The Friends of York Cycle Festival is a supporters’ club for everyone who wants to see the Festival continuing as an annual event.
Your Festival Needs You!
The Festival Needs You to become a Friend! In 2024, the Festival was a great success, in terms of numbers. However, it cost about £30,000 to run, and our expenditure exceeded our income, which put strain on our reserves. As well as looking for ways to cut expenditure and increase income, we are looking to increase the number of Friends and also ask them to assist with our efforts to drive in income.
Festival goers enjoying a refreshment break, during a guided ride, at York Marina in 2024. Photo by courtesy of Barry Raynor
Benefits of membership of the Friends of the York Cycle Festival include:
- Members will be able to pick up a free show programme at the Festival, which gives free entry to the Cycle Jumble
- A twice-yearly newsletter, accessible via a dedicated FYCF web page
- And members can also pick up a Friends badge!
- That satisfying feeling of helping to sustain something worthwhile
What the Organising Committee of The York Cycle Festival hopes to gain from the Friends:
- A way of gathering contact details for keen Festival supporters, so that we can keep in touch with updates about the event.
- The Committee hopes that some of the Friends will volunteer to help during the Festival, to assist with things like helping with selling items from the FYCF table at the Cycle Jumble, rattling buckets to collect donations etc. Many hands make light work!
- Each year, the total of income we are aiming for is around £30,000 – which is still a high target for us. Campsite fees and trade bookings cover the bulk of this, but Friends memberships also help greatly to secure the event’s success.
The Committee is clear that every penny counts, and no money can be spent that has not been raised. In this spirit, committee members have agreed not to claim expenses (travel, phones, stationery etc.). We have also made it clear that there are no ‘freebies’. Any York Cycle Festival clothing worn by committee or volunteers will be paid for by them personally. Both committee members and volunteers using the campsite are being asked to book pitches at the same prices as everyone else.
This lets us ensure that every penny raised goes towards covering the unavoidable costs, including Knavesmire hire, insurance, showers, toilets, security, marquees, first aid, and much more.
Full accounts will be given at every meeting, at which all are welcome to attend. See the ‘Committee’ page for details of the next meeting.
From January 2025, we are raising the annual membership fee for the Friends to £20, which we believe to be a realistic sum.
You can either send a cheque through the post or join online. Any information you provide while joining will only be used to administer your Friends membership. For full details see our Privacy Policy.
Send a cheque by post
To join, please download the Friends of York Cycle Festival membership form as a PDF or as a Word document and send it to our treasurer, Rachel, with your cheque. If you can’t download the form, please just include a note with your name, address and a few words to indicate that the cheque is for ‘Friends’ membership.
Please make cheques payable to ‘York Rally’ and send to:
Rachel Thompson
Treasurer, York Rally
c/o 32 Scholemoor Road
Bradford
BD7 2PD
Please do also pass a copy of the form on to any friends who might wish to see the Rally return!
Join online
You can also join the Friends of York Cycle Festival via a card payment online. Orders are processed securely by Paypal and we do not see any card details ourselves. You will receive an email receipt from our online shop and from Paypal.
Annual membership of the Friends of York Rally:
Donations
You can also make a voluntary contribution of any amount – all are much appreciated and will be put to good use. If the amount is over £20 you will automatically receive Friends membership:
Thank you for your support!