“We have a strategy. We have a team. We’re missing just one thing – you.”

In 2020 the Irish Cycling Advocacy Network Cyclist.ie adopted a new strategy. This strategy sets out the vision, mission, values and strategic aims. It also makes clear who we are, and why we do what we do. Our strategy is a high-level framework that will guide our Council, Executive Committee (EC), volunteers, and the National Cycling Coordinator (NCC) in their work. Its main purpose is to help direct our limited time and energies on what we decide our key aims and objectives are. It is about providing guidance on where we should concentrate our efforts in terms of campaigning priorities and organisational development.

Following the adoption of the strategy, the next challenge was to organise ourselves in a way to enable us to take action and achieve the aims and objectives outlined in the strategy. We’ve now taken the first step by proposing a structure that allows us to handle the ongoing day-to-day operational tasks, whilst progressing our strategic aims. The concept is to create a number of “portfolio groups” that are each responsible for particular areas.

We’ve identified eight portfolio groups, each with the same structure:

• A liaison from the Exec team, and also a non-exec liaison to promote wider involvement from the cycling community
• A set of day-to-day or reactive tasks that this group is responsible for, handling all the many and varied activities that keep Cyclist.ie moving forward
• A set of strategic or planned tasks aimed at delivering on our overall goals

So far, so good. So what parts of the strategy are each of the portfolio groups responsible for?

How we’ll achieve our strategic objectives

After a number of workshops we arrived at the result shown in the table below. Note that our six main strategic aims are shown on the left hand side (each of which has several objectives sitting within it), while our 8 portfolio groups are shown in blue on the top.:

The numbers indicate the number of strategic objectives in each portfolio – noting that the objectives vary widely in scope and scale.

We expect this structure to adapt and evolve over time as we put this into practice, and the first step is to invite you to get involved.

How to get involved

Each portfolio has a liaison from the exec team, and the first job of the liaison is to present their portfolio at the June Council meeting and invite you to get involved. Involvement can be as small or large as you have capacity for, so please get in touch! Shown below are the eight portfolio groups and the liaison person (or persons) associated with each