Hello everyone and welcome to the York Cycle Campaign AGM 2024.

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone who voted in our new committee members. I’m delighted to introduce our new committee: Michael Driscoll as secretary, James Eusden as treasurer, ordinary members Andy Shrimpton, Andy D’Agorne, Joseph Gilling, Leah Bennett, Frances Coates, and myself as chair.

I’m going to give you an overview of the year gone by and remind everyone of what we’ve been up to.

We’ve had a strong focus on cycle security, led by committee member Leah Bennett, who has been prominent in organising cycle registration stalls with the British Transport Police. This past year we’ve held 12 stalls and marked around 150 bicycles. We’ve also formed new partnerships with North Yorkshire Police, with whom we’ve now been working for around a year, and the Road Safety Team. We’ve also participated in four sessions of Light Up, Be Been, Stay Safe, held at Acomb, the station, and the University of York.

As well as our relationship with the police, we have been forging other new relationships, led by Andy Farndale who is not on the committee but is an extremely active campaign member, so if anyone needs inspiration, I’m sure Andy will be only too happy to give it. He organised a meeting with the council transport team, and has been instrumental in setting up short social rides with York Rouleurs. In the new year, we have a scheduled meeting with Jo Coles, the York and North Yorkshire Deputy Mayor for Policing, Fire and Crime to discuss cycle security. We continue to represent YCC on the Civic Trust’s Transport Advisory Group, and this year we have been active participants in the new York Climate Commission’s transport group. 

And just to go back to Andy for a moment, he is a ward representative for Bishopthorpe. The ward reps are organised by Andy D’Agorne, who this year has set up a WhatsApp group for easier communication, and they represent cycling in their local areas to their councillors. We’ve had several ward rep meetings this year, the most recent of which included Greg Morgan from the council. If you would like to see improvements in your local area, do get in touch with Andy about being a ward rep.

Much of our work behind the scenes involves input into new council strategies, and contributions to consultations. This is in large part led by Andy D’Agorne again, who amongst other committee members has written many three-minute speeches for council decision meetings, the delivery of which has been shared amongst committee and campaign members. We have also contributed to workshops held by the council, including station frontage design, blue badge city centre access, and the draft Local Transport Plan. For the latter, we hosted a Big Conversation event. We have been involved in various other consultations including, for better or worse, Tadcaster Road. We also prominently campaigned against the station entrance from Lowther St being closed until late 2025, which was subsequently reopened. Going forward, we have met with the CoYC Transport Team and agreed that YCC will review plans before new resurfacing of roads, and meet on site before cycle marking and signs are implemented.

Along with the York Civic Trust and other organisations, we held a rather lively transport hustings for Mayoral candidates in April. In June we hosted a screening of the cycling film Chasing the Sun at City Screen, with a Q&A hosted by new committee member Joseph Gilling.

We led two successful Kidical Mass rides this year, one in April which attracted around 80 riders, and another in October which saw over 100 people join us. We will continue to participate in these worldwide rides, which demand safer cycling for the younger generation. We’ve also started holding social rides on the last Friday of the month, led by new committee member Joseph, which are nice and gentle 30 minute rides that end in a pub or cafe. The most recent event at the end of October was a particular highlight, ending as it did here at Cycle Heaven with a free gig by Tim Pheby and Tandem.

As ever we’ve been trying to increase our membership, and have held two stalls at the University of York’s Freshers’ Week with the British Transport Police again. We’ve also held seven recruitment stalls at a variety of locations and events throughout the year, from the Fulford Show and West Park Bank Fair to the York Festival of Cycling and York Pride.

Outside of York, committee member Leah travelled down to London where she attended the Mini-Holland approach session in Waltham Forest. This gave a great insight into school streets and LTNs, as well as initiating good contacts with Active Travel England. And during the summer, Andy Farndale enabled three members to attend the Active City conference in Leicester. This annual conference illustrated why increasing social riding with a variety of targeted groups is key to getting people engaged, how data collection and analysis can help put your case forward, and why bringing in the community can drive a successful change in cycling.

It was particularly interesting for members to attend the Active City conference since 2025’s will be held in none other than our own fair city. This will be a big opportunity to showcase what we’ve achieved so far, and to promote our ambitions to Active Travel England, who will co-host the event.

And there’s a lot to look forward to in the coming year. In the very near future – next week, in fact – we hope to roll out the Cycle Survey app, which was developed by our new secretary Michael Driscoll. This will audit the cycle stand provision in York, and was trialled a few weeks ago.

We’ve got big plans for cycle safety in 2025. We will be part of a Keep Your Bike Safe group along with universities, cycling groups, schools, and shops, which will be launching in the new year. We have secured £1k ATE funding for cycle marking and a banner to raise awareness of cycle security, and expect to increase cycle marking sessions to over 25. We hope to encourage cycle shops to consider Bike Registration as a key service, and to work with CoYC to identity and trial sites for secure cycle parking. We’ve also had a very positive reaction from Visit York about trialling a supervised bike parking area outside the footstreets for the Christmas markets in 2025, who described it as a “brilliant idea and concept”.

In terms of the campaign itself, we intend to register ourselves as a charity in 2025, and have asked for views on this, but please do email us if you have strong feelings and missed the original request for feedback. And as ever, we are always keen to hear from people willing to lobby their councillors or build local activity on safe cycling issues in their area and the city centre.

And finally, I just wanted to say an enormous thank you to all of the people who keep the cycle campaign running behind the scenes. I know I say this every time but as a reminder, everybody who is involved is a volunteer, and shares their knowledge, expertise, enthusiasm, and perhaps most importantly their time for absolutely nothing. 

So firstly, to the whole committee, who make my job of chairing very easy because they make committee meetings interesting, they do the work, they share the load, and I get to stand up in front of all of you and bask in their reflected glory. Everybody works so hard to write responses to consultations, attend meetings, organise rides and events, increase our membership, represent the campaign, liaise with the press, communicate with our members, and just deal with everyday problems. So, a round of applause for both the outgoing and incoming committees.

This year we are losing two fantastic committee members, and I would just like to take a moment to offer my sincerest appreciation and gratitude to Juliet Phillips and Gavin Welch. Juliet isn’t actually here today, but you all need to know that she has been the secretary for several years and is an absolute powerhouse. She has wrangled us into getting stuff done, written speeches and press releases, attended meetings, and organised the practicalities of… well, everything. We are truly sorry to lose her. But I know that Michael Driscoll will be an absolutely fantastic replacement, and we are really looking forward to working with him going forward.

As well as Juliet, we are losing the wonderful Gavin Welch. Gavin has been a committee member since the very beginning in 2017 and is responsible for pretty much all of the technical stuff, as well as the website, and the original designs. He has discovered that a new baby is not compatible with being on the committee, and although he will be staying on to work behind the scenes, he will be sorely missed.

As well as the committee, I would like to thank the people who keep the campaign running with their own dedicated specialities.

Joseph Gilling now joins us officially as a new committee member but has already been making a huge mark by leading our social rides and our April Kidical Mass. Every month, Pam Hanley is forced to gently harass us so that she can collate and write up our newsletter which keeps all of you informed. Caroline Lewis is our email inbox wrangler extraordinaire, sorting through the spam so that we don’t have to. Andy Farndale I’ve already mentioned, but his dedication to the cause as a ward rep and relationship builder deserves an additional note. Heather Marsden, Robert Pearson, Miark, Gerri Kostrzewa, Peter Huxford and Fran Coates all regularly help with recruitment and events. Cycle Heaven and all of their staff are a constant dedicated supporter. Steve Wilson is a professional designer who regularly whips up leaflets and posters for the campaign, and Gareth Buddo is a wonderful photographer who you may have seen snapping away at Kidical Mass. Together, Steve and Gareth are the reason we look so professional.

And I’d like to give a special shout to Dorinda Gear, our phenomenal social media guru, who is constantly posting and replying on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, including reels several times most days. Her output gives us a significant profile and raises awareness of cycling across York. She really is brilliant and we are so grateful that she is single-handedly able to keep our social media running. Dorinda is always on the lookout for new faces and case studies, so if you’re happy to be on camera or share a few words, do please make yourself known.

And finally finally, we are always looking for new people to join us in any capacity, from small roles to large. We are particularly keen to find

• a press officer, who will draft press releases and work with others to ensure YCC and cycling feature positively in the traditional media;
• a planning portal monitor, to keep an eye on the council’s planning portal and identity if there are planning applications to which we need to respond;
• more ward reps;
• And indeed anyone with skills that you reckon we need!

Thank you so much. And without further ado, I will hand over to Andy, for a more convivial part of the evening.