Christmas 2004

After editing this humble tome for some years now I am now able to rely on a sort of editorial team to assist in the assembling and distribution of the newsletter. This edition has involved myself and Debbie (doesitall.com) Lewis in a joint effort hence its rather mixed flavour. I hope you will be happy to receive your newsletter by email when possible, as it will save considerable time and effort. Obviously those of you without access to the net will continue to receive a newsletter by the post. If you have received this by post and would prefer to have it by email then please forward your address to myself.

Well here we are with our first all new ‘electronic’ newsletter. We can now easily enjoy the many images of brightly coloured friends doing things they should not have done, or at least they should not have done unless we were all watching so we could fully enjoy the antics with deep roaring laughter.

Unfortunately on our recent Christmas Dinner ride, ‘Mr Smug’ was far to busy trying to pilot the Smug Mobile while laughing, to operate any form of camera. ‘Debbie Does It All Dot Com’ left the tarmac and grass road for a trip along the wall of death. Well it would have been if she had not seen the error of her ways just in time, resulting in more of a ‘pin ball’ effect than a ‘wall of death’. After falling off a perfectly stable trike on one side, she over compensated and fell off the other side before ‘Mr Smug’ had taken in enough air to launch into his second bout of laughter.

As if almost falling off was not enough for both of these miscreants, ‘Debbie Does It All Dot Com’ in her very earnest, and admirable, efforts to get every clue on the treasure hunt, slammed on her able brakes without so much as a whisper to the still recovering ‘Mr Smug’. His smugness had to take immediate evasive action to avoid wearing ‘Debbie Does It All Dot Com’ like a piece of modern cycle art.

This was by no means the only note worthy event of this festive venture into the hills above Bangor-on-Sea. The ‘Hunt Master’ claimed that a perfectly respectable and reliable national institution such as BT would contrive to undermine her efforts to supply a full and interesting hunt clue. ‘Wee Betty’ claims that BT targeted the little red phone box in the middle of no-where just to spite her, but we all know that BT are far too busy for such games. An alternative answer must be available.

I put it to you, the people of the court of cycling fair play, that ‘Wee Betty’ in fact took a bribe. She maliciously ripped the call box from the harmless little, and may I say ageing, red phone box, in order that last years winners of the treasure hunt could reign supreme for a second year! Skulduggery was afoot without a doubt, for the winners had a specialist in telecommunications on their team, who with knowledge not available to the rest of the entrants in this, the jewel in the crown of the NWTC competitive colander, pipped the nearest other team by only one point! ‘Wee Betty’ we are watching you…

Yet more dubious winners were announced in the ‘photo competition’. The winners were none other than Le Gary, and Albert, who I would like to point out to the court, not only had the technology to cheat, but were the main players in the previous nights photo and video extravaganza, so were bound to have had some input into the ‘photo competition’. Bribery and corruption reaches all organisations, and the NWTC is no exception. The question you the jury have to ask yourself is, was ‘Wee Betty’ yet again on the take.

It was probably the thought that the ‘Mc Lewis’ the skip was expected to try to wangle two meals for the price of one at the lunch stop. Having successfully sorted the tribe out with soup ‘Mc Lewis’ then skulked around until the pre-prepared chips and nuggets arrived, and looked suitably aghast. But the ‘Mc Lewis’ plan was foiled, when ‘Wee Betty’ invited all comers to partake of the joys of fried food. And never one to pass up on an offer of a bit of a ‘fry’, ‘Mr Smug’ was straight in, taking the food out of the mouths of the ‘Lewisettes’. ‘Sultry Sue’ was also seen to sneak the odd chip from the plate of the underfed ‘babes-of-the-bicycle’. The table in the corner with the ‘Rowdy Russells’ (in training to join the ranks of the ‘Rowdy Pensioners’) woofed down a whole plate of the ‘babes-of-the-bicycle’ nourishment for the long ride back to ‘Bangor Towers’.

On the topic of nourishment, Chris, Siobhan and Caitlin, brought ‘Wee Betties’ witchy brew of mulled wine for general consumption at the Bus-stop concert featuring the ‘Mc Lewis’ family singers, and the ‘We-are-not-an-item’ band (see awards board).

Nourishment, as always, is a feature of TC events, and Chris and Mike provided plenty on our return to ‘Bangor Towers’, for Mike was 60. We helped him celebrate with tea and cakes rounding off a great meet.

Awards

The Annual Awards Ceremony is always well attended and we feel there should be some ongoing competition throughout the year so that members are able to openly compete for each coveted prize. There will obviously be the adhoc awards generated by individuals each year but we would like to propose the following ongoing awards.

A. Rude Gnome Award (For Distasteful behaviour not in keeping with TC etiquette)

Contenders (from Dec 04 run)

1. Doreen – For the use of secateurs to assemble an en route Christmas decoration
2. "We are Not an Item" – Singing ability
3. Gethin – Deliberately filling his nappy to ensure we would wait in the cold before afternoon departure.

B. The Flat As A Pancake Award

Contenders

1. Sophie (The Dog) 1 x puncture on trailer wheel

C. Fashion Award

Contenders 

1. Anna for her stylish wellies (Boden in fact – Ed)

Contributions

For people not able to attend each meet the newsletter is the best way to keep a feel for what is happening in the TC. The more contributions we have the better so I will email everyone approx. 10 days before I want to complete each issue to jog your memories. If you have anything you’d like adding please send it across. This can be articles/items for sale/cycling items you’d like to buy or borrow/ announcements etc. Could the leaders of the next meet please get in touch to confirm date, time and departure point for meet along with details of lunching facilities, i.e. do we need to bring butties?

This is the first electronic issue and I will include two images. I will use the smallest size images possible but if these do cause problems with downloading for anyone please let me know. Also, if there is anything else you are unhappy with regarding the newsletter please let us know.

Ride Off The Pud Run

2^nd January 2005

The Coleman Family have been volunteered to lead this the first run of 2005 and have issued the following details.

Start - approx 10.00 am from our place allowing time to catch up with gossip. It is proposed to rest and be thankful at the Rest And Be Thankful café even though it won't be open it will be necessary! (bring a flask).

Return to Rhos on Sea via playground at Westshore then explore the proposed Sustrans route to Deganwy before returning along Pabo Lane. If you want to ride to us and rendezvous enroute then please phone.

Hopefully refreshments will be from home grown produce (all organic-ish). Alternatively you could ride directly to our house for say 13.00hrs.

1. Luke addressed the meeting by informing all that the agenda item of what to do with the £100 he was holding in the kitty was to be removed as we had lost £80 for the deposit on Dimmingsdale YHA and we had spent £20 on prizes etcetera for the dinner.
2. The failure to secure sufficient bookings for the January Hostel meet had been fairly indicative of the year as a whole. Runs attendances have been low this year and this had worried us a little bit. The meeting agreed that the year had been affected by the coincidence of various individual circumstances. On the subject of what to do with hostel meets in future Geoff suggested doing RentAHostel at the latest possible date i.e. April to avoid bad weather implications. This is possibly the way forward for 2006 onward.
3. The Christmas Dinner was debated. Was it perhaps better to have an annual dinner earlier in the autumn? It was pointed out that the larger hostels, which we would need to accommodate us all, would still be open until the end of November thereby making sole usage an expensive proposition. It was proposed that as Bangor YHA had been so amenable and such good value then we should use it again. The families said that they would prefer to be able to opt the children out of the full dinner. Geoff said he felt that we should get the children something cheaper/simpler and split the total price for those meals between the whole group of adults thereby keeping the price down for the families. There seemed to be general acceptance of this idea.

N.B. Following the excellent dinner Luke spoke to the Hostel warden and has already booked next years dinner.

4. The Newsletter has become something of a chore for a small production team. But it was felt that its production and regular appearance was valuable for motivating and informing the members. Luke said he would do his best to ensure regular monthly newsletters but that he was worried that he was becoming stale and repetitive. He appealed for contributors. It was suggested that we alternate the newsletters with brief updates, perhaps this would lighten the load. It was agreed that runs leaders should make all efforts to write a run report for the newsletter. Many members expressed a wish to receive the newsletter by email. Several people volunteered their services after the meeting, in particular one marketing professional with dot.com experience.
5. Following some criticism earlier in the year from parties outside the group concerning the up dating of the website Becky explained that she and Luke had vociferously rebuked that party pointing out that our webmaster, Gerald, was a volunteer and had a job to go to as well. The group thanked Gerald for his efforts and hoped he would continue to maintain the website despite this discouragement. It was pointed out that even though the website was now up to date the national website had failed to reflect this thereby being out of date itself! We took some satisfaction in this.
6. The subject of including families in rides was raised and various methods discussed of ensuring the group remained inclusive of all members. The meeting gave strenuous backing to the principle of inclusiveness. Figure of Eight routes were mentioned by Graeme. Luke took the opportunity to reiterate the philosophy of the group, that the rides were more about getting people together for a day out than bagging miles. Those who wish to use the runs as training were welcome to ride to the start or the lunch venue from home.
7. Becky and Luke took the opportunity to ask if any members felt they would like to take over the running of the group. There was a noticeable look of terror at this suggestion. Therefore we are lumbered with it for time in eternity it would seem.

This is now up and running and mostly populated.  Please contact Luke if you want to volunteer for any open dates.

NORTH WALES TANDEM CLUB 2005 RUN SHEET