Growth in the club has exploded in the last few years. From facilitating races, to leading group rides, and building new trail, these last few years have taken a quite a bit of work to put together. People of all skill sets have volunteered their time to foster a distinctly unique community that truly is special.
Isn’t it strange that the community of Thunder Bay holds the largest biweekly mountain bike race series in Ontario? With close to 150 members on average showing up to races and almost double that for the larger events? These numbers are huge for such a small, isolated community like ours. We’ve seen this growth in a time where other bike clubs have seen stagnant numbers. There is something truly special about the community of Thunder Bay.
Blacksheep Mountain Bike Club has a deep history in racing but we have also grown in other areas of the club as well. With funding of over $1.5 million secured through grant writing, we were able to complete a large portion of the Trowbridge Forest Master Plan. The dirt jumps have seen LOTS of use since they were built in the summer of 2021. We were able to make considerable progress on the new Mesa area trails by contracting with Precambrian Natural Surface Trails. Blacksheep’s own volunteer trail crew has completed many projects as well such as the new Otherside entrance, the new green Crossover Connector trail, The construction of 2 new burly wooden bridges, and not to mention many maintenance projects to keep our trails looking and riding great. Another area of growth for the club has been group rides. We now host several group rides periodically that are very well attended. The women’s group ride, the family group ride and many more. We have also hired a professional mountain bike coach to teach several clinics to facilitate rider development among our members. Needless to say, we’ve been busy.
We have a wonderful community of volunteers that help but a lot of work is done by a team of dedicated people that serve on the Board of Directors. Serving on the board is a great way to continue to see the community grow and help the next generation of riders achieve more than we ever could. Our events and community support the development of top-notch riders. There are many different skills and responsibilities required of the board and we’re looking for new and varied perspectives to add. Half of the board of directors will be leaving their positions this year and we’ll need some more muscle to continue our great success.
We have seen in the past that it is better to find passionate people to serve on the board than it is to simply fill positions. Responsibilities of a position are easily shuffled around the board to accommodate skilled people willing to learn and volunteer their time. Positions we are looking to fill are listed below but just remember we can always teach new skills to people who are willing to learn. Finding people willing to donate their time is more important than people looking to fill a position.
Some of the positions we are looking to fill and their rough responsibilities are listed below.
President: The President oversees all club activities. They are able to provide leadership and act as the club’s spokesperson to the membership and community. They are able to chair the annual general meeting and board member meetings. They are also able to provide support to other board members as needed.
Treasurer: The Treasurer is a role that is ideal for the person with an accounting background or similar. They lead the development of the club’s annual budget. They oversee all funds coming and going into the club. They provide status reports about the club’s financial affairs to the board.
Trail Development Committee Chair: This Director heads the Trail Development Committee. They work with the city and other land management groups for trail development. They work closely with the committee and volunteers to schedule trail builds.
Communications Director: The Communications Director is a role ideal for the individual who has experience with communications, marketing, website design, and/or social media. They will ensure that members are aware of Club activities by facilitating and managing the website, social media channels, and newsletter. This individual also liaises with various media outlets to increase awareness of the Club and its goals and objectives to the surrounding community as well.
Race Director: The Race Director is a role ideal for an individual in a management position and has experience organizing sporting events at any capacity. This individual will work closely with the Events Coordinator and Trail Development chair to oversee schedule and course design that supports the club’s goals and objectives. They also chair the Race Committee who assists them with volunteers, equipment/materials, and site set-up for each race.
Events Coordinator: The Events Coordinator is a role ideal for an individual with management experience and/or event coordinator experience. They will head the Events Committee to plan, organize, and execute special events including The Shuniah 40-Miner, The Ozzy 8, and the Spring Classic Festival. They also work with other board members to organize the year-end banquet.
The Board of Directors meets monthly for about 2 hours. Each position can expect to work 5-10 hours a week. Of course, more time may be spent on special projects as they appear.
Many board positions also lead a committee of additional volunteers that meets periodically to focus on special projects. Lots of the “boots on the ground” work gets done on a committee level. Joining a committee is a great way to help volunteer and is a much smaller time commitment. It is also a great way to see if you would like to join the board of directors one day. We’re looking to grow the committees this year to help support our great community. A list of current Committees is shown below.
Race Committee: This committee helps plan and facilitate the Blacksheep race series. From course design to race formats, this committee is key to our largely successful race program. We had almost 200 individuals register for a Wednesday night race last year! If you’re someone interested in helping, consider joining the committee.
Trails Committee: When the trails director needs a little more muscle they turn to the trails committee. When deciding on a new trails strategy or looking for people to lead trail builds this is a group of volunteers ready to help out! We plan to be opening a few new trails this summer so this committee will be super important.
Events Committee: For larger events that require more leg work, the Events Director will turn to this committee in order to divide and conquer. For anyone with great organizational skills or just a desire to create events this committee is a great place to start helping the mountain biking community. Our event offerings are growing along with our membership so we need to be able to provide outstanding events.
Inclusion Committee: The best way to grow our riding community is to ensure we are as welcoming to all people as we can be. This committee is a group of people that makes sure the barriers to riding are as low as possible. We’re looking for some committee members dedicated to getting more people on bikes! This will be a new committee this year so getting a strategy in place will be a large part of what needs to be accomplished this year.
Rider Development Committee: As a club we identified one of our “Strategic Priorities” was to focus our attention on rider development. From beginner to expert, we want to make sure our events and program offerings are useful for everyone. We’re looking to raise the level of riding in Thunder Bay. This committee will discuss and implement a plan to accomplish this goal.
Content Creation Committee: There are many different ways the club communicates with it’s members, it’s community and the public at large. Writing articles and copy, taking photographs, making videos, revitalizing the club website. This committee of creative and skilled individuals helps to create content to further the clubs’ goals.
The new board will be elected at the Annual General Meeting in January. We are currently planning this party so information will be available soon. We’ll be waiting for the new board to begin work on the committee level. Joining a committee is as much a time commitment as you would like. Work on special projects that interest you and get as involved as you would like.
If you are thinking about joining the board or a committee, please get in contact with us via social media, or email info@blacksheepmtb.com If you have any further questions about joining the board or a committee please reach out as well. There are no dumb questions.
We are excited to begin fat bike programing and winter trail grooming.
