Healthy boost for cycling club

By Jim Mynard
VICHEALTH has extended its support of the CaseyCardinia Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) and Cycling Club.
Club president John Perrin said the extension would help the club to assist new teams and organisations get started in HPV activities.
He said the grant would be used to purchase kits of components for HPVs.
“Our club will then help teach recipients how to build and maintain new vehicles.
“We have a team of volunteers who will assist with riding practice, experience and guidance for the riders, construction, training and skills, maintenance, where to source materials, training programs, team organisation guidance, event logistics experience and guidance, finance budgets and expectations.
“Our objective is to help the new teams to become selfsustaining as quickly as possible.”
Mr Perrin said a recipient team would be expected to raise its own funds within a year to replace the original kit. The money then would be used to repeat the process with another startup team.
Two of the largest barriers to new teams becoming involved in HPV racing were costs in obtaining the first vehicle and developing the technical skills to maintain a vehicle.
“With this generous support from VicHealth, we hope to assist three new teams to get involved this year,” Mr Perrin said. “We hope to repeat this with a further three new teams, each year, provided we can get the money back from the assisted teams.
“History has proven that once a team gets started and achieves a reasonable level of success, the team will grow and become self sufficient very quickly. The club and Berwick Secondary College, prior to formation of the club, previously helped six teams to get started with loan vehicles and mentoring.
The HPV club is calling for expressions of interest from organisations or schools wishing to discuss formation of a team. Information is available from www.hpvoz.net/casey. The club is proposing a tight time line for thisexercise and hopes to have the selected teams ready to race by August or earlier if possible.