History Of Club

A BUG’s Life

An entomological study into the ‘life cycle’ of the Fraser Coast Bicycle Users Group

In 2003, the former Hervey Bay City Council called a public interest meeting and held this at the CWA building in Bideford Street, Torquay. Two council representatives chaired the meeting and approximately 15 persons attended. The meeting heard that a BUG didn’t necessarily have to have wings! One attendee, an aircraft pilot chose to disagree! From this public meeting, David M became the group’s first president and Mark P was elected the group’s first secretary. As the Hervey

Bay BUG we were off and buzzing!

A sign-on BBQ day was held soon after at the Botanical Gardens in Elizabeth Street where, in spite of Cary’s cooking, seven dedicated cycling enthusiasts placed their signature on the line and handed over their money. Mary-Ann P was coerced into being the first treasurer.

Funds were tight in the early days with members contributing funds to maintain the minimum bank balance in order to avoid bank fees. The president and secretary were heavily involved on the public speaking circuit back then, spreading the word on the newly formed BUG. Mark gave one presentation to Hervey Bay Rotary and so impressed were they that $150 to cover the incorporation fee was quickly forthcoming. Being incorporated was essential in order to gain insurance for our office bearers as we had big plans to run many future events.

The first annual event was established. The Saturday morning ride at Christmas terminated at Mark and Sue’s place. All five riders turned up. This Christmas gathering tradition has continued ever since even though the locations have varied over the years.

Due to personal reasons, David M stepped down during this first term and Dave Mac took over. Meetings during this first term were held in a small meeting room at the council library, near the university in Pialba. This was better than the public phone box we thought we would have to use.

Our group was small, the meeting room was also very small but it was cheap. In fact, it was free – courtesy of the council.

One of our main aims then was to be the ‘eyes and ears’ of council, identifying maintenance issues and areas of concern for cyclists. These were detailed in monthly reports prepared by the secretary and dutifully despatched to our engineering contact at council, Craig.

As the library needed to make room available for paying tenants, we were asked to move on and so our next location was the old Seagulls clubhouse on Bideford Street. However, within 12 months this was also required by another commercial concern. As our membership had grown to around 50, and we were now just able to financially ‘pay our way’, we were offered a space in the Arts and Crafts Centre.

Getting the word out there continued to be high on the priority list. Mark continued to be heard as a regular monthly guest on local community radio. Dave Mac and his disciples ran cycling instruction courses at the library during the school holidays.