2018 Chairman

During our end of year meeting last year the board of BMX NSW spend some time defining what it is we do. We realised we do more than just run and govern races, we are responsible for racing, the Test Team, the State Team, coaching pathways, dinners, award nights and a whole lot more. All these things are experiences for our members in the BMX arena and we strive to do them really well. Once we understood this our mission became very easy to define.

We then set about working on the building blocks that would help us achieve our mission, they needed to be clear and relevant for our clubs and members. Four key areas were identified as shown in the table below.

Continuous improvement: seek feedback, listen, act
Work smarter not harder: challenge established processes
Embrace technology: working with technology is essential to our success
Collaboration: Learn from each other, don't reinvent the wheel

With the key building bocks in place we defined our core values, they are at the heart of what we do.

Respect - Integrity - Transparency - Accountability

Working through this process meant that as a board we were on the same page, naturally we have different opinions but we are all focussed on the mission. The reports from the other directors i think reflect our mission, our building blocks and our values.

The Board of BMXNSW

The composition of the board changed this year with the departure of Paula Griffiths and Lorraine Dunkley, both of who have been key figures for a number of years. We are fortunate however that Paula has continued as Manager for the State Team where she continues to provide an excellent service. Lorraine still helps out in the role of MPIO (Member Protection Information Officer) which is an important role.

Three new board members Mel Chambers, Bluey Seaton and Sarah Davis have hit the ground running in the past year.

Bluey Seaton has taken on the role of Race Director where he has raised the bar for BMXNSW events across the State, he has implemented standards providing a consistent product which is well understood by our clubs and members.

Sarah Davis is our Events Director, she organises and prepares all dinners, awards and presentations for the State Titles and the Pre-State Titles which includes the Mighty Elevens and the Test Team events. Sarah has turned around our events injecting energy and passion which translates into events that are a great experience for our members.

Mel Chambers is our Executive Director, this is a big role providing the front door to BMXNSW and support across all portfolios. Mel is highly organised and has taken on the task of uplifting our administration, she has done an amazing job in the short time she has been with us and has become another indispensable member of the board.

The following people have been board members for two years or more

Peter Jaehne is the representative team manager, he has built the Test Team up over the years and has recently started working with the State Team Managers to uplift the State Team experience

Michael Craig is the Finance director, the finances of the state are the best they have ever been. Michael is a huge advocate of transparency and has introduced the 'Pub Test' which is a subjective and general analysis of community expectations.

Alex Bainy is our Marketing Director, he has a strong governance background and has vast knowledge around running clubs, applying for grants and other administrative tasks.

Technology

Technology focus has been in three areas. The BMX NSW app, Confluence and trialling the Sqorz event management system.

BMXNSW app: This a a white-labelled app provided by a company called Sportsbag. It's used for event information, general information, the race calendar, any alerts and event entries. Feedback from our members has been very positive and now that so many of them are using the app we have been able to reduce our dependency on Facebook as an information system. We're now mainly only using Facebook for marketing messages.

Confluence: BMXNSW has been using Confluence since 2015 and we're finding it progressively useful as time goes on. It's used in a number of ways

blog for collaboration with the clubs
searchable data repository
all our technical guides
meeting minutes
record of decisions made
race calendar (integrates with the BMXNSW app)

Sqorz: The board of NSW voted to try Sqorz out for the last four races of the season including the BMX NSW State Titles. The software performed well with excellent feedback from the members and volunteers who liked the ease of use. Sqorz lines up with the one of the key BMXNSW goals which is to embracing technology.

Conflict of Interest: For clarity I am the director of the company that has developed the Sqorz event management software, as such I cannot and will not partake in any board decisions regarding Sqorz.

Overall

All is well in NSW. The director reports reflect the progress that has been made in 2018. We are looking forward to 2019 to continue improving BMX and create great experiences for our members.