rabie

thanks for your offer of help/guidance various clubs/individuals in our centre have brought land before so we hope we know what we're doing! the aim of the press release was to tell people what was going on (we called an EGM to authorise it) so we knew people would start hearing about soon fingers crossed and hope our bid gets accepted

yes and no on one level perhaps yes, "someone" should set he bar for whatever class (by a technical standard), so everyone is singing form the same hymn sheet on the other hand, no the TEC is a 8 man committee trying to cover two wide and diverse sports across the UK (and beyond), how can they enforce some national standard ??? Do we print War and Peace and hand it out to the scrutineers (but you all say "I

we've just set our 2007 prices for trials, centre -

actually thats a very fair comment, we have two huge problems, one our trials tend to be laid out by different teams so consistency between our events is a weak point. I know certain riders won't ride our events if x is laying the trial out but will if y is .... Secondly the land/weather militates against us; the land is tight in places and sand wares away easily, if its wet grip disappears and transforms a section from too easy to impossible (just spent the day planning sections for the sidecar trials, its completely different for the dry wobbler trial!) sorry we have drifted far off topic......

two issues really there 1) if we (ACU) you went to licences we'ld get more money in upfront but over the course of the year you might loose. without specific data telling us how many times a year each trials rider rides we don't know if we've got the majority ridding 50 times a year or many one of trials riders who would have to pay significantly more thus if you went down this road you'ld have to offer day licences as people doing a one off ride won't want to pay

Well if you believe there are more pertinent issues, then feel free to open up another thread and get them debated. Who are these people who disagree? Lets here from some of them to understand why they feel like that? fair question to ask IMHO the majority of trials riders out there, and particularly the ones that run the clubs down this way (and lets face it they are the ones casting the votes) are all like Old Trials Fanatic or parents who have paid for their own kids and don't wont a en mass funding of every youth. hell there are still a significant number of "youth haters" out there who don't want to get involved with youth at all. there is a marginal tendency for these sort of people to be less computer liteate than others and so they are not reprsented here (hell i recon there are between 5 to 10 people from my centre on this site out of 300+ trials riders) as for more pertinent priorities for funding a very short list would include lobbying parliament, funding LARA, further club support with experts on planning, local gov, etc, etc and finally Land you sell an announcement very soon from the South Eastern Centre on one of these points very soon

trials rides don't want to pay enough for someone to do it down the 100% legal route IMHO. by the time you've added land costs, insurance, staff, maintaince and planning conesent i can't see how you can do it for less that

nat fair enough, just the secretary of that meeting was moaning at our committee meting that we only had about 50 entires and only 1 expert, so what would be the point of setting the route out ??? (he didn't say how many expert B's we had)

IMHO the system is in theory something like this rider => club => centre trials sub committee => centre => ACU national council => FIM => T & E committee => UEM for a variety of practical and theoretical reasons this doesn't appear to function well in practise IMHO how can 8 people relay the view of us all when there are 21 (?) centres out there, when the scope is so wide; club to international, a plethora of championships and governing a second sport (ie a trials only centre votes on enduro issues when they don't run enduros) how do other nations do it? IMHO the sports committees spend to much time on "pro" (as the Americans call it) sport, ie the top level, not the issues that concerns us down here on the ground. i hear about AMA Pro Racing, have the Americans hived off the real pro stuff, freeing up the committee to concentrate on us, joe average rider? would it help if we spent thousands

On one level the combine are right, there is a desperate need for more classes, the standard 3 class system is woefully inadequate. On the other it isn't, last i herd we've got one expert entered for our combine trial - why bother setting the route out ??? (OK there are expert B's). there are people like derek baker who ride novice yet are too good but enjoy the ride but don't want to go up (ie they are clubman). i don't pretend to know the answer, there are so many permutations its really impossible to work out really and strike any real balance cheers - lot of work goes into it and im glad it paid off

IMHO the twinshock mx scene is ridden by the ridders who rode the machines the first time round, it also helps the event are easy to enter, cheap, and involve no hassle (and a hell of a lot of ) classic mx has got to the point now where it is the offspring riding the bikes their fathers rode, but there is still a large intrest in british iron and its very popular to watch / be involved with

let me first of say the problem is worse for MX with marshal the orgional idea is valid, it does work in road race, and the eastern centre have made it work for MX (though no one else has!)..... as to what the answer is, i really don't know does the buck rest with the ACU, id severly doubt that it does

the fundamental problem with spending members money on youth is that the majority of members disagree!!! The inability to sumount the inescapbale fact, especailly when there are other more pertinant issues about affecting the majority mean this is a side issue. i could give a *** what you arrange internally but to get general funding you need to sell it to the masses (pre65s, wobblers, modern lads, etc) and they just aren't buying it

insurance co says so - lump it! was that simple enough for you?

i don't think its possible to distinguish who rides what, *and* so many parts are compulsary that the economies of scale would make it inefficiant to do as you propose

well done! a very hard and complex subject to explain - even if i understand it!

what people work for the ACU ??? The two secretaries ???

firstly it appears from your post that you greatly misunderstand how the "system" works the ACU has bugger all (for all intents and purposes) to do with it, its down to the promoting club they decide what classes / routes to run back in the good old days when beer was cheap, British made bikes, etc, etc there was one route and maybe two classes obviously today we have more classes than you or I have fingers. you may have three or four routes (and thats difficult) but the entries are only 50 to 100. thus classes barley have the usual number (6) to count for awards so who want to run them even them in my experience the twinshock field is wide and diverse, divided between those who should be ridding the red route (ie easy route, the novice route) or those riders who are truly skilled and want a challenged and they ride the blue route (intermediate). thus the twinshock field is divided. thats not to say there is anything stopping any organiser from putting on any such event, but there appears ,in my very humble opinion, to be little demand from the riders out there (they either have modern bikes, or pre 65 bikes - leaving the twinshocks or early "modern" monos to the wobblers) and the enthusiasts seams to enjoy the world of British bikes (ie pre65) in a way the groups you mention fail to .....

OK - great idea for background I'm from the Sidcup club, one of biggest clubs in the South Eastern Centre ACU (aka the Sidcup Mafia), we run MX, Enduros and Trials, I'm also heavily connected (for my sins) with many levels of the ACU firstly the ACU office have some sort of event administration software already, but i know very little about it secondly we've had something that does some of the function for other 15 years (the original was written in Q basic!!!) thirdly there is a system in operation already that does all you want to do (if i understand you correctly), the future west supercross has an online entry system (with online payments) done by the guy behind motox.TV (Google it and try the online application process). I've had very long conversations on this and while technically it is undoubtedly possible there are a few "hurdles" in the way .... a) whatever you do you encounter the problem of what about the online people the payment method is actually key, because 95% of clubs aren't VAT registered and very small scale, so for them cheque and cash are good, and they keep all the money. there is little to no benefit (actually costs) in receiving online / electronic payments. the VAT factor is just an extra complication c) usability is key! - there is a marginal propensity for off road motorcyclists to be less computer literate, whatever happens its got to be bomb proof d) its got to pass the legal/insurance hurdles at the ACU (ie is it a legal contract, etc) e) can it work standalone, ie some poor person (the event secretary) has got to get a standalone version and take that to the event (this is applicable to all motorcycle sport!) ie they need a laptop, the system has to have an end date so it can be taken as a standalone by all means ask as many questions of me as possible there is a lot to this but the end result really could work!

thats the killer for me, rather than its actuall ability to do its job

I'm all for another forum, which is how shall i say "more proactive" edited to keep topic very specific and if necessary create new posts with the bits that go off topic so they can be tackled. eg trials marking can have its own thread where it can all be discussed. mods - obviously an impartial mod will be needed who understands the issues so they can separate out the posts which should be separated. also some sort of system of warning will be needed to; keep the posts on topic, show there is clear agenda and direction, and in the event of it degenerating preventing/stopping certain stirrers (remember the Chris_UK saga) from posting in that forum. obviously the mod process needs to be transparent so sceptic (eg heath) don't feel its an ACU praise place, while at the same time ACU people won't feel its an ACU bashing place of negativity

put bike in shed get someone else to wash it if they are pressure washing something else put it in van for next trial put in more fuel, pump up tyres all this maintenance stuff i don't do oculd be the cause of my many mechanical difficultes

norton used to give me mountains of greif so im now using the free programme AVG ......

met him when he came over for a twinshock meeting at our clubs track (circa 2003 ???), nice guy, autographs, etc

to quote bubba it was like woodstock, f***ing spectacular racing but the loos, queues, prices, litter, etc .......