Author: Peter Eland

Time for another York Rally update! Last weekend we had a meeting, our first in a new venue (Cycle Heaven’s shop near the Millennium Bridge in York) and we’ll likely be back there again for our next meeting too, on Saturday 19th March, when our kind hosts will work on some improved seating arrangements.

Key points from the meeting:

• We have started the process of working towards becoming a CIO (a charity) but it may take some time. Current issues are around how the structure of trustees, members etc. will work; we will likely adapt a model constitution as advised by the York CVS service.
• Work continues liaising with the Council, emergency services, licensing officials and the like – not glamorous but essential for the Rally.
• Campsite bookings are coming in well! Earlybird prices are still available, and just mention when you book if you’d like to be sited with your friends or club-mates.
• We’ve also had a gratifying number of advance bookings for the trade show 🙂
• Marquees have been booked! Catering facilities are being booked, too.
• The rides programme is filling out already. Co-ordinator Gary requests that ride leaders (and potential ride leaders) contact him well in advance to avoid a last minute rush…
• We will be organising a free first aid course for volunteers and ride leaders. Date and venue (will be in York) is to be decided. Please contact our Volunteer Co-ordinator, Jude Ainsworth, if you’re interested.
• The website is just about complete now for 2016, including a 2015 event report with many pictures. Apologies for the continued delay in judging the photo competition – that is now top of the list! Your photos have been invaluable in our publicity.
• We have reluctantly decided that we will be giving the York Rally Sportive a rest in September 2016, unless a new lead organiser steps forward before the end of February (plenty of Rally volunteers will be available to help). The Sportive is not key to our mission (running the Rally) and the money it raises does not compensate for the stress on the organisers, especially as it falls fairly soon after the Rally itself.  It’s a shame to see the end to what was a popular and successful event, though, so if you would be interested in taking up the organising challenge, either for 2016 or maybe 2017, please do contact us.

And in other news:

• We are delighted that Sustrans, who contributed so much to the 2015 Rally with their programme of rides and logistical help, are to feature the Rally as a “Featured Regional Event” on their new National Cycle Network map, which will be mailed out to all Sustrans supporters in April. They’ll also be spreading the word on the Rally through other channels. It’s already on the Trans Pennine Trail event listings! Many thanks for this invaluable publicity!

We have received the following very interesting letter from Brian Conolly, who would be very interested to hear from anyone with further information, or recollections, of the ‘Bootie’ bike which was on show at the 1965 Rally. Click any image above to enlarge. He writes:

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Dear York Rally committee,

I’ve sent you some photos from the York Rally in 1965. I hope you find them of interest.

The Warwick University archives sent some photos to me for my web page (http://bootiebike.com/bootie/bootie.htm) on the ‘Bootie’ bicycle (mini cycle with folding bars and seat), and I thought you might be interested in those taken at the Rally.

I was looking for background info on the location of the photos when I bumped into the archive section on your website.

Some of the photos are of a well known cycle touring couple, Wilf and Hilda Corum, demonstrating the Bootie. Others are of a tandem version.

The Bootie was made at the Vickersdale Works, Stanningley, Pudsey from 65 to 73. I’m always looking for more info – maybe some of your old timers know of it and can share their memories for the website.

Best regards
Brian Conolly

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Update Feb 2022!

Long-time Rally-goer Roger King has kindly found and scanned in an original Bootie Bike brochure, likely also from the 1965 Rally. Click on the image to enlarge:

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Please do leave a comment below if you have any information, memories or thoughts on the bike – or email me at publicity@yorkrally.org and I’ll pass any details on to Mr Conolly!

Many thanks to all who turned out for our 2015 AGM, held in York’s Railway Institute.  Key points from a very productive meeting:

• It’s been a remarkable year! Thanks were expressed to all of our volunteers and ride leaders, to the Friends of York Rally supporters club members and to the exhibitors, traders, suppliers, council officials, performers, inventors, club representatives and  everyone else who worked with us to put on the 2015 event. There has been lots of positive feedback.
• The Rally is in good shape financially, having made a profit in 2015. We resolved to continue to run a very tight ship for at least the next two years until we have built up a financial cushion sufficient to give us peace of mind against, for example, a last-minute event cancellation.
• The committee resolved to start the process of changing the York Rally to a CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation) – in other words, a charity. We will be taking the helpful advice from the York CVS to help us through this process. This will aid in fundraising, and will also limit personal liability of committee members.
• We are delighted that Jude Ainsworth has agreed to take on the vital role of Volunteer Co-ordinator.  This is a key role in helping everything run smoothly at the event.
• We are delighted to also welcome Dylan Thomas (of York’s Poetry in Motion Cycles) to the organising committee.
• But we still have the following vacancies! If anyone would like to step forward for any of these, please contact us on info@yorkrally.org:
  • Fire officer
  • Safety officer
  • Security officer
  • Youth Activities co-ordinator
  • Charity Ride co-ordinator (we would like to attract newcomers to the Rally, and raise some funds for a good, high-profile local cause , by hosting a ride in aid of the Martin House Children’s Hospice)

The AGM was followed by a ‘normal’ committee meeting. More good news:

• We have an email from the council at last (after many months of negotiation) confirming that we can use the central area which was fenced off last year for our grasstrack racing. This will make a huge difference, meaning the site layout will make so much more sense!
• The first few campsite bookings are in, taking advantage of super-earlybird prices until 31st Dec 2015!
• A system for bulk-emailing newsletters will be in action shortly, so reminders to last year’s campers, updates for Friends and to those who have signed up by entering their email address on the website will be going out soon! If you are not yet signed up, you can do so on the website front page.
• We are already starting to book marquees, showers etc. where suppliers require plenty of notice.
• It was noted that while our 2016 dates (18-19th June) clash with the Eroica Brittania event, they avoid a clash with the 2016 British Cycling Road Race Championships which take place in Stockton-on-Tees from the 23rd to 26th June. All the more reason for cyclists and spectators to come to the North East for a run of great events. We also hope that many racers will want to join us on the grasstrack for a warm-up!

Our next meeting will be held at 10 AM on Saturday 30th January 2016, and as ever all are welcome, especially newcomers. We are trying a new venue: Cycle Heaven in Hospital Field’s Road, York have kindly offered to host us free of charge in the meeting room next to the cafe in their huge new shop. This venue is a little way from the station, so we will be arranging lifts for anyone arriving on foot – please just contact us on info@yorkrally.org.

 

 

We’re happy to report that this website is now up and running  on its permanent address, www.yorkrally.org :-). If you have any bookmarks to the old server at www.yorkrally.dougiereid.co.uk please do change them over.

Update – we had some email problems, but they’re now fixed. But if you’ve sent any emails in the last few days and not had a reply, please re-send as some incoming mail may have been lost 🙁

 

Just a quick note that we will shortly be changing how this website is hosted, and it may go off the air for a little while, at some point in the next few weeks. I have also ‘frozen’ the site until the transfer is completed, and temporarily disabled comments.

If the website is down, please visit our Facebook page for any updates.  It shouldn’t be down for too long.

The site is kindly hosted for us free of charge by a generous volunteer, but to date this has been configured so that the site (at www.yorkrally.org) is actually hosted on a different web address. A ‘frames’ based forwarding system is used to ensure that when you visit yorkrally.org, you are served up the pages from that other site (where we have the free hosting).

But this has several technical drawbacks, not least that linking to a particular page within the site doesn’t work straightforwardly, and Facebook also doesn’t properly preview shared links.

We’re now moving to ‘native’ hosting, which will put the site directly on www.yorkrally.org and will have none of these drawbacks! Once that is set up, we will also be able to set up a bulk e-mailing system  (our mailing list is into four figures now!)

Finally, just another quick reminder that our AGM is coming up on the 5th December and that super-earlybird campsite bookings are now open!

 

 

Our next meeting  is to be held downstairs at ‘Your Bike Shed’, Micklegate, York at 10 AM on the 4th July 2015. All are welcome.

We’ll both be looking back at the recent Rally and looking forwards to the Sportive and to the 2016 Rally.

Please note that despite our best efforts we cannot yet, as I write, confirm the 2016 provisional dates – so please don’t book time off or tickets just yet! We’re pushing hard to get the dates confirmed ASAP with the relevant authorities and will announce it here any by email ASAP.

Apologies for the late notice for the meeting, and also lack of website updates since the Rally – several are brewing, but, as is the case too for many of our volunteers, it’s taking our website team a while to recover from the Rally and also to catch up with non-Rally life and work 🙂

 

The final volunteers have just departed from the Knavesmire, leaving it as empty and pristine as it was before the Rally, save only for a team from the marquee company still dismantling the trade tents.

Many thanks to everyone who turned up – you made it the event it was. Huge thanks to all of our volunteers and ride leaders, whose efforts made the event happen with actions not words. Thanks to the Friends of York Rally supporters club members who believed it was possible and seed-funded the event – and welcome to the club to the many new members who signed up at the Rally. And thanks also to the exhibitors, traders, suppliers, council officials, performers, inventors, club representatives and to everyone else who worked with us to put on the event.

And thanks to everyone who stopped to thank our volunteers, and all of you who have left kind comments on websites and social media, including the Friends of York Rally Facebook page. They are all being read and are very much appreciated – and they will also be passed on to the volunteers who do not use the internet.

Although the Rally is over there is still plenty to do. Our treasurer has a huge task completing the event accounts, and our merchandising team will shortly be placing and sending out clothing orders. The website needs much rewriting now the event is over for this year, and there’s the photo competition to collate and judge.  And coming up in September, there’s the fundraising 2015 York Rally Sportive to organise…

The committee will be meeting soon to both look back and plan ahead, and we have a long ‘improvements’ list made during the event to discuss and implement before we’re back in 2016.  New committee members – who can commit to coming to most of our meetings in York (about once a month), are especially welcome.

Our provisional dates for the next York Rally are 25th-26th June 2016, but we cannot completely confirm these dates until York Racecourse release their 2016 racing calendar.

Update early July: the most likely dates for 2016 are now one weekend earlier: 18th-19th June. This will be confirmed ASAP.

We’ll post further updates in a few days, after we all have had a chance to recover, catch up and go for some bike rides!

Once again thanks to you all for being part of it  – it was great to see so many friendly cyclists having fun, to meet so many old friends and to make new ones. We’ll keep in touch and hope to see you again in 2016!

The York Rally Committee

For now just a small gallery of pictures taken on Saturday – many more will follow! We already have a good number of entries for the photo competition too – thanks for sending them so fast – and please keep them coming!