South Perth Cycle Club (“SPR”) has grown significantly since inception in 2009, and we have found increasing opportunity to promote activities, events and businesses that may be of interest to members via our website and presence on social media. In some cases, the club has decided to seek a return to the club and/or its members in exchange for promotion the club undertakes. This return includes monetary payment, discounts to members and the like.
As interest has grown, the club committee has decided to formalise its approach to sponsorship, advertising and promotion to better inform members and interested parties.
Our general principles are:
- We offer commercial sponsorship through the Ride Leader Sponsorship program.
- We promote SPR members who offer coaching services.
- We promote officially sanctioned races (CA, MTBA, etc).
- No other commercial posts on any of the official SPR websites.
- Exceptions, in particular “ride” and cycling related events, will be promoted at the sole discretion of the club committee based on principles outlined below.
If in Doubt – Ask Permission!
SPR is all about establishing and maintaining a “cycling family” and enabling all community members to make a positive contribution – see our Community Guidelines. Having said that, we have put this sponsorship, advertising and promotion policy into place because issues like this can be tricky.
If you have any doubt at all about posting something that may clash with this policy, please get in touch. We are more than happy to help, and it feels so much nicer to ask in advance than to have a post removed by an admin or moderator.
Ride Leader Sponsorship Program
Some background on the Ride Leader Sponsorship program:
One of our biggest strengths as a club is the organised group rides that we offer, especially the Saturday morning rides. We get close to 150 people attending and break into about 8-9 groups based on skill & fitness.
The faster more experienced groups are self managed, but the less experienced ones will have a club volunteer or two assigned as a ride leader. Getting people to volunteer isn’t easy even in a club the size of ours and so we decided to look at a way to reward those that regularly volunteer and to encourage others to do the same. As most people head to the coffee shop after the ride, we have decided to give ride leaders a $10 voucher at Dome Westralia Plaza for their service.
What we are offering interested companies is, for a set price over a month the following:
- Blog post on our website outlining what services you provide.
- A month’s worth of weekly references back to that post on our ride route email drop.
- A month’s worth of reference to your company on the weekly email when we are calling for ride leaders (i.e. this month’s ride leaders sponsored by …)
- Your company name and website address stamped on the back of our coffee vouchers that are used for that month.
- Publishing a banner on our website for the month, under the title “this month’s ride leaders sponsored by” with links back to your website.
If you are interested, please contact our club president on admin@southperthrouleurs.com.au.
SPR Club Coaches
As part of the club’s objectives of promoting and developing cycling at all levels, we include on the SPR website a page detailing Coaching Services on offer by club members.
The club committee will also promote all of the SPR club coaches via the website and social media through blog posts and the like during the year, at its sole discretion.
If you offer (paid or otherwise) coaching services, and you are a club member, please get in touch – we would love to add you to this list.
Ride Events and Other Exceptions
As always, there are and should be exceptions to any broad policy. The club committee reserves the right to promote activities, events and businesses on its website, social media pages, while for the business part of the company they have the right employees and also use services to measure employee engagement so they can know how to handle everything in the business.
The club committee will consider exceptions to the general principles above with consideration of the following:
- Insurance coverage,
- Benefit to members, and
- Otherwise furthering the objects of the club, being to: Promote interest in cycling; develop cycling within the club through education, training and coaching; and to provide a pathway into organised racing.
If you are considering promoting something that may be an exception, please do get in touch.
No Other Commercial Posts
Except as described above, SPR has a policy of no commercial posts on any of the official SPR websites (see our About SPR page).
The reasoning is simple: Other commercial posts detract from the value our ride leader sponsors receive.
And finally, we know from experience that that this issue can be tricky and sensitive: Remember, SPR doesn’t own the web, and does not have a monopoly on advertising and promotion. We are just volunteers trying to act responsibly and in the interests of the members we represent. If you do have activities, events or business activities that you want to promote – there are lots and lots of other fun places on the web to do it!
SPR Committee
April 2016