Bike Northland – how they got there
Bike Northland – how they got there
“The sum of Bike Northland is greater than the individual parts” – Bike Northland Chair, Shaughan Anderson.
The three founding members of Bike Northland; Marsden Wheelers Road Cycling Club, Parihaka Mountain Bike Club and Whangarei BMX Club, were all struggling with increasing administration, declining membership and the capacity to deliver quality events. They also tended to see each other as competitors for funding, membership and other fundamentals.
In 2006 Marsden Wheelers approached Sport Northland seeking advice. Stu Middleton, Sport Development Manager, and Brent Eastwood, CEO, were happy to oblige. They could see the opportunity the clubs stood to gain by working with each other. So Stu brought the three clubs together in the same room and they began to recognise this logic as well.
Firstly, Sport Northland helped the clubs to develop a common calendar to coordinate events, which led to a discussion about how they could also support each other’s events. The next step was recognising that they could be more effective as a group when developing partnerships and seeking funding for projects.
Within a year Bike Northland was a functioning entity. The three clubs and Sport Northland, with help from Bike NZ (from whom they borrowed their organisational structure), had completed a constitution and a strategic plan, with milestones at one, three and ten years. All three clubs were now organised on the same page and well positioned to pursue new opportunities.
The Pohe Island development
One of Bike Northland’s first initiatives was to propose the development of the multi-purpose bike facility on the site of Pohe Island.
Whangarei District Council’s Long Term Council Community Plan 2006 – 2016 (LTCCP) identified a new park for the former landfill at Pohe Island in the heart of Whangarei, with funding allocated to its improvement in 2009. However, when Whangarei BMX Club won the right to host the National BMX Championships in 2009, Bike Northland approached the District Council with plans to develop the site ahead of schedule, suggesting a new multi-purpose bike park.
The bike park plans include an international standard BMX track, technical features for mountain bike racing/training, a freestyle area, a learn-to-ride facility, a multi-use building and the possible future development of a velodrome. The BMX track, however, was the first priority.
Updated | 07 Oct 2008.
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