Alasdairs "Half Term" Report

Report By: Alasdair MacLennan
Posted On: 30 July 2010

I have been President of SC for just 6 months and I must admit, it has been a huge learning curve for me. Although I have been involved in cycling for over 40 years-and have been at many conferences, meetings and coaching sessions at all levels from club to Olympic-I have seldom felt the sense of challenge and responsibility that I  do at present.

This challenge is to be part of the integration of our sport into the modern sporting landscape within Scotland and the UK, but, in my personal opinion, without sacrificing the basic principles of our great sport which has a long history and great tradition. However, history is yesterday and we need to have the vision and foresight to develop our sport to cater for current and future circumstances. We can only guess the social and economic circumstances which will prevail in the future so we must have the ability to be flexible and the ability to react quickly to change. This is a new phenomenon for our organisation.

The responsibility is to Preside over an organisation when it is going through some of the most massive and dramatic changes in its history, changes which will alter the nature of our sport in Scotland for the foreseeable future. The completion of our new Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in the east end of Glasgow in 2012 will present us with not only challenges but also massive opportunities and I stress that there will be opportunities for all our members to become involved in this exciting project. We only have one opportunity to get this right and if we do then the sky is the limit for our sport. We cannot and should not forget about all other branches of the sport but again there should hopefully be benefits for all when this new world class facility opens.

It is with pleasure tinged with more than a little frustration that I write this for our new website, a journey online not without a small degree of pain and a large amount of frustration. This pain and frustration has arisen due to both the timing of the changeover from old to new website coupled with technical glitches both of which, unfortunately were completely out of our control. Hopefully, as I write this, these can be ironed out in the short term and the long term benefits will slowly become apparent to all. Please bear with us on this one.

I have become acutely aware that we have a number of other issues that require immediate attention and have become personally involved in processes to assist staff on solutions to these at the earliest opportunity. Hopefully the proposed new road working group will play an active part in resolving some of the difficulties which have been experienced this year in this branch of the sport, whilst ongoing calendar issues (are there ever not!) will hopefully be addressed by this group also.

Externally, our relationship with partner agencies is at an all time high but I am conscious that we still must continue to serve our membership with the greatest possible standards of delivery, but in so doing we have to ask you, the members, to join with us to facilitate this and hopefully play your part in the development of our sport over the next few years.

However we must also remember to announce and celebrate our successes and in many areas of our sport we are performing at the highest level. In MTB circles we continue to punch above our weight in terms of programmes and events whilst our track scene still manages to do similarly with only the meagrest of facilities at present. We have a Commonwealth Games to look forward to in the autumn and Glasgow2014 is now almost exactly 4 years away.

I appreciate I have been unable to attend as many events as I would wish but I have been attending meetings on behalf of the organisation on an almost weekly basis. This involves much travelling for me but hopefully much of the hard work which is being carried out at present will bear fruit in the not too distant future.

In the meantime I would urge patience and understanding and look forward to continuing to work hard on behalf of the membership of our organisation. My contact details are freely available if anyone feels the need to speak to me.

All the best and see you out on the road.

Alasdair Maclennan