BMXNSW - 2017 Test Team Report

Position Profile

Test Team Report

Test Team is a working product, for 2018 I would like to focus on the following:

• Roles & Responsibilities – Event Management getting involved.

• Promotion – Within our State, other states and via BMXA Marketing

  • Pre-titles and qualifier

  • Qualifier alignment with BMXA events (National Series/Nationals)

    • Riders will receive an invitation to ride for the Test Team

    • We are spending a lot of money not to be sending Australia’s best riders

    • Support from other states – need to develop a per rider model as NSW cannot continue to support this opportunity in full

• Cost off-set – need to focus on trying to offset the current cost scope via grants, etc

  • Some of the costs captured should be costed to BMXNSW as they are not outright Test Team costs

• Mighty 11’s – review prize structure, this can be reduced, we should align this with NZ – NSW give too much away

Japan

I would like to get this off the ground in 2018:

• We need to agree on the selection criteria as this is critical and must be impartial as it is not performance based

• NSW riders will be eligible

• Will need to provide a price structure and Itinerary – Martin has given as high-level structure for me to consider

• I should have a complete Product structure by June – ready for November

Academy

Where to from here?:

I have received no updates from the Academy given my meeting early 2017

• The Academy was to provide me an understanding as to how they would work within the BMX structure – noting received to date, have chased this information 3 -4 times across 2017

• I will put this on the back burner until I have the opportunity/time to implement what has been developed by others

Test Team Report – 2018 New Zealand Leg

Another successful outcome,

Training Camps

These continue to be of great benefit to both Coach and Riders alike, it allows the riders to bond and work and function as a team which is extremely important when travelling to New Zealand. It also provides the coach with an opportunity to evaluate each of the chosen riders , and provides management with the opportunity to assess the riders from a behavioural and capability perspective.

We are finding over time that parents are becoming more trusting of the process and are less likely to what to accompany their children during training camp weekends, this also has merit and enables Kiel to become the single voice when it comes to setting race expectations, etc.

Parent and Rider Dinner

The parent dinner did not happen for this leg as there was a distinct lack of parent numbers.

Billeting on Training Camp weekends

As I had published in my 2017 report, the management team thought we would try a new initiative and billet our own riders with host club families during the camps – again this proved to be very positive, I would like to encourage other clubs to take part – it provides a WOW factor for younger riders in the sport to have test team riders stay at their home. 

Event Preparation

Uniforms, Jerseys and Pants were ordered for the riders, and where possible sizing was confirmed at the training camp.

We have suppliers/sponsors who continue to support our requirements, this is awesome, we would like to secure via donation a drink bottle and a backpack for each rider for 2018. – I think we will put a request out to the BMX community to see if there is any interest – it can be seen an an opportunity for the supplier to promote their organisation, all we would ask is that the Test Team and BMXNSW logo’s be present on the item if possible.

Travelling to NZ

As in the past, we have found that Parents are reluctant to travel to NZ with the team on the Friday, hence there is a need to organise accommodation – Budget Ibis was the choice and we are requesting that parents contribute to the cost.

In past years the team has travelled with Emirate’s, this airline no longer fly’s out of Sydney to New Zealand, this year the team travelled with Qantas, this was the worst trip, the worst service ever.

On our return trip Qantas claimed that as a team we were 40 kilo’s over our baggage limit, not we had considerable less luggage leaving NZ than we did go – the airline soon changed their mind when I had asked that all baggage be returned from check in and weighed a second time – seems it was an error in calculation on their side LOL.

NZ Billets

Given the event was in the north of the North Island, the team billeted with 2 clubs only, as we have done in past year, the team billeted with the Sunset Coast club, which is always a great opportunity to ease the riders into the billet process (most times riders are unsure of what to expect) the Sunset Coast club is amazing.

We stayed with the Sunset Coast club from Friday through till Monday – Saturday morning the rider completed a 2 hours ride session and then we were to go horse riding but received a cancellation notice via email that morning, we needed to find an alternate activity, we decided to go the SnowPlanet – all had an awesome time, very cold -4, we had I rider who due to poor behaviour need to leave the ice/snow early.

As in the past, Sunday was the Sunset Coast T-shirt race/Mighty 11’s invitational.

Monday we travelled to Whangarei and stayed with the Whangarei club for the remainder of our stay.

What an amazing bunch of people the Whangarei club are, the team managed to train for 2 hours each day and nothing was too much, they went out of their way to ensure everything was just right for our team.

Sponsors

As above, the same sponsors continue to assist – its great to have them on board, we need to expand a little and provide opportunity for other sponsors to take part

Where possible we take photo’s of sponsor products and promote this as often as we can.

We are looking for other sponsors to provide

• Drink bottles

• Backpack

• Training jersey

Team Activity

This continues to be a great initiative, it is working very well, this year we went to TreeTops climbing centre which was awesome – what a great day – we should have done this sooner  

Presentation Dinner

This was a great evening, the riders and parents enjoy it a lot, it needs a greater level of promotion as attendance was a little low – that said the North Island event this year was very low in numbers.

Event Day(s)

During the training camps and the Thursday and Friday training sessions the Management Team were able to provide a clear understanding of how the weekends race would work, this helped a lot to set expectations – no issues to deal with on race day.

Working with New Zealand

Communication continues and New Zealand continue to improve their event, this year I had written to the board of BMXNZ, providing Dion with a summary of our experience and suggestions for improvement/change. Information exchange is very positive.

General Comments

• Always great in NZ, we experienced continued poor behavioural issues by one of our riders to the point where other riders no longer wished to partner or be seated next to this rider for much of the time. – this was a very difficult situation to have to deal with especially when parents were in attendance.

• Again, as per the Aust Leg, we had one of our better riders injure herself (Bella May) 14 days out from our leave date, I will say the management team were under some pressure to fill the gap and to organise uniforms, race pants and jerseys in this time.  All went well and Mia was a great addition to the team.

• This was Kiel Dellow’s first time trip to NZ as coach, was a bit of a slow start, but Kiel managed to find his feet and we had a great 11days in NZ.

• It’s a very funny culture in NZ, some BMXers love the Australian Team and other hate us with a passion, we did encounter some behaviour from both NZ and Australians that was less than acceptable (there’s a group of Australians from Victoria who ride the North’s each year who are extremely disrespectful and rude).  

Coaches Comments

I had asked Kiel to provide a short summary of his first experience as coach in NZ, Kiel had provide a summary to which has been forwarded to BMXA Marketing, hopefully they will publish this in the next week or so.

In Preparation for 2018

No sooner had we celebrated we had to move onto the next 8 riders, I have been working with BMXA’s marketing people, this has proven to be a plus and we will continue to work with them over the next month or 2 to promote the qualifier event.

I had put together a roles and responsibilities structure and had it reviewed by both Martin and Paula, it summarises activities to be completed by both Events Management and Team Management – this needs to be bedded down and agreed to as the event continues to grow and some additional assistance is required.

Regards

Peter and Julia