AGM report

Annual General Meeting Audax United Kingdom Long-distance Cyclists’ Association (“Audax uk”)

Audax UK held its annual general meeting on February 8th, in Birmingham.

The meeting began, as is customary, with a minute’s silence to respect those members who had passed away during the previous year, after which several of the directors provided updates to their reports in the Annual Report (available on the AUK web site).

Membership continues to increase and is now approaching 9,000. However, this figure is thought to include 350-400 Life Members who are, in fact, no longer with us and who names are being removed from the database as part of a tidying-up exercise, so we shouldn’t expect to see a large increase in member numbers next year.

Special mention was made of AUK Member, Tony Hull, who completed what is believed to be the longest ever DIY Permanent Event, covering 6,300km, from the north of Scotland to Trafalgar in Southern Spain.

Overall, the trend towards more members riding longer events has continued, while there has been a decline in the numbers riding shorter events, calling into question the received wisdom that 100km and 200km events are gateways to riding longer distances. In total, members completed almost 22,000 rides during the year and, as a result, particular praise was noted for Cathy Brown, who scrutinised the majority of the resulting brevet cards.

IT Manager, Kevin Lake, reported that key aspects of the IT upgrade project have now been brought back under our direct control, following the failure of our supplier’s parent company, which has been placed in administration. Our potential financial exposure is up to £40,000 but

this should be mitigated by savings we are able to make on other elements of the project. Finance Director, Nigel Armstrong, confirmed that the club remains in a good position and, as anticipated last year when they were increased, there is no requirement to make any changes to membership subscriptions or event fees and charges.

All of the resolutions put to the meeting, principally enabling the simplification of AUK’s event regulations, were passed. Ian Hennessey and Martin Stefan, who had been co-opted to the Board during the year, were confirmed as Events Secretary and NonExecutive Director respectively and Graeme Provan was reappointed as General Secretary. No candidates had come forward to replace Peter Lewis as Event Services Director and this post remains vacant for the moment.

The full minutes of the meeting will be published on the AUK web site.