Love your blog and can’t wait to read about your Ottawa Cupcake Ride!!

I want to reassure all members the name change was not an easy or a quick decision, one that the Board & Staff thought about and discussed internally and with external stakeholders for over a year and actively debated the last six months. Some were in favour, others opposed, wanting to keep “Union” before we came to the unanimous decision as a Board to recommend the Cycle Toronto name to members at the AGM May 2nd 2012.

Why? Our decision wasn’t based on our own personal name preferences, which were many & diverse, but in accordance with our “fiduciary duty” as Directors to consider the best interests of the Bike Union. We did not consider ourselves to be anti-union/pro-union or anti-business/pro-business in making the decision. The fact that we actively debated the name change over six months and came to a unanimous Board recommendation, ensured transparency with Fair Vote Canada supervising the vote and tallying the results should reassure our members and the cycling community we seriously considered their opinions. The 71% vote in favour of the name change exceeded the 2/3′s majority required by law, by ~5% (66.6%); with 29% opposed to the name change.

At present half our revenue is membership dues, half grants, many of which are start-up grants that will not be renewed. We’re simply not financially self-sustaining, even after doubling membership in the last year, nor do we have the financial resources to provide you the level of advocacy, member benefits and communication we think is needed to keep you engaged and secure better bike infrastructure.

We have very aggressive membership growth targets (to 10,000 by 2018) and need to replace the 50% of revenue from expiring grants with business, corporate sponsorships as you see on our home page (Platinum & Gold sponsors) just to sustain current funding, in addition to increasing membership dues as we again seek to double membership, over the next 18 months. Together they will help us fund more staff, more marketing, better IT/interactive website & social media and political advocacy on your behalf.

Congratulations to the 6 new Directors elected by members and to the other 16 candidates who also ran, but were not elected, we hope you will continue to stay active, volunteer & advocate for safer cycling in Toronto. After all, the next Board election is less than 12 months away!

On behalf of the now Cycle Toronto Board thank you to all members for your support at the AGM and on-going as we collectively work to make Toronto cycling safer and restore our reputation as one of North America’s leading cycling cities.

I want to reassure all members the name change was not an easy or a quick decision, one that the Board thought about for over a year and actively discussed the last six months, with some in favour, some wanting to keep “Union” before we came to the unanimous decision to recommend the Cycle Toronto to members.

Why? Our decision wasn’t based on our own personal name preferences, but in accordance with our “fiduciary duty” as Directors to consider the best interests of the Bike Union. Half our revenue is membership revenue, half grants, many of which are start-up grants that will not be renewed. We’re simply not financially self-sustaining, even after doubling membership in the last year, nor do we have the financial resources to provide you the level of advocacy, member benefits and communication we think is needed to keep you engaged and secure better bike infrastructure.

We have very aggressive membership growth targets (to 10,000) and need to replace the expiring grants with business, corporate sponsorships as you see on our home page (Platinum & Gold sponsors), in addition to increasing members dues as we again seek to double membership.