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The Rough-Stuff Fellowship Limited, Annual Report, 2005

Review of the Year

The Fellowship celebrated its 50th Anniversary at our Easter meet at Brough in east Cumbria, where the weather was again relatively benign for the time of year.  Commemorative mugs were issued to all attending.  Steven Griffith was elected Chairman to replace Simon Preston.  A group of some of our more mature members were given media coverage suggesting that they had been “rescued” from High Cup Nick.  In fact they had successfully crossed at a leisurely pace, albeit not completing it before sundown;  they emerged onto the road at 10pm, and phoned to beg a lift back to the hotel.  Our next Easter Meet will be at Tregaron in Wales.

The major achievement of 2005 has been to maintain the level of membership, staunching the haemorrhage of recent years.  The number of new members being recruited has returned to levels last seen in the 90s.  This has been achieved by raising awareness of the fellowship.

Membership

Our membership stood at 624 (528 full members) at the year end, only one fewer than at the same time last year, but 155 down from five years ago. The main difference from last year is substantially increased recruitment of new members.  12% of our membership joined in the last year, balancing the normal rate of loss of existing members.  This has been achieved though increased and better targeted publicity.  An unusually large number, 71, of five-year memberships from the year 2000 were up for renewal in 2005.  These have been replaced by 55 five-year members during the year, which is roughly in proportion to the change in size of the organisation over that period.

Cycling activities are recovering in some areas.  The Lancashire group has seen growing attendances under new area secretary Rob Burrow.  John Kemp has set up a new group in the North Peak and South Pennines, operating mid-week and week-ends.

The Rough-Stuff Journal

The editor has continued to produce six journals per year in timely fashion.  The executive has released funds to the editor to increase the number of pages.  Unfortunately distribution costs are a disproportionate amount of the additional cost of a larger journal, as it moves us into the next postage band.  The fatter journals are therefore published from time to time, not each issue.

Publicity

As Public Relations Officer, Steven Griffith has carefully managed our advertising policy to maximise our media presence within a tight budget.  We have trialled advertising in a range of magazines and have found the CTC the most worthwhile.  Small name-card sized recruitment cards have proved successful although the York rally remains our most successful shop front.  This year we have benefited from an article commissioned by the CTC for their magazine, recognising our 50th anniversary.  The article contrasted old and new attitudes to rough-stuff by reference to crossing the Lairig Ghru.  Our website www.rsf.org.uk run by John Brewer obtains increasing traffic.  It links to Wiggle mail order cycle parts suppliers, from whom we gain growing commission on sales.  Websites are also run by the Lancashire and South Lakes area groups.

Accounts

The Fellowship has lost £554 for the year.  This is in line with our plans gradually to release some of our accumulated funds to improve the journal.  An additional £1,167 was spent on the journal, entirely to increase production values.  The non-journal costs of the fellowship were roughly constant at around £1,500.  Within that fixed total, we increased expenditure on publicity and made special expenditure for the 50th anniversary, thus containing other categories of expenditure.  Membership income has been roughly constant, but sundry sources of income have increased by about £600, including £150 from the CTC article.  From next year, we will be recovering tax on donations if the donor gives them as Gift Aid.  Sales commission from Wiggle, achieved when people click through from our website to theirs, has increased to over £100.

SIGNED: Steven GRIFFITH, Simon C PRESTON, Ivan VIEHOFF (Directors)