I recently joined the board of the local womens bike club. This club has been in a slow membership decline for the last few years. You all know the story, tired board members, disorganized rides, snobbish behavior, all the usual reasons. New riders come one or twice and are never seen again. There are a few of us trying to reorganize and get the club going. We are having a board meeting in a couple of week that I would like to come prepared with lots of postive ideas. The number one priority is getting women to give us another try. And, we MUST be prepared to show them a positive, fun time.

This is how the monthly ride goes. There are maybe 10 -15 riders. So, everyone goes together. Very bad! The fast ones are off like a shot the middle group tries, but can't keep up and the slow ones just feel bad. I usual ride sweep to keep track of the slow riders but the middle group gets well, lost in the middle. The slow group reels them in one by one till were all together. Then I lead them all back. The fast group does their own thing and more often than not wizz by us slow pokes on the way back.

How do you get riders into the proper group? If we say we have a fast and slow group, no one wants to be in the "slow" group, so riders end up being dropped. I've tried to address this issue but the older board members just say we can't baby sit grown women. But isn't it the job of the club to address this type of problem? There are truly a very few of us working to make this change. How do we find, encourage and teach new ride leaders.

So basically, HELP!!!! I have a few ideas gleened from the pages of TE, but would love more from thoses of you who have been there and done that.