Some CI info

morana

Hello CI Member,

I trust 2013 is treating you all well so far, apart from the weather that is!!, but, sure, Spring is just around the corner and we’ll all be back on our bikes in no time!!

I just wanted to give you an update on developments since my last communication before Christmas.

On-Line Registration:
The take-up of the Online registration option has being a phenomenal success. We here at Cycling Ireland are very grateful and we hope you are pleased with the simplicity of the process, prompt delivery of your new licence and presentation pack!. We currently have a 95% on-line registration rate against a target of 75%+.This has increase from 32% approx. last year!!!. It has enabled us to process nearly 7,000 licence by the end of January 2013 The competitive figure at the end of January 2012 was 3,066. It’s difficult to say at this stage how much organic growth there is in these figures as new members tend to be in the Leisure section and generally register later on. But it’s a very positive development regardless. Please continue to encourage your remaining members to register on-line as you need to have as many members as possible registered before 31st March 2013 so that your club has the best chance of achieving its MORT (Member on-line Registration Target). All 2012 member who have not already renewed will receive a reminder at the beginning of this month and each month to June 2013 or until they register. We will also try to contact those members who joined in 2011 but did not renew in 2012.

Club Affiliation:

We currently have 232 clubs affiliated (280 for all of 2012) which is great news and well done to all. We encourage those of you who still have to do so, to affiliate immediately because the cost is increasing and your licences cannot be issued until that is completed. Also, please ensure that all your officials are in place particularly your Child Protection Officer.

2013 Calendar

The Road and Leisure calendar was published last weekend and it is available on our web site in Google calendar and PDF format. Please check that your Club’s Events are correctly recorded and advise if there are any last minute (detail) changes that you may want to make (Note: No date changes, only corrections, can be facilitated). The event calendar has also being published in various newspapers so this should aid awareness and participation.
2013 Yearbook

The Year book is now completed and will be available for reading and downloading from the Website from 1st February onwards. We have revamped the style for easier reading and hopefully you will find it a useful companion!. We have put it through extensive quality control checks and reviews but, again, we are asking for your assistance in reviewing the content. If you spot any detail which may require amendments, please advise us as we can still make some changes before we sent it out to the printers.

Event Master:

I am delighted to announce that we have formed an exclusive alliance with www.eventmaster.ie to facilitate on-line registration of all events on the 2013 Calendar. This is the Irish equivalent of Ticket Master but specialising in sporting events. The process works as follows: All events on the Calendar will be “Preloaded” onto the Event Master system. Those clubs, who wish to use it, simply request that their event is “Switched on” when you are ready to accept bookings. Event Master will provide a link from your website to their log-on page. The system is integrated into www.CyclingIreland.ie database, so once your member enters their licence no., it will prepopulate the on-line registration form with all their required details they just proceed to pay the fee (by Debit/Credit card/Paypal only unfortunately). As advised we have a special deal with Paypal with very low commission fees so contact me if you want to use this facility. If you use Paypal you receive the funds direct to your club’s bank account immediately. Otherwise registration income will be paid to the club every 7 days until registration closes! Remember, one day licences will be withdrawn for Road races from 1st April 2013 and we hope to have a facility to take out on –line ODL’s for leisure events.


Also, Please remember that your Event Promoter is required to complete the Safety Code Schedule and submit it to us 4 weeks prior to the Event for it to be fully endorsed by Cycling Ireland

Database developments:

Your members will have experienced the many enhancements to simplify the registration process and the outcome would indicate that most of the feature worked well. We are conscious that not everything worked according to plan initially and we appreciate your patience here. The one regret is that we were unable to deliver the club fees payment facility for 2013 registration but we are working on a comprehensive solution to this issue (and more) for 2014.

You may be experiencing a delayed response on the online registration system. This is due to volume of usage and we are endeavouring to increase capacity to eliminate this delay so bear with us please.

Affinity Deals:

One of the many benefits to being part of a large organisation is the ability of the member to avail of the increases commercial negotiating power of that organisation You will be aware that we launched www.cyclesure.ie Bike Insurance affinity scheme in the middle of last year and it is gaining in popularity among our members. I am now delighted to announce that we had created an affinity deal with O2, the largest Mobile phone provider in Ireland for all our members. The main feature of the deal will be to provide a very competitive monthly plan (12 month contract) for all our members so that they have unlimited calls to all networks and landlines throughout Ireland for just €25 plus VAT! This represents a discount of nearly 50% over what you can achieve on a personal basis. There will also be very reasonable priced add-ons for text and data depending on your preference. Finally there will be a number of state-of-the-art smartphones at very competitive prices. Details will be available in the Year book and on-line very soon

We hope to put together about 10 Affinity Deals to enhance the value of your membership over the next year or so. The deals may cover such things as Health Insurance, Major stores discounts, specialist bike outlets etc. You might let me know if you have a preference and depending on demand we will try to source it.

IT Developments:

We are currently reviewing an integrated IT systems which will facilitate you in the administration of your clubs affairs and eliminate the need to duplicate efforts on our database. We hope to pilot this with some Clubs during the summer and have it available for general use in October 2013 for the 2014 licencing period. One main feature of a preferred system will be the ability to communicate effectively with your members via Text, e-mail, twitter and other social media and deliver our services to you via your new O2 smart phone!

Other Items:
We are continuing to work hard behind the scenes to provide you with better services. As we have limited resources in KR House, the more we can automate manual procedure such as ODL’s, Insurance Claims, etc. the more time is available to provide value added services such as Technical Support, Event Organising Support, Coaching Training & information etc., Thus a major initiative for 2013 to move these procedures on line in a user friendly environment so that you will be able to experience the same response rate for these services as we have achieved with our licensing process

We hope you have a very “EVENTful” 2013 and we look forward to serving you with enhanced facilities in the near future.



Watch this space!

Yours in cycling,

Best Regards
Frank Keenan

Hungrycol

That's all well and good but is the office tidy?

morana

Hungrycol wrote: »

That's all well and good but is the office tidy?

actually it is! they rearranged it and tidied everything up for Mr Roche. It was #1 on the priority list!

buffalo

The bike insurance affinity scheme is great, likewise anything that gets members discounts in bike shops, but I'm a little confused about what you're trying to achieve with the O2 liaison. It strikes me as an odd thing to offer to a cycling demographic.

morana

buffalo wrote: »

The bike insurance affinity scheme is great, likewise anything that gets members discounts in bike shops, but I'm a little confused about what you're trying to achieve with the O2 liaison. It strikes me as an odd thing to offer to a cycling demographic.

We are trying to get options for you the members. Phone in pocket going to training etc? Anyway we are trying to do something with the licence and the phone.