Minutes
Attendence: Devonia (Chair), Fraser, David, John, Robyn, Nathan (late).
Posted a bit late sorry!
Recent submission regarding Dunedin Tunnels Trail
Lots of submissions supporting the DTT - see the story in the ODT
Discussion about how Spokes is for cycling (and we should have agreed views on cycling related things - speak as one voice) but does not stop us having views on anything.
- Robyn to represent Spokes Dunedin at the DDC council meeting on Wed 13 May.
Spokes website (Nathan / David)
Some feedback about our spokes.nz site, which is an online forum based on the open source Discourse platform:
- Some find it a bit too complex, and things can get lost between Forum, Messages, and Chat
- Others love the flexibility and options
- Some members are confused about the degree of exposure of some of our content, especially in the Categories (i.e. the Forum proper)
- The 'landing page could be improve
Action Points
- Trial of having Chat off, to simplify things (please use Messages instead)
- Move members-only content to Messages so more explicitly private.
- Nathan to explore options for expanding the ‘landing page’ functionality - this must be low maintenance.
Newsletters (Devonia)
The first few General > Newsletters have gone well, but they are a lot of work. Devonia has done the bulk of this and needs support. We discussed dropping the frequency to 2 monthly to make this more manageable.
- Move newsletters to 2 monthly
Banking & expenditure (Fraser)
Westpac Business accounts, while familiar and reliable, are frustratingly limited in their functionality.
- Fraser to investigate other banking providers and report back
Finances / Cash
We probably have $5000 that we ought to spend promoting our cause. Discussion around food-truck evening. Steve Walker had felt that closing roads outside school of dentistry would be $$$ and maybe select a venue such as Emersons. Alternatives:
- Emersons
- port-to-port crossings subsidised for full members
- Light ride
- Distillery
- Midwinter (or 21 june - too soon?) ride, with lights, ending up somewhere?
- Steamer basin? Start ride from ?botanic gardens? Inch Bar? end up at Steamer basin. First n people get a free beer? provide some pizza? What publicity do we need?
No specific action
Night / Lights ride
This is shaping up to be quite fun, on 2026-07-01T05:30:00Z. Details:
-
Confirm back to Gerard that we’re interested
-
John to connect with Steamer Basin to gauge their interest
Our relationship with CAN (Nathan)
Spokes Dunedin is interested in national cycling advocacy, but isn’t well placed to tackle these directly. CAN, however is. Some people are members of both - see @CAN-members, but it would be great if our other Spokes Dunedin members could be connected to CAN in a low-effort way.
The committee expressed a willingness to contribute financially to CAN in order to facilitate national cycling advocacy, connection to other regional cycling advocacy groups, and general collaboration and sharing of ideas across the motu.
- Nathan to present this to the CAN Board for consideration
Our logo and branding
Our logo and branding is getting a bit long in the tooth.
Here is our current branding:
https://spokes.nz/t/spokes-dunedin-brand-guide/1285 (Members only)
We really need a kind volunteer with the skills to help us with this. Also, @AxleRyde (CAN chair) might be able to help.