January 8/07 10:29 am - Jim Crosscombe to Retire as President of the OCA

Posted by Editor on 01/8/07
 

Jim Crosscombe to Retire as President of the OCA
Courtesy OCA

Effective today I will be stepping down as President of the Ontario Cycling Association. I have held this position for the past 8 years and was not planning to run again in this year's election.

It has been an amazing experience to serve as your President for this length of time. In the beginning it was a little rough because of the financial problems I inherited. It quickly grew into one of the best experiences in my life working with an excellent board, Steve Merker, the support staff and of course the members.

The association has grown immensely over the past 8 years evolving into a leading Provincial Sport Organization. We have a solid membership base with a record number of affiliated clubs. Our High Performance program is second to none and is consistently developing stellar athletes. Our Ontario and Canada summer games programs are important focal points for up and coming young athletes. The quality of events has risen over the years despite numerous challenges like increasing venue costs and the difficulty in closing roads for certain events. There are competitive and recreational events for just about everyone from youth to hard charging masters in Ontario and we saw several high level National events in Ontario along with the international crown jewel - the World Championships in Hamilton. The development of an indoor Velodrome in London has to be the icing on the cake and will prove to be the key in rebuilding interest in track cycling. Who would of thought that BMX would become an Olympic sport - it did and BMX participation has doubled in the last two years. There is an ever-increasing demand around the province for our Can-Bike and Sprockid programs. It's been a great 8 years!

Despite my retirement I am not going to disappear. In order to provide continuity in the organization following the departure of Steve Merker, the former executive director, I will take on the role of part time interim Executive Director until the board selects a replacement. This is a strategy that has worked well with other sports that found themselves in a similar situation and a good fit in this case as I intended to retire at the end of my term. The OCA board did not want to go through this period without a knowledgeable person to oversee the office and to ensure that we do not fall behind during the busiest time of the year for the office. It will not be a lot different than my early days as President when we had no professional staff and I spent much of my spare time in the office doing the work of an executive director. A key difference is we now have dedicated and knowledgeable full time staff as the backbone of our association. I look forward to this challenge.