On Sunday 7^th February 2016 event organisers were invited to North Inch Community Campus in Perth for a conference and training day. On the day there was a 50/50 split of experienced and new Event Organisers which worked well.

After a welcome from Scottish Cycling Board Member and British Cycling Risk Assessor Tom Bishop they had a presentation on Scottish Cycling Event Pathway from Bob MacFarlane giving an overview of the life of an event from the initial idea, planning, preparation, delivery, review and preparation for the next one!

The key points for new and existing organisers

• Give yourself plenty of time to plan and prepare don’t rush in
• Build a team to deliver the event
• Talk to other organisers, support other events to gain some hands on experience
• Know the purpose of your event and who your target audience is
• Plan your Budget make sure to include all the costs
• Event documentation should be submitted to Scottish Cycling at least one month prior to event
• Event permits will be issued by Scottish Cycling two weeks prior to event
• Get in touch with your local Regional Development Officer or the National Events Officers – they are here to help

Useful Links

Below are links to further information on the Scottish Cycling website that will help Event Organisers with preparations for their events

• Event Organiser FAQ’s
• Online Entry FAQ’s
• Scottish Cycling Technical Regulations
• British Cycling Technical Regulations
• Road & Track Event Permit Application Form
• Quick Guides  
• Officials Finder
• Road Works Scotland
• RaceSmart

Discipline Specific Documents and Resources

• BMX
• Cyclo-cross
• Cycle Speedway
• MTB
• MTB Category System
• Road
• Road Event Categories and Classifications
• Track
• Non Competitive Events

Nigel Cowell-Clark went through Risk Management with each discipline specific group in the morning, he explained the current process being under taken with changes to road risk assessments process. Once completed a similar process for the Off Road disciplines would take place but for the moment there would be now major changes. Organisers are to use the updated forms on the website. Nigel also gave an overview of the incident reports received during the 2015 season and reminded organisers and commissaires that they need to completed incident report forms, even if the individual refuses first aid treatment.

Nigel confirmed BC are working on a TT course RA template.

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/articles/Incident_Reporting_Flow_Chart.pdf

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/BC_Incident_Report_Updated.doc

New Road Race Risk Assessment Forms and Quick Guides

As part of the on-going risk management work there have been new risk assessment forms produced for Road Race events. For each form, there has also been a Quick Guide written to assist their completion. It is a requirement for events to have a risk assessment before the event can be issued a permit. Please see below details about each new form and the process of who completes each section.

Event Risk Assessment Form

All British Cycling registered events require a risk assessment for the race headquarters, and the section between the race headquarters and the race start. This is the responsibility of the event organiser to complete and send to British Cycling before the event.

Race Route Risk Assessment Form

Road races that are run on British Cycling registered routes will already have a Race Route Risk Assessment produced by the British Cycling Risk Assessment Team. This will be passed to the event organiser before the event by the Regional Competition Administrator (RCA).

Dynamic Risk Assessment Form

On the morning of the event, it will be necessary to check the race route. Any differences, or changes, to the published Event and Race Route Risk Assessments need to be recorded on a Dynamic Risk Assessment form. If a Dynamic Risk Assessment form is required, this will need to be completed, agreed and signed by both the Chief Commissaire and the Event Organiser. It is then the responsibility of the Chief Commissaire to send this, with the Commissaire’s report forms, to Scottish Cycling after the event. 

You will find the forms below saved on the Event Organiser dashboard. These documents can also be found on the Commissaires web pages; Forms and Guides.

Please use these new forms for your event(s) going forward.

•    Event risk assessment form - Road

•    Dynamic risk assessment form

There are also Quick Guides to accompany these forms.

•    Quick Guide - Event risk assessment - Road

•    Quick Guide – Race Route and Dynamic Risk Assessments

If you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the above, please contact events@scottishcycling.org.uk.

UPDATE FOR 2017 Race Season: Race Route Risk Assessment Form

Each registered event road race course will hold its own URN. Road races that are run on these British Cycling registered routes will have a Race Route Risk Assessment produced by the British Cycling Risk Assessment Team. This will be passed to the event organiser before the event by the Regional Competition Administrator (RCA).  This risk assessment will determine many things, including marshal positions on the course and the maximum field for the event.  This will come into practice for the 2017 race season.

Neil Atkinson also spoke to each discipline specific group and covered the Event Organiser Dashboard and Organiser training resources.

British Cycling are currently developing new training resources firstly for road organiser but MTB resources will be next in line. There is a wealth of information on the website but part of the development of the new resources will be to review what’s currently available and were it located to make sure its easy to find and useful to organisers.

British Cycling aiming to build ‘event deputy’ function in to new system, allowing two committee members access to event dashboard in the future.  Additionally, there will be online support to create race handbooks and manuals.

Any further feedback from Event Organisers on the online dashboard, should be submitted to events@scottishcycling.org.uk for Events Team to pass on to British Cycling.

After lunch all disciplines listened to a presentation on Volunteer Recruitment with Ashley Chesham which was a general overview of different methods to engage with potential volunteers and how to engage and work with those volunteers from out with cycling.

We discussed how we all as volunteers wear many hats, there is a need to gain more volunteers to spread the load and bring more people in to the cycling community to support the sport.

We looked at different ways to engage new volunteers and the barriers which may prevent people from offering to help. There was discussion around having better links with local clubs and event organisers to share volunteers. The use of social media and the interest to advertise for new volunteers by using such sites as Volunteer Scotland as well as more traditional methods such as posters were discussed. One key message emphasised was how important it is to link in with the local council volunteer services as they can provide fantastic free assistance. For example, West Dunbartonshire CVS will print certificates to recognise the contribution of volunteers at your event.

The presentation ended by splitting into groups to discuss some examples of potential volunteers who have come to them offering to help. Discussing each individual’s skills and knowledge along with getting to know what was driving them to volunteer helped each group to suggest roles which the volunteer would enjoy and excel at. This ultimately had the aim to retain each of these volunteers over more than one event.

Following Volunteer Recruitment was Marketing and Press Relations with Communications Officer Gillian Lambie and Mark McGhee from The Press Room.

Key points:

• Identifying who your audience are when creating a marketing plan
• The importance of marketing your event and the timescales in which you should do this
• The different ways of marketing your event and the tools you can use
• The importance of press releases
• The provision for the media at your event
• Understanding copyright
• The importance of post-event releases and communicating what happened at your event
• The support that Scottish Cycling can offer your event in terms of marketing and communications – just ask!

If you have any questions regarding marketing and press relations surrounding your event, or require help with press releases and templates for these, then please get in touch with gillian.lambie@scottishcycling.org.uk

To finish off the event, all event organisers took part in a panel session with road race event organiser and commissaire Peter Clark, Stirling Bike Club Member and Event Organiser of Crit Under the Castle Norrie Petrie, Petal Power and Event Organiser of Ride Like a Grrl Bridget Trussell, Western Titans Event Organiser and Commissaire Justine Paton. The panel was chaired by Event’s Officer Bob MacFarlane.

Good discussions around:

• Women in cycle sport
• Configuration of road race convoy
• Risk Management
• Hosting big events in city centres
• What they know now that they wished they had known before they started
• How to get parents on board with sport

Feedback was very positive and event organisers who attended were very engaged, if you think you would like to attend an event organiser conference and training in the future please put your note of interest to Ashley.chesham@scottishcycling.org.uk