Happy New Year!!
I think I can get away with that still…. Welcome to the first newsletter of 2025 and my first proper one as Chair. Since Christmas we had the first cross country of the year, an epic event at Horspath that had a bit of everything, all hard mind you, and a delicious pub lunch after with the team, do you have any events coming up?? Do let us know we’d love to hear about it in next months Newsletter or via the Facebook group.
We’re trialling a change in Newsletter frequency to Monthly. Naturally that will mean the potential for there to be more in each Newsletter but hopefully it’s not so infrequent that you’ll miss things. We do still have the Facebook group and we’re also trialling a new communication method in WhatsApp Community announcements, more on that shortly.
For now I encourage you to have a good read through and I look forward to seeing you at a session soon. If you have any comments, questions or issues you want to raise with me please email Chair@oxfordtri.co.uk or grab me at a club session, I’ll be coming round to all sessions through January and February.
Member’s Night January 30TH
Our members night ready for sign ups!
Track Session (28 Spaces) – https://www.oxfordtri.uk/sessions/coached-run-hors…ck-13-2025-01-30/
Members Evening Social (50 Spaces) – https://www.oxfordtri.uk/sessions/oxfordtri-member…s-horspath-track/
As you can see we’ve got our regular run session to kick things off starting at 7pm BUT lead by elite triathlete Kieran Lindars!! Then we have the Clubroom at the track from 8 till 9 for us to do a Q&A with Kieran, if you’re not familiar with Kieran look him up, he’s a local elite athlete based in Aylesbury and has an amazing story. Here’s his breakfast with Bob interview following his 8th place finish in Kona last year. Kieran is now the UKs fastest Ironman in Kona and the Uk’s fastest ever Ironman full stop!!
https://youtu.be/ylQCpeLpukw?si=XEUU6PU2c3XQi4DI
As well as Kieran – Lee Merrett will be there to showcase samples from our new kit supplier and we’ll have pizza and beverages to help you through the January blues!! I hoper to see you there.
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve started to publicise our Aquathlon, taking place on the 27th of April at Leys Pools and Leisure Centre. Entries are starting to come in, but we’d love your help to publicise the event out to a wider audience.
If you haven’t already, please like and following our event specific Facebook and Instagram pages
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61570653837850
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/theoxaquathlon/
Hopefully you’ll see lots of posts relating to the event and so it would really help if you can – like, share or forward on to friends and family.
Flyers/Posters – Starting next week we will have a number of flyers and posters which will be available for members to take to share with colleagues, friends and anyone whom you think would be interested. Have you got a notice board at work why not take some to share on there.
Finally, you may have seen that we currently have a 5% Off discount for our Senior races for anyone who signs up in January using the code – JANOX5 – This could be a great incentive for any friends and family.
We will be asking for Volunteers for the event and will share details next month.
Thanks
Craig and Paris (Event Lead and Publicity Officer)
Leys Spin Session Spotlight
For those eagle-eyed individuals, you would have seen that we have a new spin session on Friday nights. We are super excited to be trialling this for January and February at Leys Leisure Centre on Fridays from 7-8pm.
The sports centre has recently upgraded the bikes so these offer a plethora of bike related data at your fingertips and can even be synced with an app which enables you to share workouts to your favourite health-based apps. Add to this some banging tunes and aircon and your set for an epic ride. With only 16 spaces you’ll need to be quick if you want to get involved in the fun!
Cross Country Round 3 Race Report – from Clive Shackell
A dramatic change in the weather from, dry and cold on Saturday, to snow overnight, turning to mild and rainy on Sunday morning, changed the cross-country course at Shotover Park Horspath from dry and firm on Saturday to wet and muddy on Sunday morning.
However, this didn’t dampen the spirits of our Oxford Tri runners who started the race. 14 Club members joined 475 other runners at the start line and made their way around the 8km course.
The first kilometre warmed everyone up with a flat run across a wet field before steadily climbing to the top of Shotover Hill where the conditions changed from wet and muddy to cold, snowy and misty. Steep downhill sections took the runners down to a wet field before climbing back up to the top of Shotover again and down the steep downhill section. As a special treat the final kilometre involved wading across a swollen stream and negotiating a boggy field before reaching the finish line!
After the race Oxford Tri runners were treated to homemade chocolate pastries and mini Toblerone when they returned to the Club tent which was pitched in the centre of Horspath track.
Everyone gave 100%, running in challenging conditions so I don’t like to pick out individual performances, however Hannah achieved an excellent 5th place in her age group, Heine was 12th and Sean was 13th in their age groups.
Many thanks to Craig who transported the Club tent, Stuart who marshalled at the top of Shotover Hill and Cicely who took over from me at the finish line so I could take part in the run.
Round 4 of the Oxfordshire Cross Country League is at Cotswold Farm Park, Guiting Power, Gloucestershire on 2nd February. We are a little short on women runners so please join us if you can.
Look out for lift sharing on the Oxford Tri Facebook page.
Hope to see you there
Whatsapp Group
We’re trialling WhatsApp community announcements, the main purpose of this is to allow us to communicate succinctly with all our current members without having to wait for the next Newsletter, or use Facebook, which I know is either not preferred by some and not used by others.
I know you already have a million WhatsApp groups and there are concerns about keeping phone numbers private. Community announcement groups hide your phone number so no one other than Admins can see your number and you can only see the number of the admins. So I believe this is a secure and great way for the club to communicate with you.
If this is going to work I need to you join the group firstly!!
Then follow one simple rule, please don’t react (like) or reply to messages!! This is a broadcast channel for the club to communicate urgent or time sensitive messages to you.
Unless I’m not finding it, there doesn’t appear to be a way to stop replies, specifically on community announcements, and so replying in the group to messages will have notifications pinging for people and they’ll mute us!! We have to use this communication method correctly to make it work!!
What kind of communications? Well as I said urgent or time sensitive items – A session has been cancelled due to bad weather, today’s the last day to sign up for a key social event, final reminder to vote for athlete of the year that kind of thing. The idea is a one way channel for the club to communicate with you.
So hopefully you agree it’s worth giving a go, please join the Channel through the following link, I have to approve members and I’ll only accept active current members.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/DmtuJAQOisB94XfqMnFGJj
Member of the month
Fittingly our last Member of the Month award goes to our outgoing Chair Craig Bathgate.
Craig has worked SO HARD for this club over the last two years. He came to Oxford with work, joined the club and fairly quickly found himself in the Chair role. Craig is super passionate about getting new people into triathlon and engaging with communities. You’ll have seen this with the Aquathlon event last year, with discounted or free entries, in return for volunteering, at The Blenheim Triathlon and The Oxford 1/2 and for setting up the Dunmore fund to support expanding the reach of triathlon in the community or supporting club members. This really doesn’t scratch the surface though of the endless emails, committee meetings and so many other things it takes to be Chair.
He’s done all this alongside being an amazing and innovative coach at the track, at the pool or on the spin bike. From all of us in the club thankyou Craig for everything you’ve done for the club in the last 2 years, we are all very grateful.
Thankfully Craig isn’t going anywhere too soon and will be recruiting hard for help at the Aquathlon in April, the Open Water Swims in May and the Blenheim Triathlon in June!
As I mentioned this is the last Member of the month Award.
We want to celebrate everyone’s achievements no matter how big or small. This will start from February’s Newsletter, so please do send in any achievements to share with fellow members by 6th February. Please send to: membership@oxfordtri.co.uk.
Meeting Minutes – January 2025
The committee meets monthly and looks after a variety aspects of the club, please have a look at the minutes of the January meeting below, I hope you agree we’re pretty busy at the moment!! If you have any suggestions of new agenda items for us to discuss at our February meeting please drop me a mail at Chair@oxfordtri.co.uk
https://www.oxfordtri.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20250109-Committee-Meeting-Notes-Jan-25.pdf
Bring on the next cross country!!
Sean