…..will be at Spirit of Sport on Thursday 12th September at 6pm.
There’ll be prizes for all who completed five races plus medals for age category winners.
I’d like to invite any and all interested senior members to come along to the presentation to support our juniors. There’ll be a training session afterwards, please come along ‘kitted up’ and join in if you dare!
At its meeting on 12th August the committee voted to recommend to the Annual General Meeting that the design of vest, as presented and discussed in the meeting, should be adopted by the club as an alternative club uniform. Picture here.The vote was not unanimous (10-3) and during the meeting members of the committee expressed their dissatisfaction with the way the issue had been originally brought to committee and how the process had developed subsequently.
I take full responsibility for any mistakes that were made in the process. However, the most important point to stress is that there is no intention to change the traditional hooped vest.
The idea of adopting an alternative vest is not being proposed on a whim. Many of our newer, younger members (not juniors) have noticed that other clubs have updated their vest to a more modern design with a better look and feel than the traditional one. They find our current vest unfashionable and uncomfortable, to the point that a considerable number decline to wear it for races. At first I had little sympathy with complaints about the vest, but conversations with some of these members persuaded me that it is a real issue. The club is trying to attract and retain new members in a very competitive environment. 20-30 years ago there were relatively few clubs in NE Lancashire. Now runners and prospective runners have lots of choice. Rightly or wrongly, as a long-established club, Clayton Harriers is seen as elitist and old fashioned – top heavy with vet runners; not the best attributes for attracting new young members! Therefore, I feel that it is not just desirable, but absolutely essential to ‘move with the times’ and make the alternative vest available if we are to have a thriving, successful club as we approach our century in 2022.
The proposal means that we can retain the traditional vest and have an alternative for those who wish to wear it. Many older and long-standing members I have spoken to can see no problem with the alternative vest, although some would not choose to wear it!
So that’s it. The committee’s recommendation to add the alternative vest to the constitution will be proposed, discussed and voted on at the AGM. Whatever your feelings on the matter please come the AGM and have your say (and vote). If you’re not there and the decision does not go your way, you’re in no position to complain.
The Annual General Meeting is at 8.00pm on Thursday 29th August at Nelson CC, Surrey Road, Nelson, BB9 7TY. If Thursday is normally a training night for you, come and take part in the club’s 5000m track race at 7.00pm.
3 juniors took up an invitation from Horwich RMI to compete in their Jubilee Junior Street Race over a fast 1 mile course.
41 runners took part and we put in a great performance to finish with 2 juniors in the first 9 places.
First home for Clayton was Tom Bradley 6th boy followed by Alice Pier in 9th (2nd girl overall) with Beth Quinn in 16th place (6th girl overall).
The club Palladium Points fell results are now on the site (here). Captains Dave Motley and Jean Brown are currently leading. The format is similar to the old message boards – the ladies results, the results for the men, and a list of all the races included. Please email me (fellrunners@gmail.com) if there are races you have done but have not been included – this will also ensure that the results appear in the newsletter. Updates to the tables will be sporadic!
Friday 12th April, 2013. Cabin 4, Jonathan Dickinson State Park, Florida (about half way between Miami and Daytona)
Well as we’ve been over in the USA for over a week now, we thought it was time we let people know how we are going on. After Dave Hindle dropped us off at Manchester Airport (thanks pal), the Delta Airlines flights were ok, but we eventually reached Miami an hour or so late at around 8.30pm local time. No problem with the transfer to the hotel and then straight to bed. Miami is a huge modern city, very clean and prosperous and it positively glints in the hot Florida sunshine. The temperatures were up in the mid 80’s, quite a contrast with the Manchester we left behind at not much above freezing. We spent three days in Miami Beach, looking round the city, collecting the bikes, and paddling in the warm Atlantic Ocean which was just across the road from our hotel. As most people will know, due to Sandi’s MS, she can’t ride a regular bike any longer, so she has bought a tricycle, with a handy electric motor attached to it. On a full charge, this will give us around 20 miles, plus whatever distance she can manage to pedal. The battery is recharged every night wherever we happen to be staying, so we have a further 20 miles range for the following day. Fortunately there are enough motels around (so far!) to accommodate our limited range. I have bought a traditional workhorse bike and carry all our belongings in front (thanks Pete Hindle) and rear panniers. We’ve been on the road five days now and covered just under 100 miles. Temperatures have been fairly constant in the 80’s, with a burning sun, so perhaps it’s a good thing we are not aiming to do 60 miles a day!
The route so far has in all honesty, been a bit dull, as we have ridden out of the greater Miami area, passing row upon row of magnificent concrete and steel hotels and condo’s, populated by the very well to do. We’ve also passed many magnificent family homes – god knows what they cost- with three cars on the drive and a massive motorboat moored on the creek opposite. However we’ve now left Miami behind and are seeing a bit more of the Atlantic, which seems surprisingly blue. We’ve just taken our first day off from cycling to spend two nights in a “cabin” at this state park. Cabin does it no justice whatsoever, as it has all mod cons including air conditioning, but it is very peaceful away form the busy highway. This afternoon we experienced our first Florida thunderstorm which was very spectacular indeed, with tremendous lightning, deafening claps of thunder, and heavy rain. We just got back from a canoe ride up the local river in time. Anyway, it’s back on the road tomorrow for us as we’ve still got 2181 miles to go before we get to Boston.
Peter and Sandi Browning