metFeb2011

NOTES OF HFCYCLISTS MEETING
Tuesday 1 February 2011, 7.15pm for 7.30pm

Held at 122c Edith rd, West Kensington, W14 9AP [home of John Griffiths]

PRESENT:
John Griffiths, Ayse Kardes, Petrina Helm, Gerry Berridge, David Marsh, Marta Wojcik, Kasia Oberc, Susie Gretz, Shirin Khan, Richard Chute, Paul Saunderson.

APOLOGIES
Sharon Norris, Roger de Freitas, Loretta Reehill

WELCOME
We were pleased to see Richard here for the first time. He is involved in several causes, and would like to see a cycle route over the railway lines between West Brompton and Olympia in the future developments.

THE LOCAL IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
We have over 90% of 202 cyclists in our survey wanting a 20 mph speed limit on Hammersmith Bridge. We want a 20 mph default speed limit in residential areas, action on cycle theft, illegal parking in cycle lanes etc.
See our earlier input in August at http://www.hfcyclists.org.uk/LIPresponse04082010.doc

The Councils draft LIP, which indicates how they will spend transport funds over the next 3 years is at http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/LIP .

We made suggestions as a group, and individually. See the statement of community engagement at.
http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/Images/LIP2_apx2_tcm21-154866.pdf

Unfortunately none of our suggestions were taken up at that stage. However this draft LIP is now up for a further stage of consultation until 22 February 2011. Let's make the Council take our suggestions seriously.

Cllr Nick Botterill has recently been quoted in the Chronicle as saying the LBHF transport team is now considering whether our ideas have any transport merit.

We agreed that John will send an email to LIP@lbhf.gov.uk and copy in the leader Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh and Cllr Nick Botterill, mentioning any new points, and saying that it comes from the group.

After John has done this he will forward the message to this group, and to those who responded to the Hammersmith Bridge Survey, and invite everyone to follow this up with their own messages.

TRANSFER OF OUR ACCOUNTS
We plan to transfer some of our money from our Barclays hfcyclists account to our Unity Trust Account. The London Cycling Campaign has some access to the Unity Trust Bank account and this is useful should we cease to operate for example. It is convenient at the moment as there are no cheques outstanding. We agreed to transfer £5,520,34 to the new account, leaving £2000 in the Barclays account.

HOW TO GET CYCLE PARKING WHERE YOU THINK IT IS NEEDED
Email the Cycling Officer Simon Franklin / cc Matt Veale
simon.franklin@lbhf.gov.uk Matthew.Veale@lbhf.gov.uk
You may wish to ask them to let you know how your request is being dealt with.

WESTFIELD REMEDIAL WORKS
There are some works at Westfield yet to be sorted out, including a ramp leading to the Holland Park roundabout from the Uxbridge rd. The plans are going to a meeting in April for approval, works May/ June 2011.

DEAD BIKES ON STANDS
David brought up the problem of dead bikes on stands making the stands unavailable for use by others. Street Enforcement should be doing something about it. It is something that can be brought up at the crime summit. It is also part of a broken window syndrome, where once one bike is vandalised others are more likely to be.

CRIME SUMMIT
Actually interesting and very important that a lot of our members go to raise the problems of cycle theft, speeding cars, illegally parked cars in cycle lanes, dead bikes on stands, etc. This meeting determines what the police consider as their priorities for the next year.

The Crime Summit will take place on Saturday 5th March, 2011 from 09:30 - 14:30 (Information stands & registration 9:30-10:00, lunch 13.30-14.30) at Chelsea Football Club, West Stand, Millennium Reception Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road, London, SW6 1HS.

If you would like to attend this year's Crime Summit please register online at www.lbhf.gov.uk/crimesummit2011 . If you have any further questions regarding the event please contact Natasha Price on 020 8753 2359 or via crime.summit@lbhf.gov.uk<mailto:crime.summit@lbhf.gov.uk>.

DOUBLE OUR VOICE
The London Cycling Campaign would like to double its membership. Gerry has some leaflets from Gerhard that she will deliver to the people here tonight. It would be good if people who are not members of the LCC became members, and for those that are to encourage someone they know to become a member.
http://www.lcc.org.uk/

PUBLICITY
Gerry had seen an old A4 laminated notice about hfcyclists in the window of Bushwackers in King street. Kasia said she would help getting together a leaflet for us. Perhaps others including Susie will help. And perhaps we can get a new A4 notice for shop windows. For leaflets we would need 1/3 A4 upright leaflet holders, and people to distribute them.

BIKE WEEK 18 June to 26 June.
Bikeworks, the new organisation doing Dr Bike and Cycle training in the Borough, are planning to hold an event on Shepherds Bush Green 18 or 19 June, do we want to be involved. Gerry, Susie, Marta, Kasia, John, Paul said they will be involved. Susie suggested getting 2 banners like the Greenfest ones, for hfcyclists.

GREENFEST / SHEPHERDS BUSH FESTIVAL
David suggested that we and Gerry's daughters who are planning a festival at SBG in August should get together to produce one festival. But John and Gerry thought it not appropriate. The Bush Festival is aimed at youth involved in music, has a lot of security, and the organisers get some of the funding to pay themselves. At the moment the funding is not in place for this year's event. The ethos of the Greenfest is quite different, and all the organisers do things on a voluntary basis. We are not planning to hold a Greenfest this year.

RIDES, EVENTS, ETC?
Ealing ride, Sunday February 6, 2011, Richmond & Bushy Parks
Leaving Ealing Town Hall, Uxbridge rd 10am Back 3pm
The ride goes out to visit Richmond Park and Bushy Park along the Thames river, lunch at the Pheastantry Cafe in Bushy Park or bring a packed lunch

Also that day, Chiswick car boot - 8am to 1pm. Several people from the group normally ride along the river to visit it.
http://tinyurl.com/5tqnvca

Anyone wishing to lead a ride please get in touch with John

REFRESHMENT EXPENSES
Paul Saunderson had considered that the outlay on our refreshments for the November 2010 meeting was excessive and had asked to see the receipt for it, for £27.75. John had sent him this before the meeting. Paul had said that we should be spending money on other stuff rather than refreshments. Paul had not arrived at the meeting by the time we discussed this.

Although this was more than the guidelines we were following a couple of years ago, nearly everyone here found it acceptable and in line with inflation and were pleased with the refreshments and very glad that the host went to the effort in providing it. Gerry said as she came straight from work she would not be able to come if there were no refreshments.

John pointed out that it was not a matter of a choice between spending money on food or campaigns, we had plenty of money that we had accrued from our efforts. What we really need is people working on campaigns, which may or may not cost money.

We decided to only have meetings every two months in the near future. This would cut down on the yearly expense on food and the effort involved in providing meetings.

Later when Paul arrived he explained that he thought we should only provide things like crisps and that food like organic bread and tomatoes were not acceptable. If people wanted something more they should bring their own food to the meeting.

SHOULD WE PROVIDE PARTS FOR DR BIKE
Paul goes regularly to the Dr Bike that is on the first Tuesday of the month by the Town Hall extension. The group providing Dr Bike has changed, and Paul found that the new group did not provide parts like brake blocks, and suggested that hfcyclists should provide such parts. We did not find that appropriate. In the Bikeworks event at the beginning of Bikeweek on Shepherds Bush Green, if we found out that the Dr Bike there did not provide parts, we decided we would have some parts available.

EXPENSES
John had expenses for the following, and a cheque was issued on the Unity Trust account.
Webhosting fee £10.58
Survey monkey £24
Refreshments £30.12
Total £64.70
We are grateful to Petrina for the bottle of wine she contributed tonight.

DATE / PLACE` for next meeting
Tuesday 5 April, 7.15 for 7.30pm
At the home of Ayse Kardes
50D Longridge rd
SW5 9SH

John Griffiths [chair / co-ordinator]
020 7371 1290 / 07789 095 748
john@truefeelings.com
OUR WEBSITE www.hfcyclists.org.uk