Chairman's Annual Report 2017

Position Profile

Chairperson

• Appointed by the board
• The nominal head of the Association
• Preside as chair at every General Meeting.

BMXNSW Directors

• Chairman: Martin Ward
• Executive Director: Lorraine Dunkley
• Director Development: Paula Griffiths
• Director Test Team: Peter Jaehne
• Director Marketing: Alex Bainy
• Director Finance: Michael Craig
• Director Events: Sarah Davis
• Director Racing: Bluey Seaton

There has been significant change in the board with four new directors in the past 12 months. The latest additions to the board are Bluey Seaton and Sarah Davis.

• Sarah Davis joins the board as Director of Events and is well qualified to do this role. She is super organised and process driven with excellent management skills. Sarah has the ability to bring everyone on the same journey, she creates an inclusive culture where all people feel engaged and are able to contribute. Sarah managed the Pre-State Titles and Test Team dinner for us in June, she also organised the State Titles in October so is already contributing big time to the sport.
• Bluey Seaton will manage the Racing portfolio. He is a former president of the Castle Hill club so brings great knowledge of how things work from a club perspective. Bluey is already running our events as Race Director however, this role will now give him the ability to work on the strategic direction of BMX in NSW. Bluey will work closely with BMX Australia in the presentation of the National Series event in Penrith in February next year. This is the first ever event under the new format and its fantastic that he will be able to contribute.

Unfortunately Bill Dunkley the NSW SOD and long time member of BMXNSW (over 30 years) passed away earlier this year. Bill had an amazing personality and a wealth of experience, he loved the sport and was a hugely important member of our team. Working with the Dunkley family we have created Bill Dunkley perpetual trophies for the officials of the year, these were presented to our male and female officials of the year at our State Titles dinner but the Dunkley family.

Although we do have some great officials in NSW we don’t yet have anyone who is able to step into the SOD role. Until we find someone to move into this space Gary Pettett the SOD from ACT has agreed to help us out.

Events

All State run Open and Series race events have been standardised across NSW. Start, finish times are the same, practice times and groups are the same, staging layout and process is also the same. Riders, parents and officials know what to expect and when to expect it. This has now given us a strong base upon which to look at the event in its entirety. We’re putting a stronger focus on the total experience and looking for ways to make racing interesting and fun for non-BMX spectators. This is just started however, we’ve started addressing the look and feel of our events to make them more visually appealing, we’re actively working to make commentary more relevant for non-BMXers and we’re looking at better ways of interleaving commentary with music as a method for enhancing mood.

New initiatives in 2017

Two new initiatives were introduced into NSW at the beginning of 2017 with the aim of improving the experience for our members. We introduced late entry capability for first time this year, entries for our events close the Sunday prior to the event but we now allow late entries on the Monday which costs a extra $20. This still allows clubs enough time to prepare the Sprocket trophies and get the money from the bank for the prize money. The second initiate was to remove the registration process completely. All riders are considered registered for the event unless we are explicitly told otherwise. Three immediate benefits to this have been observed:

• All members are pleased they do not need to lie up for registration
• The stress on the score shed has dropped considerably, they now have plenty of time to manage any issues and they are always ready in good time with sheets printed ready for racing.
• There are less transponder issues during racing as riders are now using the transponder checking station to see if they have been entered in the right race. This means more riders are checking their transponders and issues are being picked up prior to racing.

Technology

There is a growing acknowledgement that technology plays a much more important role in BMX than ever before. While this does introduce change to established procedures there are many benefits of utilising the technology available to us. We have been using Confluence at a board level since 2015 and took the bold step of introducing it to clubs early 2017. Some clubs were very quick to see the benefits while others have taken a more considered approach.

We’ve been building a knowledge base of procedures policies and how-to’s which I’m sure has been used by all clubs at one stage. The technical guides (or flyers) are all created and stored in Confluence along with race results, officials lists and more. We use Confluence at a board level for storing all our meeting minutes, we have a board blog so we can see what we’re all doing and we also use this for basic decisions. The Club blog is starting to gain momentum with clubs sharing information and realising the benefits of being connected. Club calendars can be shared and updates can be made in real time. As more clubs get used to the technology the opportunities for collaboration will improve.

During the AGM in February 2017 we presented five areas of focus for BMXNSW for 2017.

The five items were:

1. Client experience
2. Continuous improvement
3. BMXNSW brand
4. Reduce workload
5. Increase membership

1) Client experience

• Engaging clubs
• Building knowledge base
• Improving communications
• Removing registration
• Allowing late entries
• Working on the look and feel of race events

2) Continuous improvement

• Survey after the AGM
• Working on the look and feel of race events
• Reevaluating the administration of the coaching course
• Providing extra people (Adam Carey, Luke Madil)  to assist with the coaching assessments
• Working with BMXA on Regional Academies

3) BMXNSW brand

• Trailer
• Banners
• Facebook
• Confluence

4) Work smarter not harder

• Focus on providing value not just grunt work
• Confluence
• This will be a bigger focus for next year
• Technology improvements
• Task Management 

5) Increase membership

• As a state we need to support clubs in their initiatives
• The older ladies are motivated
• We will help them (so will BMXA)
• Declining numbers from 11 year old onwards - how do we manage this

Next year

Now the new members of the board have settled we’ll be able to continue to work on building our events, improving communication between us all and working on collaboration. I’m really looking forward to 2018 and the opportunities it will bring.

Martin Ward

BMXNSW Chairman