December 22/04 11:01 am - OCA Receives Ontario Trillium Foundation Grant

Posted by Editoress on 12/22/04
 

OCA Receives Ontario Trillium Foundation Grant
Courtesy OCA

The Ontario Cycling Association (OCA) is ecstatic to announce a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF). The three-year grant will move the OCA to the forefront of governing cycling bodies in North America. Over the next three years, the $239 700 grant will allow us to:

1. Structure and Development the BMX Scene

This includes hiring a BMX Officer and developing a professional BMX track start-up manual. Each will help us increase BMX to more communities and build more tracks. Now that BMX Racing is an official Olympic Sport, this will help build the infrastructure for our future champions. The Riders Ready program (BMX for kids in need) will also be expanded to more tracks.

2. Enhance Events

This includes offering more commissaire courses, introducing an organiser's course and developing a professional organiser's guide. Each will help us to have more consistency and better standards from event to event. It will result in more and better events.

3. Online Systems

The OCA is ready to enter the next age of database management. This revolutionary online system will allow us to process memberships online. The online database system will also be capable of handling online registration. This registration program will be available to all OCA organizers, for very little cost. Gone are the days of long registration line-ups, riders' errors in race and licence numbers and lack of start lists. By having our online pre-registration system in place, timing crews will be able to produce quicker, more accurate results.

With a stable growing BMX community, more consistency from event to event and an innovative online system that will eliminate repetitive paperwork, this Trillium grant will establish the OCA as a cycling leader and will bring more value to the membership.

We would like to thank Kevin Humphrey of the Ontario Trillium Foundation for all of his hard work and dedication in our grant application process. Many of our clubs will remember Kevin from his Trillium presentation at our Club President's Meeting last January.

The Ontario Trillium Foundation, an agency of the Ministry of Culture, receives annually $100 million of government funding generated through Ontario's charity casino initiative. The Foundation allocates grants to eligible charitable and not-for-profit organizations in the arts and culture, environment, human and social services, and sports and recreation sectors. For more information, visit www.trilliumfoundation.org.