Annual General Meeting 2007

This year’s AGM will be on Tuesday 6 November 2007, 7.30 pm for 8 pm (ending 10 pm), at the Friends’ Meeting House on Jesus Lane. [Map/location]

Hundreds of free, secure cycle parking spaces are available round the corner at Park Street Cycle Park.

Speaker – Roger Geffen (Campaigns and Policy Manager, CTC)

AGM guest speaker Roger Geffen
Image as described adjacent

We are delighted that Roger Geffen, Campaigns and Policy Manager, CTC, has agreed to be our speaker. Roger is a lively speaker, who will talk on the subject of recent and forthcoming national campaigning issues. No doubt his involvement in changes to The Highway Code will be of particular interest, a matter in which he (and the CTC) and the Campaign had crucial involvement.

Originally from a cycle campaigning background, Roger gained experience of working both in the local authority and consultancy sectors, before returning to work in cycle campaigning at CTC, the UK’s national cyclists’ organisation.

He first became involved in cycling as a volunteer campaigner with the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) in the late 1980s to early 1990s, where his roles included those of Campaigns Co-ordinator and Central London Co-ordinator. He went on to take active roles in various transport and environment groups ranging from CPRE (the Council to Protect Rural England), Transport 2000 (now the Campaign for Better Transport), Alarm UK (the anti-road building alliance) and various anti-road campaigns, notably against the M11 Link Road in east London. With the shift in national transport policy in the mid-1990s, he took a masters in Transport at the University of London and began working for Oxfordshire County Council, drafting its Walking and Cycling Strategies and a large part of its Local Transport Plan. After a spell working with consultants Steer Davies Gleave spent working on various walking, cycling, public transport and policy analysis projects, he joined CTC as Campaigns & Policy Manager in 2002.

His talk will be followed by an opportunity for questions. The business of the AGM will then follow, including elections to the Committee.

Any motions for the AGM must reach the Co-ordinator via our usual contact details by Friday 26 October 2007.

Minutes of the last AGM and the agenda for the next will be sent round our members’ e-mail list a week in advance (or just request a copy from us).

Membership rates

The Committee will be proposing an increase in membership rates in order to help fund an expansion of the Campaign over next few years. Rates were last increased back in 1999.

Elections

The AGM is the time at which a new Committee is elected. The Committee represent the ‘front line’ of the Campaign. They assist with consultation responses, attend meetings, administer aspects of the Campaign, all depending on their time available, on your behalf.

It is an excellent opportunity to become more involved in the Campaign, promote cycling, to learn about local government, and thus, we hope, make a real difference to cycling in Cambridge.

As usual, all the Committee posts, as listed below, are up for election – please consider standing! The posts are:

  • the Co-ordinator ensures that everything is dealt with, and pushes the general strategic direction of the Campaign;
  • the Liaison Officer represents the Campaign with other organisations and contacts;
  • our Membership Secretary is responsible for membership administration;
  • the Newsletter Editor co-ordinates the team of people who edit and assemble the newsletter;
  • the Treasurer runs the books, and produces budgets. The Campaign’s yearly turnover is around £7,000, but our main resource requirement is time!
  • our Stall Officer runs the stall on Saturdays and co-ordinates volunteers for this;
  • the Press Officer identifies and co-ordinates opportunities to represent the Campaign in the media. We are contacted about once or twice each month for interviews of various kinds or by media personnel requesting quotes;
  • last but not least, there are five Officers Without Portfolio who are also invaluable to the general campaigning work being done.