Womens Commision AGM 2010

On the 6th November the Women’s Commission of Cycling Ireland will be holding their 2010 AGM in the West County Hotel. While the AGM starts at 3pm we invite everyone to attend an open forum which starts at 1pm. The open forum will discuss how women’s cycling can be further progressed.

Since the establishment of the Women’s Commission in 2001/2002 women’s cycling has moved from strength to strength. In membership terms we can see that there has been a significant increase in women cycling over the last couple of years, and the numbers racing has almost doubled. In real terms this increase reflects a position where in 2007 women constituted 10% of the Cycling Ireland membership, it now constitutes 16%.

The Women’s Commission was established to address many issues of inequality faced by female cyclists, and to address the low participation levels of women in the sport of cycling. In an ideal situation there would be no need for a women’s commission, women’s racing would be integrated with men’s racing, and on a competitive level the female cyclist would be considered on par with the male cyclist. However, in Ireland this is not yet the case, but we are slowly inching our way towards a more equal culture in the sport. Over the years several initiatives have evolved from the Women’s Commission:

Recruitment: with the assistance of the Women in Sport project the women’s commission annually holds several training camps for women, which have a strong focus on skills, training techniques and knowledge.

Racing: women’s only leagues have been identified as a non-intimidating method to introduce women to racings, several women only leagues are now in place throughout the country, supported by local clubs. Rás na mBan, the women’s only stage race, is considered the pinnacle of the female cyclists racing year – the aim of the leagues is to improve the women’s standard of racing to a level where they can compete against overseas riders at this event.

Development: the women’s commission established a development programme to increase the exposure, intensity and subsequent standard of women’s cycling. Through clear and open selection criteria women have been selected to race at suitable events over the years, with the aim of increasing the standard of racing. These women race as development teams, through our development programme we hope to feed women into the High Performance programme.

Awareness: In order to increase the profile and awareness of opportunities for women in the sport the women’s website www.womenscycling.ie was established, which has proven to be a popular way to keep up with what is going on in the world of women’s cycling in Ireland. Our recent venture in increasing the awareness of women’s cycling has been the design of women’s cycling kit. This new gear will be announced and showcased at the AGM.

Women’s Commission open positions:
We are looking for members to step forward to move women’s cycling to the next level. There are several positions open on the Women’s Commission this year, and following the open forum the structure and progression of the 2011 commission can be decided, with positions elected. A small band of people have been responsible for the direction of the Women’s Commission over the past few years. We are holding this forum to inspire and encourage more individuals to come aboard.