Local Bike Club in Questionable status...A bit long

[shootingstar]

It's not healthy for survival of a local cycling organization/group to be primarily men, particularily if it's the only cycling-focused organization in your area. They should then rename themselves as Men's xxxxxxxx, or whatever name.

If you as an individual care strongly to do something differently:
a) Partner with someone within the group who may be receptive and more driven to expand the direction of the group and its membership.

b) Keep in mind that cycling advocacy is different from just riding in groups or group learning on bike maintenance, cycling technique,etc. It does mean getting off the bike and meeting with municpal folks in council, engineering dept. to do something concrete

c) Explore with a bike shop owner who would be interested in partnering with you plus 1-2 other cyclists to meet up, organize rides, etc.

I have volunteered for 2 organizations, where each organization sadly had to die after 5 years of existence for each organization. One of them was a women's cycling group where we organized rides, had large conference every 2 yrs. on various topics, workshops, etc. We had a membership of 250+ women from southern Ontario. It was heartbreaking to disband the group but we could not find enough dedicated volunteers to take the reins from 5 of us who were passionate, but abit burnt out.

Often I tend to believe, that lack of budget is not truly the problem. We had a (small) budget, tons of T-shirts, water bottles leftover .. It is ongoing, sustained PASSION, hard hands-on volunteer work to organize things and willingness to meet a broad range of people to help them.

I'm saying this because if alot of those guys just want ride/hammer away, then they may be the wrong folks to be open to broadening the future direction of the cycling group. Particularily if the suggestion is to make it more flexible to attract more women cyclists.