RHR_Rob wrote:do you have any good looking girl/boys in the club that may be willing to (how should we say) help out with persueding the appropriate council members.
can we say that on here?

cookies huh

From some experience of how these things work, you don't need letters of support. You need to meet with the mayor and all (or at least half) the councillors and sway them.

Put together a clear, concise A4 summary of your proposal, including as much hard data as you can find (there's some good economic impact reports on the Rotorua and Central Otago cycle initiatives, and possibly some useful figures from the Tourism NZ national cycleway data).

Design the hell out of it - try to make it as professional and convincing as possible, dress nice, know your stuff and try to remove the emotion. It's gotta make good business and political sense to the councillors.

If you can sway 3-4 of the more vocal councillors to agree with you, and the Mayor to say yes (which in this climate will be easy if you can demonstrate a solid cycle-tourism angle, potential to attract national cycleway funding and a low drain on council funding through volunteer support and construction) then you're sorted.

Yep, I will bet that the decision to make the change was not done with letters of support, it would have been someone convincing "those in charge" that their idea was better than the current one...

Gotta up the game, put some numbers and stats pointedly showing how much more beneficial our idea is down in front of people who give a damn and are able to do something about it.

Pull out any acquaintances or friends you can who may be able to help swing the decision in your favour!

You NEED to do what Skint just said.

You've got some fucking retards running the show at the council if they don't want a taste of that sweet, sweet cycle cash.

Right now Marty is seeking a meeting with the Park's senior management to try and find out why we have been apparently bumped from the area without fair consultation. We've been in the midst of preparing a full proposal for the area as well as a management plan for the area (as is protocol) and this has just served to give us a hurry up to get these two items finished and present then to show what we intend to do with the areas.

Bob is almost right in saying that we are the most progressed of the user groups - The shooters are at the point of having their management plans finished and lease agreements being drafted I believe. However they were involved with the park from the outset (8 years ago!) There are other user groups that have been involved for longer than us, but I believe that we have progressed further in submitting actual trail designs, not just circling an area and saying "we'll build some stuff there."

Before the club gets too worked up and makes a huge noise about this, we do intend to give the council full opportunity to explain the reasons that this decision has been made, and we do intend to fully argue our case in front of them. That's why I have asked for letters of support from vorbii - to show we're not 'just' 150 people wanting to ride our bikes, but we're 150 people who are representing thousands of potential visitors to the park EVERY YEAR, and want to build an area that will benefit people from all over the country and potentially the world.

I'll sit down later on tonight and type up some sort of form letter for those of you unsure as to what to write, just need to get home from work first!

Goddamn this BLOWS!
Hey Barks, if I can help in any way in a professional capacity, just give me the word; otherwise Ill wirte something up tomorrow and email it through to add my support

i will sign a petition if this helps, or put my name on a generic letter.

Personally speaking, Im not really up for a fight. For a number of reasons I dont want to air here. Interestingly, this arrived in my inbox this afternoon....

Hi all Bikers,

Hopefully by now you have an EVENT Organised for BIKE WISE February
2010. The meeting to present your event for the Bike Wise Calender will
be on the 10th September at 5:30pm at Sport Bay of Plenty.

We look forward to seeing you and to see what your Club can do for Bike
Wise over February.

Many thanks
Bruce Galloway
Road Corridor Co-Ordinator
City Transportation
Tauranga City Council

My thinking at the present point in time, is that I will go there to represent the club as planned. However, my suggestion will go like this.
MTB Tauranga is disbanding. The sole reason for the existence of the club was to create the MTB trails in the TECT All Terrain Park, which now is no longer happening. As a final event, the club will host any and all residents of Tauranga on a guided tour of the section of the TECT All Terrain Park that was initially outlined to be for the use of building the MTB park. We will show the areas we had designated for the sub-hub, the carparking, the kids skills area, the 4X track, and an overview of the 90km of trail that has ben GPS logged and mapped in 3D. We can also touch on what was in store for the longer term plan of chairlift access to the high point, and the DH area. I expect the tour to take 2 - 3 hours. All are welcome.

After that I propose that we need to offer club members something to do with the club funds which now total over $1000 not including the Round Table grant. Why dont we hire the Southstar Shuttle for a full day (a weekday), for non-stop use by any and all club members. After that we just have a piss-up with the remaining.

For those of you wanting a form letter to e-mail through in support, try this:

---

To whom it may concern,

I am writing as a mountain bike rider in support of Mountainbike Tauranga and their plan to develop a section of the TECT All Terrain park into a nationally accessable ride.

I have been made aware of the work the club have been doing over the past 2 years to plan for the creation of a new mountainbike park in the northwest corner of the TECT All Terrain Park (designated Non-noisy activities on the WBOPDCs' park concept plan), and I wish to register my concern that this park may now no longer be built.

I believe that this park would be a worthy addition to the rides and trails available throughout the county, and would certainly serve as a drawcard to riders visiting both the Tauranga and Rotorua areas.

Thank You,

[Full name]

---

Feel free to modify the format if you wish.

The intent of this letter is not to berate the council for the decision that they have made already, but to simply demonstrate the volume of people who ride mountainbikes, and would consider travelling to Tauranga to ride at a new park. We hope that these letters, along with the material we have been working on for the past two years, will cause the council to reconsider their decision.

Edit: E-mail address if you missed it first time: info@mtbtauranga.co.nz

done

Go to Fair Go, get Kevin on the job.

Sent an email. Hope it helps.
Keep us posted with how you get on talking with the council etc.

Letter submitted, and i've flicked a quick note through to some people I know in the councils in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

All the best.

Spokes wrote:Go to Fair Go, get Kevin on the job.

Not a bad idea, we (Mtb Tauranga club) are waiting to hear what the councils exact reason behind dismissing our submission is, once we have more information on what it is, when we can do something about it once we have all the details

Wrote a mini-submission.