Sportive Kinross – The Directors Cut Part 4

10/03/2011

Meeting the council and asking the Police ‘Anyone who isn’t confused doesn’t really understand the situation’ The Iron Duke One of my favourite quotes and it is one I use quite often is ‘Anyone who isn’t confused doesn’t really understand the situation’ The quote originates from an American TV journalist reporting on the Vietnam War way back in the 1960’s when many of the entrants for Sportive Kinross were just children, some were grown up and a fair number were not born. I make reference to this quote as it sums up my reaction to, particularly the council when I met them and to lesser degree the Police. I must stress both parties have been excellent to deal with, very positive in their approach, wanting to see the event proceed and in essence very helpful. I say this in case any members of the constabulary or local authority are reading this. I think you are great guys, with a difficult task to do. In fact as I write this (I started writing this on the 18th November 2010, then the snowmen arrived and I was taken hostage at my work – apologies it’s been long time in the finishing! It’s the 9th March 2011 just now) we have just arranged another meeting with them (the meeting was held in December) to finalise details and highlight any issues the event may or may not present. When the idea of the event was first hatched Police and Local Council consent were considered rather important, consent from the local councillors as well as the council officials.  We thought, initially at least the Police had the power to refuse permission for the event under ‘The Cycle Racing on Highways (Scotland) Regulations 1960’. However, of course a sportive is not a race it’s technically speaking a fun event. So despite the evident displeasure one senior officer expressed about our evil plans to populate the roads (I know this due to a kind of local version of wiki leaks) with hoards of swarming cyclists they could not actually stop it. We did not require their formal consent. I guess under some law stemming back to the time when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minster in the late 1820’s and crowd control was for first time becoming a significant issue for the state (something to do with those French revolutionaries) they possibly could. In the event they have not sought to stop us and the Police liaison officer we have had has been an absolute peach to deal with. No pushover, my overtures for the plans were viewed with an evident but well disguised degree of suspicion in the initial exchange. At least whilst I admitted this was our first such event and until I presented our case in a written format explaining the motivations for the event and the issues we had indentified.  Revealing how we had sought to address the issues and of course reinforcing the essentially community minded motivations for staging such an event. So after that meeting our Police officer set off to seek the blessing of the states security services which we  received and they been truly excellent in assisting our event planning. The council was a little different. My initial contacts were with local councilors who all greeted the idea with a suppressed delight subject to the caveat that we do not seek any road closures. Road closures equal angry residents. However like all forms of public disruption a paradox is set up. As allowing such an event means travel tourism. The event becomes an annual event and annual events equal a boost to the local economy as visitors from the surrounding areas and lands far beyond (we have one rider travelling from Ireland this year) flock to the area. So when I spoke to the councils economic development officer and arranged a meeting via email. I went along to that meeting with the expectation of a monarch visiting peoples in a far off land. Having spent most of my working life in residential development I have grown used to council meetings with planners where you are viewed with suspicion, distrust and depending on the planning officer a desire to stop your plans in their tracks. So I entered the offices of PKC with an air of excited expectation, a belief I would be greeted with a wave of enthusiasm. I arrived to be told ‘…no, he does not work here’ I had gone to the wrong offices, thinking (incorrectly, I now realised) the entire council had been re-housed in the swanky new offices they had developed. Hurriedly I scurried off to the other council building I knew of, thinking that was where the charmless young lady meant. Here I was greeted by an almost hostile women who said ‘…no, he does not work here, he works over the ROAD!’. I limped across the road, my sense of regality had been swept away by now as I was becoming increasingly late. I trundled up to the other building tentatively approached yet another receptionist to be told ‘he works up the stairs’. Off I shot, hopes renewed. I was greeted politely by my host and introduced to his boss. My explanation for the late arrival tendered and apologies accepted. We sat down to talk business, my expectations and hopes of a warm and effusive discussion about how good our plans were, and what a terrific idea this was were quickly dispelled when I was asked why where we calling it Sportive Kinross and not calling it Sportive Loch Leven or Loch Leven Sportive or some such variant. My heart released an internal scream, my brain said secretly to me these guys must have been planners in a past life. In turn I set about patiently explaining the club organising the event are called Kinross Cycling Club whilst thinking inside 'need I explain more about the name?' knowing the answer would be ‘Yes, you will have to.’

The Directors Cut Part 3 - The entry fees and a charity partner

“Entry fees? Why charge people?”, “...will people be willing to pay?” “How much!?...I only want to pay a fiver” were some of the considered responses in our initial discussions on the thorny subject of entry fees for Sportive Kinross. If you are reading this and have indeed entered the event you may well be thinking a fiver would have been rather good. Indeed it would have, but sadly were not part of a Marxist-Leninist state where there is a state subsidy available to enable the proletariat to enter mass participation events at a low, low cost. Neither are their subsidies available for the bourgeoisie aristocracy or even members of the organising cycle club. At the same time I did not want to be like Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street and use the famous line to my colleagues in this most sensitive of discussions “The point is ladies and gentlemen that greed, for lack of a better word, is good”.  Add to the equation the odd the fact that we were sitting in a bar less than 17 miles from home of Scotlands most famous economist and advocate of capitalism the very late but most venerable Adam Smith. Being a capitalist I guess he would not have approved of a subsidy either. However the fact the event had to cover its own costs, ideally return a small profit for the club and that value for money for the participant was an issue meant the discussion of the level of the entry fee had only one route on the opening suggestion of £5.00 and that was upwards. All that said entry fees alone would not be enough for the event to be viable unless we charged £30 - £40.00 an entrant. Which in itself would kill the event as it would not be attractive to people to enter something that was unproven and quite possibly not very good (it will be good by the way unless the weather is absolutely horrific). So we had to budget on revenues from other sources, subsidies if you like for the proletariat, bourgeoisie and aristocracy.   

The exercise of organising a sportive is however one the Fife based Mr Adam Smith would have most definitely approved despite the need for subsidy. It is both capitalist (it’s designed to run at a profit) and moral (in that it helps people in many different ways). Although when I think of economists I always think of the American economist J.K. Galbraith who said and I quote “There are two kinds of economists - those who don't know the future and those who don't know they don't know.”  I guess with us sitting in the bar discussing in essence the economics of the event we would have met with the much celebrated Mr Smiths approval and at the same time if we were indeed being economists of any kind we had no idea of the future especially on the subject of team entry fees which we would agree and subsequently change after we had opened the event for entries.

The other element I was very keen to agree with my peers was a charity partner. The response to this concept was once again a mixed one. The initial concern being “...why does everything have to be a charity ride?” ...“It’s not a charity ride were organising, it’s a sportive” was another observation. Further comments were “...if we must have a charity, can we help the XYZ charity”. My view on which charity was a predetermined one, we would work with Childrens Hospice Association Scotland or CHAS. They were local to Kinross, helped children and young people and were as a deserving a cause as any. A view that was reinforced when we visited Rachel House one of the two centres operated by the charity to learn a little more about the support that CHAS provides to the children, young people and families who use Rachel House, Robin House and their CHAS at Home service. On that visit we heard some very moving stories that made you want to weep and some very happy stories that had you laughing with joy at the evident delight the children and families gained from their staying at Rachel House. It is a truly remarkable and beautiful place that gives a lot to a lot of families with children of all ages who live in very difficult health circumstances. On that visit we had been asked to bring bikes and kit for a photo shoot to promote Sportive Kinross and the association between CHAS and Sportive Kinross. I have to confess I did not, I could not find my kit and it was too wet to cycle. However, Ken Ogilvie the KCC time trial champion turned out with a bike and in full KCC kit shorts and all, under his regular clothing. As he stripped in a corner of the entrance hall it brought much excitement and more than a little pleasure to a large group of ladies waiting on their tour. I overheard one say, as she watched Ken changing with an eager excitement "...wait until we tell the church what we have seen today!" and one other chipped in “...oh yes, a man in lycra!” 

Alison Rennie CHAS fund raiser poses with Ken Ogilvie and the Blogger

My motivation as I explained to CHAS when we met their fund raising people prior to the visit I just described; was not entirely altruistic it was to a degree Machiavellian. The association with a good charity helps raise the profile of an event. Fortunately, when I made this admission which I felt was a necessary one, the charity representative commented with an amused smile that all the best partnerships worked in this way. The model we would adopt would avoid the event becoming 'a charity ride' and it would at the same time raise a reasonable sum of money for the charity, help publicise the charity and give them the opportunity to enter a number of riders without charge who in turn would ride the event for the charity. 

So deep breath, pause consider, we had a charity, we had a mechanism to support that charity which was transparent and easily managed. The next question was how much do we charge? Various prices were batted about, as I said they started at £5.00 and by now we were up to £15.00. Once £15.00 was  set against a provisional budget it became very clear (without heavy subsidy or substantial sponsorship) it would not work at that level once we deducted a donation; paid for the insurance, the event HQ, the timing people, the event memento, stocked the feeding stations, the sign writers, the printers, the website, event registration fees, etc.  The problem came into sharp focus if we only achieved a relatively small number of entries. So how much would people pay? Once again the club president came to the rescue and stated in simple terms £25.00, with £5.00 to charity, problem solved? But no, what about teams? What about a discount for early entry? It is agreed entering a team should attract a discount, so a figure is set at £60.00 for a team of three, £25.00 for the individual. Initial discussion was first 50 riders to get discounted entry to £20.00, I later changed this to a calendar cut off of 1^st December as were unclear of the likely uptake and give more urgency to potential entrants looking for best value. Infact we sold the first 50 rides before the middle of October and as I write this more than a 100 entries have been taken!  Once we had set the event launch we had agreed £65.00 (moved up from £60.00) for a team of three and £20.00 for an individual. It was after the launch when no team entries came in we revisited the pricing and the incongruity of our pricing plan for Team entries became quite clear, so the price was revised back to £60.00! Mind it goes up to £65.00 from December 1^st 2010.

The Directors Cut Part 2

In Part 1 I told you all about naming a Sportive. Which, when you open up the discussion beyond one person (and to be fair I don’t think it was the intention of the committee member who gave me the go ahead on this project to have a discussion (he has what psychologists might describe as a transactional leadership style (no bad thing one must stress). He had a name in mind, ‘Kinross Sportive’ which he stated it should be and still maintains it is a better name; which in his view the event in time will become known as. The direction on the name was especially pertinent as we as a club had had, laboured discussions about names for a possible event previously. However, in generously appointing me as Event Director he did open up the discussion. As I have a transformational approach to leadership rather than a transactional approach when in leadership roles, this meant the name came up for a discussion, although my intention was it should be Sportive Kinross rather than Kinross sportive.

Now you you’ll be wondering what all this stuff about transactional and transformational leadership has to do with a cycle sportive! Well actually nothing to do with the cycling as such (the probable exception would be a big pro Team) but as organising anything involves a diverse range of personalities with one or more people in leadership roles it comes into play. Which is exactly what happened with Sportive Kinross, by allowing a different style of leader it lead to the whole process which was subject to preconceptions on what it should be called, the fact there should be one flattish route and there would be no charity involvement. There were fears too ‘how many entries would it attract? Will it attract any entries!?’ “... are we a big enough club to organise such an event?” So the leadership approach is important as that determines the level of engagement you have with the contributory parties. But clearly the next part for that discussion was the route and this required engagement, as designing a good cycle route requires all parties with experience and interest to contribute to the discussion. The route design started with the preconception and in some respects I felt as Moses might have done when he received the Ten Commandments or Charlton Heston if you have seen the movie although Charlton Heston did voice God in the movie too, so technically he was ordering himself to do something. I digress, the commandments came down to me via email rather than through a burning bush and at a club meeting in a local pub. As I recall they went ‘And thou shalt have but one route’, ‘...it shall be around 80 miles, it shall be mainly flat, it shall take us out somewhere and back to whence you came from’ All this seemed pretty reasonable to me as I am, (as I explained previously) a cycling philistine. So against that set of requirements I devised a couple of options for consideration. The first attempt at having them ‘considered’ proved abortive as ‘The Lord’ did not show at the pub on the planned evening to talk them though! So I went sideways to a member of the sportive sub-committee, so not on the actual ‘club committee’ and we sorted out a version that we felt worked well. However, in opening up the debate, the hardcore ‘sportivers’ in the club made their move with the observation that the route was not tough enough, which induced a comment from a club member who is more into speed than hill climbing “However, it seems you still want to put hills in:- ... Lomond hills!, Climb from Auchtermuchty to Newburgh!, Dunning Glen!, Stronachie!, wow!! my knees hurt just listing them....we are not all Contadors or Wiggins..” The debate raged on with the compromise developing that we have two routes of a similar distance. One route would be a flattish, the other was to be hilly. Finally our club President came to the rescue with a piece of wisdom “Two routes seem unnecessarily complex (flat and hilly) though you could do long and short on the same roads,” Which did not fully resolve whether it was hilly or flat but it did open up the window to bring in the fact that I had written to Scottish Cycling about permissions for sportives and I had received a handy reply from British Cycling (note, not Scottish Cycling). This included the guidance notes for amateur events that expressly stated Sportives generally have a choice of routes. Key point of course is they were guidance notes and not prescriptive. So I decided to throw them into the now highly charged mix (bearing in mind we were still debating how hard the primary route should be) the idea of a shorter route i.e. A route of 50 odd miles to encourage novice entrants; or the post winter unfit cyclists who want something challenging but achievable whilst they break out from their winter hibernation. This opened up a whole new line of discussion on why we should have two routes, with comments like “The shorter distances attract very few riders eg tour of Exmoor 56 mile route only 11 took part......!!!!” which of course meant as the argument or discussion had entered a statistical mode and as we all know there are “lies, damned lies and statistics” In the end we came up the following conclusion below is the minute of the meeting:

“Wide ranging discussion on routes, reference made to British Cycling guidance experiences of various members. Conclusion, three routes one c.50 miles two 70 -90 miles, keep common where practical.”

So we set about working one out for the proposal to the protagonists for a tough route, to be advised that the first draft of the route was probably a little too tough!

Although to be fair I have since discovered the digital OS Mapping I was using (something to do with Memory ... is the brand) gave us rather distorted height gains. The software was suggesting over 7000 feet of height gain, the physical survey told us a something in excess of 5000 feet My colleagues from the tough route camp came in with their thoughts and finally the Black route was born, the Red route was confirmed and the Blue route accepted.

Of course having established three distinct route options we now had to sort out names for the routes. A whole new debate opened up. I fired the first shot with a modestly controversial suggestion we should use Italian as, road cycling is historically a distinctly continental activity and arguably more Italian than French. Planning on the use of names like Severo, Medio, Entrica, the use of Italian was not well received by the golf club committee, simplification of names was the key, hence, Black, Red, Blue.

Sportive Kinross - Part 1

I'm going to try and be disciplined here and keep this blog going through the coming weeks and months as I pull together (with a team of very able colleagues from the cycle club) a brand new cycle sportive for April 2011. If you follow this blog you'll hear all about the traumas, excitement, anxieties and pleasures of organising a cycle sportive from the perspective of a novice organiser. Be assured there are plenty and we are only six weeks or so into the process! So let me take you to the beginning. I am a ‘regular’ as in very ordinary mountain biker who some years back bought a road bike (which I hardly used), who joined a very new cycling club around 15 months back. It’s a cycling club which sits in a location that has been gifted through the fate of many geological movements over millions of years, with some wonderful cycling countryside. When you combine this with some good summer or winter weather is pretty much as good as it can be anywhere in the world for road cycling. So shortly after I joined the club I suggested we organise some sort of event to celebrate the location and share it with fellow cyclists. Being a complete cycling philistine I had no appreciation of the niceties of the suggestion for a young club to take on such a challenge and the idea was quickly despatched by my peers to the waste bin. That was well, a year or so ago, and here we are at the end of August 2010 now organising our event for April 2011. The current process started in late June 2010 when after some discussion about club development it was agreed a meeting was required to focus this process. Having been the promoter of the ideas it fell to me to produce an agenda, and then try to coordinate a time that suited all. Something which is for those familiar with the phrase ‘...this tape will self destruct after 5 seconds’ from a popular TV show of the sixties and seventies (later made into a movie franchise starring Tom Cruise), Mission Impossible. So, as no one time suits everyone I opt for the evening of the mid week club ride, a Thursday night. I advise after the run we would have a trip to the ‘Club HQ’ The Kirklands Hotel and Restaurant to discuss ideas on developing the club. On making my adjudication about the date and time of the meeting the Kit Manager advises he cannot make the meet due to other commitments, but he has kit he wants collected and paid for, so he asks me to assist. This of course means, I arrive at the pub, sorry ‘Hotel and restaurant’ after the ride and once everyone has gathered promptly leave again to nip home to swop my bike for a car that can carry a pile of kit. In the interim I leave my agenda for club development behind with a member of the committee (after all a cycling club is in reality a kind of golf club,) and ask him to set the discussion off. Upon my return, I am advised all but the item on the proposed sportive had been dismissed from the discussion, if I want to organise it go ahead, ‘...the Club is behind you’, ‘... but we won’t have any silly names though’ (there had, at one time been an extensive discussion about event names when the topic of organising a sportive had originally resurfaced as an option) ‘...and it shall be called Kinross Sportif’. As I explained I’m a bit of a cycling philistine so I went home to use the ubiquitous and all knowing Google to discover what a 'sportif' and 'sportive' is in cycling terms at least. I wondered, are they infact the same? Type 'Sportif' into Google and the first thing you get is windsurfing, type 'Sportive' and the first thing you have is a pile of hits on cycling including this website. So my first call as the newly anointed Event Director or as one of my colleagues described me (when we had our first meeting with our charity partner CHAS) ‘Directeur sportif’ was to drop sportif. It’s actually the French noun for Sportsman and in English one of the adjectives that can be applied to it is sportive. My next call was of course a nice piece of irony. Having dropped the French word ‘Sportif’ in favour of the widely used English word ‘Sportive’ was to amend the now mildly parochial sounding name but correct in the English language of Kinross Sportive to a European language style and title the event Sportive Kinross. My argument being that sex sells attracts the attention better than sells sex, so if you read Kinross Sportive as opposed to Sportive Kinross I am thinking Sportive Kinross would be more appealing to the casual on looker than Kinross Sportive. So that was the name taken care of! What about the route(s), the entry fees, a charity partner, the council, the police, a website, and accurate elevational mapping, well that is all to come in future postings.