Cycling Canada Annual Meeting Summary
Cycling Canada held its Annual Meeting in Toronto from October 26 to 28, 2012 and dealt with a number of important matters. A summary follows:
Strategic Planning for 2013-2016 Quadrennial
Facilitator Rose Mercier led the meeting participants through a strategic planning workshop that reviewed the draft plan that was developed by the Cycling Canada Board after receiving the input of the provincial and territorial affiliates, committee members and the cycling membership at large in March and April of this year.
The national body has specific roles and responsibilities within its mandate and has set out its mission, vision and values. Added to this were four strategic imperatives that were reviewed within the workshop with feedback received on the desired outcomes for each of them.
Strategic Imperatives
- Resources: Grow the human capital and discretionary funding necessary to achieve strategic goals.
- Development: Consolidate and strengthen a national structure enabling coordinated initiation and progressive development of cyclists.
- High Performance: Enhance and expand the system of professional-quality support for Canada’s competitive cyclists.
- Profile: Move Canadians to take pride in Canada’s national cycling team and their accomplishments.
The workshop focused on the Development area as it is the one where the activities of the national body and the provincial/territorial affiliates find the greatest common ground.
The next steps will require that the Board of Directors and management of Cycling Canada review the inputs received on mid-term objectives and how success in each area will be defined and measured.
By late February the Strategic Plan for the four years beginning April 1, 2013 will be determined and the resources allocated to delivering on it put in place through the budget plan.
Elections to Cycling Canada Board and Program Committees
The following individuals were elected to the noted positions at the AGM:
Board of Directors
- Bill Kinash (Director – two year term)
- Hannah Parish (Director – two year term)
- Kevin Baldwin (Director – two year term)
- Stéphane LeBeau (Director – one year term)
High Performance Committee
- Guy Vincent (Chair – two year term)
- Andrew Iler (Development Team Representavie – two year term)
Officials’ Committee
- Wayne Pomario (Road & Track Representative – two year term)
- Jason Howard (BMX Representative – two year term)
Events Committee
- Kevin MacCuish (Chair – two year term)
- Andrew Paradowski (Road & Track Representative – two year term)
True Sport Presentation
The participants at the Annual Meeting had the opportunity to take part in an interactive session with Paul Melia, President of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and Karri Dawson, Director of Operations for the True Sport area of CCES.
The theme of their presentation was around how to make the True Sport principles operational in our sport. They provided some examples of how other National Sport Organizations (NSOs) had made use of the True Sport declaration and followed through with specific actions.
They also highlighted their desire to work with cycling to help us attain the sport we want and toward that end noted the emphasis on anti-doping education in addition to the additional testing that will assist in restoring the integrity of the sport. We hope that many of the provincial associations will follow through on the opportunities provided by True Sport and outlined in the presentation.
National Insurance Program
Since nine of the eleven affiliated provinces and territories are members of the national insurance program it was an opportune time to get firsthand information from our new broker of record Marsh represented by Lyne Erwin, Effie Paraskevakos and Steve Fretwell and from the underwriter of our insurance program SportsCan Insurance represented by the President, Mark Woodall.
The session was very informative as Mr. Woodall outlined the loss history of the national program and fielded a variety of questions on how we could move forward knowing that increased litigation is likely in coming years. He explained that each incident for which there is a claim can be handled in one of three ways; settle, defend or deny and that his team has to analyze the best approach to each situation based on what the known facts tell them and the history of awards by courts in similar circumstances.
Mr. Woodall encouraged the members to manage the insurance program by what is needed to make it the most effective not by managing the fees. He cited several examples where programs would not defend based on deliberate or accidental omissions from a policy. These policy omissions are normally a factor in reducing fees but increasing risk and vulnerability to an action that can’t be defended or covered under insurance. He assured those present that our plan was one that covered all the bases but that such a plan, in this day and age, against our loss history, will inevitably cost more going forward.
Annual Awards
The annual awards were presented as part of the Cycling Celebration that was held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting. The winners in each category were as follows:
Event/Organizer of the Year:
- Road – Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, QC
- Mountain Bike – Championnats Canadiens Marathon, Saint-Raymond, QC
- Track – Championnats Canadiens – Dieppe, NB
- BMX – Coupe Canada, Saint-Augustin, Québec
- Paracycling- Coupe du Monde UCI – Baie Comeau, QC
- Cyclocross – Canadian Championships, Toronto, ON
Individual Awards
- National Commissaire of the Year – Steve Head, Toronto, ON
- International Commissaire of the Year – Wayne Pomario, BC
- Torchy Peden Award – Atlantic Region (NS, PEl, NB, NF&L)
- Russ Copeland Award – Joakim Albert
- President’s Trophy – Ryder Hesjedal
- Builder of the Year – Martin Demers (St Felicien, QC)
Annual Meeting 2013
Cycling Canada has a protocol in place whereby every second Annual Meeting is held in Ottawa for a variety of logistical and expense control reasons. Both St. John’s and St. Georges de Beauce have expressed interest in hosting the meeting which will be reviewed by management and a recommendation made to the Board by mid-December of this year.
