report by peter.

 i thought i better write something up about the breakfast and agm as i didn’t get to participate in the rides. 

well, the day actually started quite a few weeks ago when lorraine said that she had to work on the day of the breakfast.  after a bit of discussion, kate agreed to step in as head chef as long as she got a few helpers.  we also discussed a menu change as we wanted to avoid the three days of baking that lorriane usually does and try to get everything cooked on the day.  we therefore went with toasted sandwiches, bacon and egg muffins, fruit salad and a few other random nibbles.  being a club, we managed to get a cash & carry card so that we could buy things a bit cheaper at the warehouse.  this mostly helped in things like cups and plates, but buying ham in bulk certainly helped too.

setup started the night before with furniture being moved and toasted sandwiches prepared.  the latest estimate was for 75 confirmed people, so we needed to cater for around 90.  this was going to be the biggest turn out that have ever had so the nerves were beginning to set in as to whether we had enough food for everyone.

the morning started with me heading down to the coode st carpark to kick the groups off.  the routes had been remapped to make sure that they made it to my place rather than the coffee shop.  the intermediate group looked big and with a number of people doing the freeway ride the next day, i suspected that some of the advanced group may have dropped down to save their legs.  there are some issues that have been raised with this group so we will be doing something about it starting this coming saturday.  anyway, the groups got away just fine so i headed back to the pressure cooker.

the first lot of helpers arrived at 7:30 and soon kate had leanne, wendy, jeanette and kimbo in the kitchen cooking up a storm.  i was on yard duty and stayed well away from the kitchen but busied myself getting ready to safely store about 90 bikes. 

i then got the call from daniel to say that there had been a stack in the intermediate group.  kimbo had just finished cooking the last of the bacon so i sent him off on a mercy dash to collect tim.  now tim has been out in the hills with us a few times but has been away for a while.  we bumped into him last weekend and i mentioned that there was a breakfast on and he should come along.  not the best introduction to a spr saturday ride.  he did mention to me later that he was very impressed by the way that the group handled the situation, making sure he was ok and people staying with him until kimbo arrived.  luckily we don’t get too much practice, but it was good to see the group looking after each other.

next thing we know the door bell is being rung and the advanced group is on the doorstep.  they began to fill up the garage with bikes and it was clear that we would need more room so i got them to run them up past the house.  i got kimbo to take the money and get people to sign in for the agm while i got the next few groups organised as to where to put the bikes.

this would have to be the first time the breakfast has been dry at my place.  we managed to beat the rain in by a few days as the storms are about to hit perth as i write this now.  the nice weather did allow us to push people outside and we set up the club sunshade to accommodate the group.  there were comments that we will need to get a bigger house with a bigger garage.  there are plans for that, but they just aren’t in perth.

the girls in the kitchen did an awesome job of keeping the hordes fed and watered and a massive thanks to all of them for their efforts.  leanne actually took rubbish home with her so that it wouldn’t fill our bin up.  awesome effort.

once everyone had time to settle, i gave a bit of a spiel and we did the raffle draw.  the group has been growing well and we are now one of the biggest clubs in perth.  i would like to crack the 100 members mark and i think that we can probably do that if cycling australia actually fixed their online application system.  totally frustrating, but i am working on a way to get around it and still avoid the paper system.  anyway, i can’t remember all the prize winners, but i do recall that shane got the booby prize with a pair of rio tinto speedos.  nice.  probably the most deserving winner for the day was tim who after his accident got to ride away on a park tools pizza cutter shaped like a bike.  yas from the bike clinic also donated a bbq tool set made out of bike tools, so thanks to him for providing them.

we rolled straight onto the agm which was going to be as informal as possible.  the finances were presented and the club is in a fairly healthy position but only in the fact that we don’t have a lot of expenses at the moment. 

the club committee gets re-elected each year and we had a few members stand down from last year.  i would just like to thank brendan, stuart, ryan, noel, judd and chris for their effort last year in getting the club up and running.  there were no real fights for positions so it made the voting relatively easy for those attending.  apart from toby sending me a joke text (quickly retracted)  saying that he wanted to be president, it ends up with my again.

this year the committee is as follows.

president – peter

vice president  – juilian (regular)

secretary – paul o

treasurer – daniel

committee members – lorriane, lisa, mike b, scott, toby, darryl & heiko.

thanks to those that have stepped up to be involved this year and i hope that we can continue to keep the club moving forward.

we then had a few extra things to attend to and jonny headed off to the garage to organise the bike weigh-in, while i started the kit distribution and lisa collected money for the tipping comp.  jonny has the bike weight leaderboard page under control so i can’t wait to see how some of the new bike’s faired. 

all up a good breakfast and if the numbers keep up like this we will need to look at hiring a venue instead.  thanks to all that helped out and to toby who helped source a few items.  thanks also to those that have now joined the committee for the coming year.