MTBA AGM- presidential vote

BB1

Likes Dirt
Okay - couple of good points brought up, and I'm not good enough to do the quote thing, so here goes.

1. Membership fees - $125 for a senior membership, of which the MTBA fee is $100, club fee $25. Yes, there is insurance etc that gets covered by that but obviously the majority of the money is for MTBA.

2. Up here = SEQ, good point. Committee members made the point that he would be better off approaching the rep as that's what they are for, and it's easy to ignore a whinging letter, harder to ignore the rep. That will be the approach taken.

3. Very possible for the Club to do lots, but that's the point. We organise and run small club events, which in turn attracts people to the Club, they join, MTBA gets money. From the hard work of lots of people who run these events within the Club, membership has grown to ~200 people. That's great, and we want people to join and enjoy themselves (isn't that the point?) but I think MTBA has lost sight of the fact that clubs are the ones who generate the membership. Not a whole lot of people join because they've seen a bunch of elite riders throw themselves down a hill, most do so because we get them to participate in something organised and see the value for their money.

I'm not trying to begrudge the national series and the efforts to improve things, it needs both ends running well to be successful. But right now in club land there's a feeling that all we do is pass money off to MTBA for... what?

4. What do we want? Good question, I've put the call out and as said we'll put feedback back through the rep. Assistance in promoting events? Greater promotion and assistance for things like the Sunshine Series? More money for trailcare and developing tracks? There's not exactly a whole lot of DH tracks in SEQ. Would love to hear other suggestions.

Hope that helps.
 

paulb

Likes Dirt
Thanks BB1. In some ways I sympathise with what you say about elites but I still think MTBA is fairly grass roots. But I think a lot of the budget does go to elite level events which I (presumably like you) get little from. However building the elite level may hopefully attract more government sports funding and perhaps more political support. And it is good to see Aussie riders do well!

I'd be interested in what the license insurance does cost - I doubt it's trivial.

A bit more grassroots marketing would be good but this probably should come through the clubs. Perhaps coordination and networking through MTBA?

On the trail work stuff I think the focus is moving to IMBA Australia but to be honest I don't think I've heard of them doing any real DH. I hope I'm wrong. But as other threads on Rotorburn have suggested this may be that advocacy and the slower process of legal track building is often done by an older demographic. Not sure what the solution is here, legal tracks are still difficult but the situation seems to be improving. Without wanting to trivialise the organisation of races, once you have a track you can go ahead and organise races in a comparatively short timeframe, getting results in advocacy and legal trails takes much longer, so perhaps it doesn't look as successful
 

serowe

Likes Dirt
One question you can always ask of any insurance provided by club/organiser fees:

Is the basic insurance for recreational, sport or both recreataional AND sport? IOW if you are in a competitive event of some kind that is non-MTBA (and there are plenty around) are you covered? or will it ONLY cover you for social rides, training, to/from work (even the latter may be iffy).
 

rrace

Squid
MTBA Insurance costs

PaulB askes: I'd be interested in what the license insurance does cost - I doubt it's trivial.


Well actually if you look at last year's MTBA accounts they spent $65k on insurances. It's hard to know how many members MTBA has as it was not mentioned in the reports (only that it had increased by 16%). Let's say 5,000 members x $100, plus Day Licences = greater than $650k. So MTBA spends about 10% of member receipts on insurance.
 

akashra

Eats Squid
The breakdown of where the money goes has been pretty publicly published in the past, and unfortunately I can't remember exactly where every dollar goes - so please excuse me if I have it wrong here and there a little bit. Insurance went up when fees went from $80 to $90, and IMBA was the $90 to $100 increase the following year. Last year we got a day license fee increase.

But from memory it's something along the lines of:
SDF: $7
IMBA ('Trail access'): $5
Wilson: $65
Admin: Whatever's left.

If someone can find and link it, that'd certainly be more accurate than what I can recall off the top of my head from years ago.

On a slightly related note, if you buy an Elite CA license, the breakdown is:
CA: $138
State: $108.80
Admin Fees: $12.20
 

johndh

Likes Dirt
From memory ( I am sure someone can put me straight if incorrect) the national series had a loss of per year of around $200,000 in 2009/10 and 2010/11 $ that comes from primarily memberships. That seems to be the primarygoal of mtba the national series and insurance?
 

akashra

Eats Squid
If you go back a few pages you'll find where I've cut and pasted the line items relating to the national series from the treasurers report.
 

serowe

Likes Dirt
From memory ( I am sure someone can put me straight if incorrect) the national series had a loss of per year of around $200,000 in 2009/10 and 2010/11 $ that comes from primarily memberships. That seems to be the primarygoal of mtba the national series and insurance?
2009/2010:
(P&L didn't break income down to a specific series only 'Events')
Event Income: $167,179.77
Series Sponsor: $40,000.00

National Series Expenditure (Total): $422,036.99

So a minimum of $214,860.ss loss on the national series (keep in mind 'Events could also include the National Champs which, by naming definition, isn't included in the P&L statement - why not??)
 

normdouglas

Likes Dirt
Okay - couple of good points brought up, and I'm not good enough to do the quote thing, so here goes.

1. Membership fees - $125 for a senior membership, of which the MTBA fee is $100, club fee $25. Yes, there is insurance etc that gets covered by that but obviously the majority of the money is for MTBA.
Hope that helps.
Remember, YOU as an MTBA member IS MTBA. Therefore if you're not happy and or think things need changing, then get involved.
Over the past two years there would be probably less than 10 new people have come into the committee.
From memory ( I am sure someone can put me straight if incorrect) the national series had a loss of per year of around $200,000 in 2009/10 and 2010/11 $ that comes from primarily memberships. That seems to be the primarygoal of mtba the national series and insurance?
This year the committee had to make some really hard decisions in regards to the National Series. There has been approx $150k pa spent on the national series. Whether this is good value or not is up to US as MEMBERS to decide.

Remember when you hear people say things like "Oh MTBA doesn't do this, or that", remember that WE as MTBA members ARE MTBA. We have only ourselves to blame.

MTBA is a member driven and owned organisation.

Get involved as you are doing here.

Norm Douglas
Victorian State Rep MTBA
 
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serowe

Likes Dirt
Remember when you hear people say things like "Oh MTBA doesn't do this, or that", remember that WE as MTBA members ARE MTBA. We have only ourselves to blame.

MTBA is a member driven and owned organisation.

Get involved as you are doing here.

Norm Douglas
Victorian State Rep MTBA
However, MTBA appear to work as a reactive organisaton and NOT a proactive one. IOW to find ot what is going on the members shouldn;t have to keep asking - after all, MTBA have a web site which should be used for this which it doesn't appear to be doing (and remember that the web site shouldn;t be the only place to inform it's members - after all, the last P&L I saw included a $12,523 line itme for postage - that's a helluva a lot of letters supposedly sent out!).
 

johndh

Likes Dirt
i agree with norms comments on the need for members to be involved in mtba decisionmaking but when an organisation is having its agm on a saturday morning in sydney not attached to any event eg national rd or nationals themselves and a date that clashes with one of the biggest races on the mtb calendar ( otways odyssey) not sure that all those on the committee want greater participation of mtba members. i could be wrong but that is how it seems.
 

serowe

Likes Dirt
Then it is up to the members to do something about it. While the constitution gives the committee the authority to set the date/time for the AGM, the members need to let those mcommottee members know it isn't a realistic and viable decision they have made.

Unfortunately you constitution does not state how many members are required to be in attendance to constitute a quorum (remember an AGM is *not* a general meeting) and probably the only way you will get something done, if you can't get the current committee to see sense, is to ensure that enough members attend the scheduled AGM and force a point of order vote and have the meeting adjourned to a more suitable venue and date.

The problem is - this takes co-operation amongst MTBA members - something that appears to usually be lacking! (time to get over personal agendas for some people....)
 

rrace

Squid
AGM date/location & quorum

I do sympathise with MTBA trying to set a date/location for the AGM. Any weekend will probably now clash with a major event in some State. I know this from trying to set club dates around major enduros. Tying the AGM to a National race has some advantages as some elite riders are there already - but the major disadvantage of MANY non-elite riders not being there.

We are a National organisation, and therefore choosing to have a seperate time/place for the AGM is the norm. The CA office in Sydney is close to the airport for those flying in. Proxies are available. Maybe MTBA should look at web casting the meeting?

BTW: The AGM is a "General" meeting - its just that its the Annual one with elections. The same quorum rules as for General Meetings apply.

One of the unanswered questions is why the AGM is being held in Jan/Feb again? The ACT regulations (under which MTBA operates) stipulate that the AGM must be held within 5 months of the end of their Financial Year, ie end Oct 2011.

Getting the AGM right is one of the most basic and important duties of the Committee and staff. Why is it always a problem?
 

serowe

Likes Dirt
BTW: The AGM is a "General" meeting - its just that its the Annual one with elections. The same quorum rules as for General Meetings apply.
Accepted - although there are a few other things an AGM is required to do that isn't done at a general meeting - such as presentation of accounts, auditors report, ensuring a membership list is available for inspection (together with a nominated place in the ACT)..and a few other things.

One of the unanswered questions is why the AGM is being held in Jan/Feb again? The ACT regulations (under which MTBA operates) stipulate that the AGM must be held within 5 months of the end of their Financial Year, ie end Oct 2011.
And would last year (and previous years) technically have seen MTBA in breach of s73, s74 and even s93(d), s108(1)

Getting the AGM right is one of the most basic and important duties of the Committee and staff. Why is it always a problem?
You would think so but it also appears to be a secretive society at times instead of being open to its members.
 

serowe

Likes Dirt
One of the unanswered questions is why the AGM is being held in Jan/Feb again? The ACT regulations (under which MTBA operates) stipulate that the AGM must be held within 5 months of the end of their Financial Year, ie end Oct 2011.
MTBA_Constitution_dated_17_Jan_2010 said:
1. Interpretation
(1) In these rules, unless a contrary intention appears-
(a) financial year means the year ending on 30th June;
Make that November 30 - but still, they have been outside this date for the past what? 3 yeras or more?
 

rrace

Squid
AGM date - my error

Woops - yes - can't add 5 months to 30 June! End of November it is.

Here's a radical idea: MTBA post the reports and accounts in the member's section of the MTBA website BEFORE the AGM! So that we can see what's occured prior to having to vote on positions. Yes, the AGM does vote to accept the accounts etc at the meeting, but voting on positions without information is a bit pointless.

If the AGM is being held late due to the accounts not being available - then how on earth do they know what they can spend in the first 6 months of the FY, and set a budget etc?

Other useful information would be:
- how many Committee meetings were held during the year?
- who attended in person or via the web?

All pretty normal information to provide to members.
 

Knut

Troll hunter
What I think is a major issue with the current committe is that a very small fraction of that is the majority of the problem. This only retards progress. By electronically voting for members who can organize an AGM, provide financial reports, accept responsibility of their roles as representatives and be less critical of hard working club volunteers, we might actually get somewhere.

Having the nominations open and close over the Christmas break period and then the reAGM on the same morning as the biggest event in our sport does seem to a bit dirty. At the end of the day, the right people will be on the new committee and MTBA will be a club we can all be proud of.

Rally your racing buddies together when voting starts and make a difference. Without your help, good people will continually become fed up. We have the Anzac spirit and we can fight this together. We rallied as one at the Bushfire Relief Enduro and raised $37 000 with four days notice. We can become solid again to make it right.
 
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