2023 National AGM and Prize Presentation

We held the 2023 National AGM and prize presentation on Saturday 21^st January at the Limes Country Lodge Hotel in Solihull. This was our first face-to-face meeting for three years and it was good to meet up in person again with group representatives and prize winners from around the country.

The AGM was preceded by a workshop where Andrea Parish, the new CTT Chair, gave us a very informative and positive presentation. She dealt frankly with some of the challenges facing our sport and the various initiatives she is undertaking to address them. Our National President, Tony Farrell and National Chairman, Andrew Simpkins, have already had two meetings with Andrea (on Zoom) and we believe this is the start of a fresh and constructive engagement with the CTT.

Jon Fairclough gave the workshop on assessment of the impact of the last two years’ veterans results on the standards and while there have been a couple of interesting trends the recommendation was not to change the standards for 2023 especially with the proposed move to age adjustments.

Following an excellent lunch we had the national prize presentation with Rachael Elliott giving her entertaining summaries of winners’ achievements during the season. A good number of our champions’ and medallists were present and it is always a pleasure to congratulate them in person. The happy winners are pictured above.

The National AGM covered the usual items of the Annual Report and Treasurer’s Report and the programme of National Championships for 2023. The motions to change the Rules & Regulations were concentrated on the fuller implementation of the use of ‘age adjustments’ (previously VHR or Veterans Handicap Result) as the preferred way of reporting results in VTTA events, championships and competitions. The age adjustment method gives a more intelligible and comparable result in terms of an adjusted time for age rather than the mystery that tends to surround the use of ‘plusses’ and ‘minuses’. All the relevant motions were passed with large majorities.

A motion was also passed to confirm the new process for 2023 where VTTA national and group age records will be automatically identified from the CTT results system and passed to the VTTA website for all solo road records, saving the task of members making manual claims. An East Anglian motion to introduce women’s teams in championships and competitions was defeated with delegates indicating a preference to keep mixed teams for both clubs and groups.

Altogether a positive day at a pleasant and convenient location with good support from the hotel staff.