Regional Community Award for Health & Wellbeing. This shows how Miramar and the Club’s trail building activities are acknowledged and appreciated by the community. Along with maintenance on the existing tracks, the new Solitary DH line has bedded in with more work planned to make it more sustainable, whilst keeping the feel. In recent weeks, work at the Water Towers area has ramped up again, with improvements to the Kids Track and the Pump Track extension.
A significant amount of planting was done in the past year, with over 500 plants going in around the trail network, in particular Solitary and most recently around the Pump Track extension.
Brooklyn Trail Builders:
It has been a busy year for the BTB. The Windmill track was finished, and now offers a more interesting uphill alternative to the road to access the trails further out in the Te Kopahau reserve.
On the city side of the trail area, work is underway on both sides of the valley. Work on the Serendipity track (Grade 4 down only) is well underway and targeted for the end of the year. This will provide an alternative descent to the very popular Transient track. Work is also in progress between Holloway Road and George Denton Park. After a long consultation process, led by the WCC, permission has been given to build a new two way, grade 3 track up to the park. Once this is complete, then the existing Squatters track will be repurposed as a Grade 4 descending trail. These two tracks will provide a city side loop for this popular trail network.
Along with ongoing maintenance, the BTB has worked with other stakeholders in the area to plant 600 trees in the area. A full report of the BTB activities is available on the club website.
Portal:
The club has been working with the WCC to get this track sanctioned as an official part of the track network. It is currently classed as an unsanctioned track in an area open for mountain biking. This quite different to an illegal trail (such as those on Tinakori Hill). Eugene Black has worked on a comprehensive plan to rebuild the features to council approved standard. The agreement is that once this, and the handling of the intersection with the walking track is done, this track will become an approved, official track. The club has committed some funds to this project, and we will be looking for funding to help complete these works.
Ongoing challenges
- Volunteers - as noted earlier. We need to grow the number of people who can both help organise, perform jobs and marshall at our events.
- Illegal trail building in the community makes both mountain bikers and WMTBC look bad - it affects our sanctioned work we are carrying out with the WCC.
Looking forward to the next year.
The committee has developed a strategic plan which puts in place some tangible goals we are looking to achieve in the coming year. We will present this plan at the AGM. These goals have been aligned with a broader vision for the next 5 years. I encourage you all to review these plans, and invite you to help us make these a reality.
Please continue to support your Club & your incoming Committee. Thanks for all your support over the last two years.
Best wishes to all in 2013 & 2014.
Dave Preece
WMTBC President
