Membership matters

As always, I am going to start by welcoming all our recent new members – there have been approximately 500 of you since the last Arrivée issue, most new to Audax UK, although we are also pleased to say hello again to several re-joiners. Anyone who has entered an event online in the last 6 weeks or so will have seen our new event entry screens which we launched at the end of April. Although not strictly a membership feature, they do make use of the household member set up. The “main” member can now enter events on behalf of household members, as long as they have accepted the entry terms and conditions. It would have been nice to promote equality and allow any member of the household to enter on behalf of any others, but that proved to be a bit tricky, sorry! So, if you are an Audaxing family or household and want to make one entry and payment for multiple people, then the “main” member must be the one logged on. If you can’t remember who is “main” then you can check via the “Household members” option on the “My account” menu (only the main member sees the option), or if you prefer just try the event entry and see who gets the multiple names. One big benefit of the new process is that paper forms are no longer necessary for under 18 riders IF they are a household member and the main member makes the entry on their behalf. This benefit doesn’t extend to non-member under 18s (not yet), so if your younger family members might do one or two events a year, then it could be worth subscribing them as household members (£6 per year) to avoid the hassle of printing and signing consent forms. Although we have had a very high number of new joiners in 2022 so far, there is plenty of room for more. If you have friends or clubmates who have ridden an event as a non-member and enjoyed it enough to want to join, please remind them that they can claim a discount to refund their non-member supplement – some organisers will provide a code, but if not, I can supply one. As part of their welcome pack, we send all our new joiners Audax UK – formerly known as “mudguard stickers” but can be affixed anywhere you like! Stocks are getting low of our current dark blue (600km distance) stickers, so we will be ordering new ones soon with the trimmed eagle logo and a new colour. For old timers you will be able to get the new design from the Audax badges and medals shop or you may find your event organiser has a few to give away. A quick reminder that I do have a few back copies of Arrivée which I am happy to send out for a small charge, so if you want something specific I may be able to help, or if you are a new joiner and just want a couple of extra issues for inspiration then get in touch. Finally, if you are an organizer and want to make some copies available at your events, or you have a good local bike shop or café that would like some for publicity purposes, I can help with that too.