Red Rose Olympic are British Cycling's 100th Go-Ride Clubmark Club
Back in 2004 British Cycling launched Go-Ride which is British Cycling's development programme for young people. Registration onto the programme is the first step to Clubmark accreditation. Clubmark is Sport England's cross-sport kitemark for sports clubs. It comprises a set of standards that affiliated clubs can use to ensure that they are observing best practice in child protection, coaching and competition, equity and club management.
The first club to achieve the standard was VC Jubilee in the South East. Since then there has been huge growth in the number of people participating in cycling and in the number of clubs providing cycling opportunities for young people through the Go-Ride programme. That growth has continued and has now resulted in British Cycling being able to congratulate Red Rose Olympic for becoming the 100th Go-Ride club to meet the Sport England standard. The certificate was presented at the 2010 Go-Ride conference by Commonwealth, World and Olympic track sprint medalist Craig MacLean.
To support their Clubmark accreditation status the club has developed its volunteer base to include the following trained volunteers:
- British Cycling qualified coaches
- Club Welfare Officers - NSPCC 'Time to Listen'
- Club Contact - Running Sports 'A Club for All'
- Volunteer Coordinator - Running Sports 'The Role of the Volunteer Coordinator'
- 6 Young Volunteers - Cycling Award for Young Volunteers training programme.
British Cycling is keen to support the development of Go-Ride club volunteers and is offering subsidised coaching courses as well as free training for all of the above courses.
Red Rose Olympic is a growing family based club catering for all ages and cycling interests. The club provides regular coaching sessions at Preston Arena, club rides across the Lancashire countryside and encourages those who want to compete to join a growing enthusiastic racing team. Members compete in traffic free Circuit Races, Cyclo-Cross, Mountain Bike Cross Country and Track riding at Manchester Velodrome. They also arrange weekend camping trips, usually to coincide with organised cycling events such as mountain bike races or club organised off road trail riding.
Following initial Go-Ride registration the club built their coaching activities around the traffic free facility at Preston Sports Arena and a local park which offers an off road coaching venue for both the Mountain Bike and Cyclo-Cross disciplines. Having a focal point for the club and regular publicised times for their activities meant that they began to develop a large group of young riders who regularly attended their coaching sessions.
The club's coaching activities are now well established as is their local competition structure. The results of the coaching activity were quick to materialise with the club receiving recognition through their local authority Sports Awards programme plus some excellent competition results at both regional and national levels.
For further details contact your regional team or Rob Mace, Development Officer for Clubs and Volunteers, robmace@britishcycling.org.uk or 0161 274 2069.
