Rugby RCC 2021 Time Trial Season

A few important things to flag up for the forthcoming season. First we regret that Alan and Val Saitch are standing down after many years of service, while Edith and Nigel Hastie will also be standing down for health reasons. This will mean more than ever we will need help from volunteers - more of that later.

Although we're able to start on schedule, Covid-19 is still with us and we still have to be vigilant. This means we must insist on the following procedures:

Signing-on.
Instead of signing-on for each event we've devised a new form where riders can sign on for the full season, thus reducing the face-to-face contact. You can download the form from our website, go to sign-on 2021, complete the necessary details and return it to us either by email or at the first event. Please read all the wording on the form, it's important that you are aware of its content. Please note that it's important that your form has your SIGNATURE, not just your name.

Private Entries
As last year, we will not accept private entries at least until we are free of Covid restrictions. Again, for £10 we would encourage anyone wishing to ride to join us as a 2nd claim member. That will give access to the booking system and inclusion in the results listing on our website.

Face Covering.
For the time being it appears we should be wearing face masks when interacting with colleagues, especially as many of our members will not have had the Covid vaccination until mid season.

Women Riders.
We've gained several lady members of late and we're anxious to encourage them to compete, both against the men and against each other. We're proposing that places 1 - 10 be reserved for lady members until the actual day of the event, then on the day any free places still remaining can be taken by men. Of course that doesn't preclude a lady member booking a later number at any time if that's more convenient. This is just a trial and we have no plans to amend the booking system to enforce this process.

Squad Numbers.
The system worked quite well last season in that it reduced face-to-face contact every week, even if a few lost their numbers in the wash! As we're still going to be operating under Covid restrictions, at least at the start of the season, it seems we should carry on with this system. For practical reasons we'll issue a new set of numbers and these will be posted on the website. The new semi-disposable numbers will be issued from the first event. Again, the squad number will have no bearing on your start position, this will be determined for each event through the booking system. We also ask riders to shout their START number as they cross the finish as this saves the timekeeper having to correlate squad numbers against actual start numbers. (One day things will return to normal!)

Entry Fees.
We've frozen all our fees at last year's level, ie. Wednesday TTs to be £3.50 per ride. Again, while the virus is present we're anxious to reduce cash payments and are encouraging people to pay ahead by PayPal. However, we would prefer riders not to make single payments for one event as this involves considerable admin and a cost to the club in PayPal commission (the smaller the amount the more it costs). If a single payment is unavoidable we ask that the fee be £4.

Pushing-off.
Initially, while social distancing is in force, we will have to function without a pusher-off at the start of our TTs. Just as soon as it's safe to do so we will re-introduce pusher-offs, subject to sufficient volunteers.

Marshalling & Volunteering.
We always need volunteers for marshalling and to help with the timekeeping. We reckon with our current membership a ratio of one volunteer slot to 8 rides should suffice. This also applies to 2nd claim members! So far the system we've used through the booking system has been ignored by many riders, so we're about to try out an alternative. This will involve using a Google spreadsheet which can be accessed through our website. It will enable our members to enter their names to volunteer for any forthcoming event through the season. As it stands this is not password protected and therefore open to abuse. Please bear with us, it's an experiment and we'll just have to see how it works

Socialising
For reasons set out above we need to discourage post event socialising, at least until we're told it's safe to do so. This will mean that our refreshment service will be put on hold, and we will need a replacement for Edith for when we can re-start what was a very popular way to end an event. As last year we will try to post the provisional results on the club's WhatsApp group, with the ratified version the following day on our website.

And finally……
Remember we're all volunteers doing our best for the club and a successful club relies on the support of its members. A club is something that people join and contribute to; it is run by its members for its members and competing cannot take place without mutual support.