Wanted - Club Welfare Officer

We are looking for a volunteer to fill the post of Club Welfare Officer. The main role of the welfare officer is to provide a point of contact for club members to express any concerns relating to the welfare of the junior members at the club. A fuller explanation can be found below in an extract from the club constitution.

If you might be interested in helping in this way, please get in touch with Rik, or Ginny at the usual contact numbers. Alternatively, please feel free to speak with Jane, or myself at the end of one of the coaching sessions.


Club Welfare Officer Job Description Taken from the Club Constitution

Responsibility for:

• Liaising with the British Cycling’s National Child Protection Officer (NCPO) on matters of Child Protection
• Promoting British Cycling’s Child Protection and Good Practice Policy and Procedures in the club, including the distribution and display of leaflets and codes of conduct to members, parents and young cyclists
• Advising the development of junior and youth activity within the club
• Supporting the registration of all personnel involved within junior cycling
• Receiving and passing on to the NCPO any concerns about the behaviour of members to other members and particularly those relating to the welfare of young cyclists

Training courses for this role can include: Good Practice & Child Protection workshop, NSPCC Child Protection Awareness Training Programme.

Coaching Session 10:00 - 11:30 Saturday 22nd November

This is a reminder that there will be a coaching session at Drumlanrig starting at 10am next Saturday, the 22nd November. This session is part of the autumn series of coaching where we are getting back to basics and revisiting the main biking skills. Having already covered gear selection and cornering, the plan for next week is to look at braking. The session will take us up into the woods and then down onto the grassy slopes of the skills loop. Please be especially careful to check your brakes before you come along. At the end of the session, there will be a fun cornering competition where we will try to negotiate increasingly tight turns.

For your information, over the next two sessions I am hoping to be assisted in the coaching by some trainee coaches from the Extreme Valley Riders cycling club. They were referred to me by Keith Stocker of Scottish Cycling and having just been on the British Cycling coaching course, are looking to gain some experience before their next assessment. Their club was set up at Newmilns in East Ayrshire to promote cycling amongst youngsters through freeride, BMX and downhill facilities that they have developed at the dry ski slope.

From this week on, details of coaching sessions will be displayed on the Drumlanrig Root Rats weblog. This can be found at http://rootrats.blogspot.com/ . The Blog will contain information about sessions and related events. Hopefully, riders will find it useful and interesting to have access to this information; no sign up is required to view the blog.

Finally, please remember that the weather is getting increasingly cold and please make every effort to come dressed for bad weather.

Coaching session dates for October to December 2008

Secondary school age group Go-Ride for the autumn term of 2008 will be run as follows

• 25th October 10:00 to 11:30 - gear selection
• 8th November 10:00 to 11:30 - cornering
• 22nd November 10:00 to 11:30 - braking
• 6th December 10:00 to 11:30 - descending
• 20th December 10:00 to 11:30 - putting all together (more details to come)

The times given are session running time, so please aim to arrive at the Castle for 09:45 to allow enough time for bike unloading and so on. The fee for sessions is £2.50. New members are welcome at any time, please allow time to complete a parental consent form though.

These above dates have been chosen in order that our sessions compliment those arranged by the Stepping Stanes club, which is based at Heathhall, Mabie and Dalbeattie. This means that coaching sessions are available in the area pretty much every week throughout the winter. See the web link, http://www.steppingstanes.co.uk/ for more details of the Stepping Stanes sessions. A further advantage of planning these sessions around the Stepping Stanes dates is that we will continue to get a maximum level of support from Scottish Cycling.

Drumlanrig Root Rats Blog

Welcome to the Drumlanrig Root Rats Blog! The Drumlanrig Root Rats are the junior wing of Drumlanrig / Rik's Bike Shed Cycling Club, which is based at Drumlanrig Castle in Drumfriesshire. This blog has been set up to provide club members with up to date information on club activities and related events.