Cycling Club Bylaws

[pcxmbfj]

I was ask to serve as an officer in a floundering local club.
Club is in its fourth year and had four officer turnovers in my memory.
There is almost no structure beyond its 501c incorporation and the three or four meeting we have had accomplished little more than an opportunity to eat.
All have been at restaurants.
What recommendations can the forum put forth from their club experience to better sustainability?

[OtayBW]

I would suggest thinking towards developing a solid schedule of rides and a web-based ride calendar platform for people to sign up to lead rides and be notified of such. That should be the footings for the club. Maybe later, you can develop a sponsored ride for revenue and to attract new members. Or you can promote skills development, advocacy issues - whatever direction you want to go in.

I'm on the Board of a large bike club in MD and I can tell you that the structural/administrative aspects can be really goofball sometimes, but the bottom line is developing and maintaining a sustainable ride offering, and getting that info out to the public. GL.

[Hindmost]

...floundering...turnovers...no structure...accomplished little...sustainability...

Bylaws...all suggest issues you would like to address. Is there a membership consensus as to their expectation of the club? Do the officers agree on what is expected of them, you? If not, defining the mission probably comes first.

[MattTuck]

Not involved in any cycling clubs, but I can give you some advice from other leadership experiences.

1. Don't have meetings at a restaurant.
2. Set an agenda ahead of time and stick to it.
3. Demand commitments publicly when stuff is decided, and follow up.

It sounds, though, like there is a bigger issue. It sounds like the club lacks vision. You need a leader (or group) to have a vision for where they want the group to be, and to push hard to make that vision a reality. What are the club's goals? What does it want to do? what does it want to be? I'd suggest that focusing on 2 or 3 things, and doing those well is better than trying to do a bunch of stuff. Focus is the key success, in my opinion.

[Repack Rider]

I wrote the bylaws for my own club, which was founded in 1972. Not knowing a thing about that, I asked the librarian if there was a book on that, and there was. It's called The Clubwoman's Manual.

Bylaws merely organize the structure of a club, like the Constitution defines our government. They define the officers, the procedures for electing the officers, frequency of meetings and so on. The bylaws I wrote were only two or three pages.

[zap]

Additionally, get insurance. For the club and yourself.

Does your club have a recording secretary to take minutes of your meetings?

Finally, get a copy and read Robert's Rules of Order. Many find it useful.

[martl]

I would suggest thinking towards developing a solid schedule of rides and a web-based ride calendar platform for people to sign up to lead rides and be notified of such. That should be the footings for the club. Maybe later, you can develop a sponsored ride for revenue and to attract new members. Or you can promote skills development, advocacy issues - whatever direction you want to go in.

I'm on the Board of a large bike club in MD and I can tell you that the structural/administrative aspects can be really goofball sometimes, but the bottom line is developing and maintaining a sustainable ride offering, and getting that info out to the public. GL.

i've been on the board of our club for a couple of years. I can confirm every word OtayBW wrote.

When we "inherited" the club from our predecessors, it was a bit dead. less than 50 members, very little activity. There was something written about weekly afternoon rides Tue and Thu 6:00, and no one had been there literally for Years.

We managed to revive it nicely, which i blame on the two key points OtayBW mentioned. We put up a website which was community-driven (we use a BB like the paceline, but today there are other options like buddypress) and made sure to keep it updated. I contacted other clubs in the area and asked them if they were interested in sharing schedules on each others websites. Many did.
We revived our training meetings and made sure there would always at least be 1 clubmember present (picture this: you surf the web looking for people to bike with, you read about a training meeting, you go there and are alone. What are the chances you try again?). We also opened up our club rides for guests.
A big magnet also were small races open to everyone about once a month during the season. Nothing of those were actually new ideas, the club had done this before, it all just had fallen asleep a bit.

In just 2-3 years our roster tripled and almost all of them were/are active: organizing events, group travels to centuries, spring training camps, bringing in new ideas etc; which we as the board actively encouraged.
Some formed a racing team, others organize winter MTB training rides, one is a regular at P-B-P, a few started to train for Triathlons together. Two even waved our flag at the "Mongolian Bike Challenge" no less :D

I'd recommend to keep bylaws to the (legal) necessary minimum. How is the board elected, how is the "coffer" organized and reported on, stuff like this. Helps avoid future disagreements. Don't try to over-regulate. We meet twice a month in a nice bar, have a chat (about biking mostly), at some point the president speaks a few words about what happened, what will we do next, then the social meeting continues. No one joins a bike club because he loves frequent boring "official" meetings...

[pcxmbfj]

Good advice continues to be the norm of this forum.

You have helped me get a better handle on what I need to drive towards my fellow officers.

Anyone care to send me a Word or Adobe copy of their "by laws".

[jwalther]

I'm a newly elected Board member for my local club. We're a very active group with 900+ members, a $250,000 budget, and 20-30 posted rides/week (most with multiple pace groups) during our March-October season. I only recently joined the club, well after it had reached maturity, so I don't have any experience based suggestions for starting a group from scratch. I guess the first step is getting a critical mass of folks involved, and that likely means sponsoring as many rides as possible and generating an active social media presence to keep everyone connected. We have a busy Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/bgcycling/ After that, you'll need to identify the individuals with the time and desire to make things happen. We have dozens of members who volunteer hundreds of hours/year on club activities.

Our corporate documents can be found in the link on club home page: http://bgcycling.net/content.aspx?page_id=0&club_id=740127 Should give you something to start from.

Good luck!

[pcxmbfj]

Our club is a micro club of maybe 50 members.
Many thanks to all who've giving such good advice.