Looking to the future for CSAM

Apologies for a month of missing Monday missives… a combination of a busy period at work, and it being birthday season in the Mesquita-Morris family.

I thought this time I’d steer clear of my usual discussion of an advanced driving topic and put my Chair hat on and provide an update on the current hiatus and look a little further to the next Annual General Meeting.

With IAM RoadSmart having already allowed the resumption of observed runs in bike groups, and the DVLA announcing the staged resumption of driving lessons and tests, the obvious question is” when will we resume observed runs in cars? The answer to this is a little less obvious and it’s occupying your committee. We hope to receive some guidance from IAM RoadSmart in this coming week, but even if they give the go-ahead, it will be a CSAM committee decision when we resume, given our duty of care over CSAM members. The last guidance (at the time of typing this) was social distancing of one meter plus precautions and most cars don’t allow this.

Rest assured, whatever decision we take, it will be because a majority of the committee support it. Even then, observers and associates will not be pressured to resume runs until they feel they are ready.

Despite the fact we have been confined to our homes for a long time, the year is passing quickly, and my thoughts are already on the upcoming Annual General Meeting in October.

I do hope by then that we will be able to meet in person as usual, but if not, we will set up a video conference open to members to participate in. I have seen many other groups up and down the country doing this successfully – we have had two committee meetings this way successfully. 

The AGM as we know is where committee roles change hands amongst the group membership. We, like all IAM RoadSmart local groups are entirely dependent upon volunteers from our membership. If you feel like helping out, please do not hesitate to get in contact and you can always sit in on the July and/or September meetings prior to making a committee commitment. If you’d like to see changes in the group, what we do or how we’re run, also please do not hesitate to get in contact, or better still join the committee and in the words of Mahatma Gandhi:

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world”.

OK, maybe not the world, but perhaps a small charity in the South coast of the UK.

We have recently lost our Vice Chair and have another couple of committee members considering stepping down having already served three and four years in their current roles. A rich seam of volunteers is critical to the sustainability of the group, so please do get in contact – it really isn’t that burdensome and is a fulfilling way to give a little back to the community.

Until next time, stay safe,

David.