Enquiry about Da Yoof on Saturday Rides - Help Please

[Stu Merckx Man]

my yoof culture is not all that exciting im affraid. mostly fridays i dont go out after 10 so i can get enough sleep for the ride the next day. then saturdays is usually a 'gathering' of about 12 of us cramed in to toms garrage (who also rides with acc ), or into marks summer house, (not a bike rider), into ridiculous hours of the morning. weekdays is college, and training, (although im about to break up on my summer holidays )...so it will be a lot more riding in the week.

[Tim Coales]

Sorry I didn't see this earlier as I could have chatted to Snoop about it on Tuesday eve...
This has come up before and we've never established a definitive answer. So have often recommened Sutton CC to parents who want their children to ride but are unable to accompany them.

I've tried to be supportive of all who come on their first club runs - as Alex and Linda were to me. as a parent and someone who works with youth and children, I've kept a special eye out for younger riders who've been out wth us - Joe Goerke, Andy McGrath and a couple of others have come to mind. The young riders who currently come out with us have done so along with their parents or a responsible adult - Sam with his dad (Jon), Josh, Tom and their friend Stuart with their dad (Peter).

I have a enhanced CRB disclosure for my work, but what the Committee should really do is:
1) Decide whether ACC wants/is willing to take unaccompanied junior's on rides .
2) Develop a Child Protection Policy for the club and adopt it at a Committee meeting. This would neccesitate nominating a person and probably an alternative as being responsible for Child Protection issues.
(I could probably draft a policy if requested, and be one of the nominated people).
3) Appoint nominated person(s) for Child Protection issues - they would need to obtain an enhanced CRB disclosure which the club should pay for. (Even if I took this role, I should obtain a new enhanced CRB disclosure for ACC)
4) Check out any possible insurance issues (like we did about liability of "ride leaders")
5) Have some kind of Parental Consent form which Parents must sign before their child starts riding (again I could probably draft this).

Having done the above, the important thing is good practice and this would require that a child is not left in a vulnerable situation. We would define this in our CP policy. But basic requirement would be 2 adults (one with CRB check) on a ride that had a junior, or 3 adults (one with a CRB check) for a ride with 2 or more juniors. This effectively has been happening on the few ocassions we've had unaccompanied youngters, except without 1 to 5 above.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to be at the next Committee meeting, but there's no reason it shouldn't be considered then.

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

Absolutely right Tim, I'll put it on the agenda

[Snoop Doug]

great that we're going to make some decisions around this formally. We've clearly accomodated under 16s before need to do so within some guidance and rules. Meantime I'll go back to Belinda and sketch something out as per previous suggestions on this thread - final decision rests with club on the day - I'll suggest that a family member comes along to discuss on the day.

Sorry to keep banging on about this - if I was here I'd take more personal responsibility - but I ain't

Cheers - Snoop

[Snoop Doug]

OK folks - here's the response. I would've listed more VCs - sorry I know not who holdeth such high office (sound of forelock being tugged).

Cheers - Snoop

[color=blue]Hi Belinda

Lots of debate on this - really good that you asked as it's about time we formalised an approach to this. As you can imagine there are (quite rightly) all kinds of hoops to jump through re: juniors. We very much want to accommodate so whilst we wait for the club committee to formalise these arrangements we have a suggestion:

Your friend should come down to CSS and make himself known to Monty the club captain or a vice captain (Alex Protasiuk is a great guy). I would strongly advise that mum or dad goes along on the 1st occasion to talk through things before the ride. We have taken juniors out before but I'm not sure if they've had a parent with them. Any way - we will do our best to help - please note the final decision rests with the riders on the day, can't stress that enough.

Thanks for bringing this up - hope it works and by the time I'm back from Italy we should have a formal framework in place to manage this better.

Cheers - D[/color]

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

Aye aye Cap'n, that'll be the way forward methinks.

All aboard

[Andrew G]

Topic on [url=http://www.veloriders.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=56360&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0]Veloriders[/url] Forum.

[Andrew G]

The only bits of interest/consideration:

I hate all the red tape we have today - most of what we do is common sense but we have to be careful.

How about drawing up some sort of Club/Rider/Parental Agreement.
Think of the various scenarios, as above, that you may come across whilst out on the club run and how you would handle them. Put it down on paper then get it signed by Club Secretary, Welfare Officer, Rider and Parent. - Just an idea.

What if he gets dropped and 1 rider drops back with him?
Try and have a named rider or couple of riders (someone who will look after the youngster)- not always possible as you don't know who will be on the club run.

What if he comes out with unsuitable clothing/equipment?
Advise him what he should wear, maybe have a chat with his parents and for the day see if you can loan him some.

What if he needs help?
Mechanical - help him to do it
A push up the hill - hold the seat post (not easy to do). Not the back of his saddle or pushing his back - unless you have his permission and, if possible a witness.

What if he needs a "comfort" stop?
If needs must, needs must. Find him a secluded spot and stand a short distance away with your back to him.

I know it's tricky but to fail to give him any help in any situation would mean you are failing the lad and failing to protect him.

---
I know exactly what you mean about over regulation stopping people getting involved in helping kids in cycling - and probably other sports.
I'm a Go-Ride and Track coach and have to face red-tape everytime i do the Go-Ride sessions. (How many of you wouldn't think for a second about raising a childs saddle - i won't even touch the bike without parental consent, just in case something goes wrong with the bike or the child has an accident after the alteration.) And believe me it has driven me and the kids involved scatty. The kids want to join a club but the local one isn't interested in having them, so they've asked me to set up a club for them. Back in the days when we were all younger that would have been easy but today it isn't. If you want to be a Go-Ride Club then you need to meet all the requirements and yes that is putting people off helping out. But in todays world it is needed.
If it wasn't for the red-tape then the kids would have had a club set up for them last year and we could have done the trips we wanted to do.
--

My wife is a leader for a Guide group and she's had to be CRB checked and needs to get permission slips for virtually everything, even going to the park across the road. She isn't allowed to take the girls in her car, and she can't take photo's without parental approval. It's all a bit different to how we operate in road cycling.

I remember one kid coming along on a club run a while ago, fit and keen but with clearly unfit father riding with him to keep an eye on him. We rode together most of the way, but then had a bit of a burn-up in the last few miles to the cafe. This was mainly inspired by the fact that this kid kept going to the front and riding really strongly, so we started 'racing' him. Of course, he had the time of his life and when we stopped he was talking about how cool it was. But unfortunately his dad (along with plenty of the other people in the group) had been dropped and fallen quite a way back. When he got in, he was clearly not impressed by the whole thing and we never saw the kid again. It was a real shame because the kid had clearly enjoyed the ride and the pretend racing, but you could understand that dad expected to be able to keep him in sight the whole time.
--

The rest of it's all "when I was lad..." stuff.

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

This was discussed at the Committee Meeting last night, and the conclusion being that we need more information/guidance on how to proceed with a formalised policy (I have requested help from BC), but in the meantime, the club's stance is as follows:

"For a person under 16 years of age to take part in club activities, he/she must have a responsible adult, known to them, with them at all times"

[Rob C]

Have a look at this:

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/si ... ubmark.asp

I'm a member of SLH Tri Club and we are currently going through the process ourselves. It gives you some guidelines about what BC and sport England expect and should hopefully put some parent guardians fears to sleep as it puts a formal structure for child protection in place. There is red tape but unfortunately that goes withe territory so no good moaning about it. The decision is really to encourage/develop a youth section and embrace the issues as they happen or to not bother with a youth section. If you'd like to know about our experiences with the Clubmark thingy then please ask...

[mrP(Boonen)VT]

Thanks Rob,

reply from BC has included a copy fo thir Child Protection Policy, which I believe the club should adopt, and all Vice Captains (as a minimum) should agree to abide by it, but this will be decided at next committee meeting in August. Any info you have for us for then would be great.