16 Cycling Organisations Vote to Combine As AusCycling
At a Cycling Australia (CA) Special General Meeting held on September 19, six of CA’s eight state and territory associations voted in favour of CA joining AusCycling. This now means, CA and six Road and Track State organisations will now join BMXA, Mountain Bike Australia and the seven BMX State organisations at the start of AusCycling.
These organisations are mainly involved in competitive cycling across their respective disciplines of road, track, BMX and MTB.
To allow for a smoother transition to the new organisation, including the required staff consultation and to ensure greater benefits and services to members and clubs from day one including the all-inclusive race licence for all cycling disciplines, the Steering Committee has now confirmed AusCycling will commence operations from November 1, 2020.
From November 1, 2020, members will have the ability to race all disciplines under one licence, clubs will have access to a range of new programs and resources, and further benefits will be introduced as the organisation evolves.
AusCycling is expected to have more than 50,000 individual members, over 400 affiliated clubs and offices and staff located throughout the country.
To date, the two organisations who have voted not to join are Cycling NSW and BMX WA. According to one report, there are ongoing discussions within the member clubs of Cycling NSW with metropolitan clubs more keen to join than country clubs.
Meanwhile in the former Cycling NSW chair Glen Viger, who was against the merger has since been replaced by Shimano Australia Cycling CEO Matt Bazzano who has made more conciliatory statements about the merger.
Westcycle, which is the umbrella group for competitive cycling in WA abstained from voting but has since released a statement saying that they intend to work out a transition towards joining AusCycling.
You can see a detailed summary of reasons for the new organisation, its structure and other information here.
In future there is potential in future of other organisations such as the various state based veterans cycling associations and state and national cycling advocacy organisations to also join AusCycling.
AusCycling is currently adverting for a CEO.
Sport Australia (formerly the Australian Sports Commission) has apparently committed to forgive approximately $2.5 million of debt owed by the current Cycling Australia organisation once the AusCycling merger is successfully completed.