Story and pictures by Jun Nogami

Last night, March 22, 2018, was the night for Cycle Toronto's annual general meeting. A pretty good crowd of over 100 gathered at the Garrison to talk bikes and find out who the four new board members would be for the year ahead for Toronto's pre-eminent cycling advocacy group.

Our MC's for tonight are board member Alex Cheesman and executive director Jared Kolb.

First item of business is to have the candidates for new board positions give their statements. There are 10 candidates for four open positions. Here is Kyle, below, AKA parking pal, giving his statement in verse.

Mark talks about how he wants to make the streets of Toronto a safe place for his daughters to bike.

Rob (a dandyhorse contributor at large) says that it is important to have representation from grassroots advocacy on the board.

All of the candidates on stage at once (although, two were absent).

Now the audience settles down to mark their ballots. We are using a ranked ballot system.

While we're waiting, here's a picture of CycleTO executive directors, past (Yvonne Bambrick) and present.

Collecting ballots.

While we wait for the ballots to be counted, Brandin (president of the board of directors) gives an update on the health of the organization and thanks members and supporters for supporting safe streets:" thank you for supporting Cycle TO".

Next up, a Dutch auction. Tonight's fundraising target was $10,000.

If the goal is reached, then Mark will do an unspecified embarrassing thing.

First bid is for $2,500.

As the bids pile up, it becomes clear that the stunt is going to involve Mark riding a small bike. The higher the total, the smaller the wheel size.

$10,000 is reached, and now some stretch goals are announced.

A record amount of over $13K is raised.

Mark does five laps of the stage with a 12" wheeled bike.

For the stretch goal, Jared bikes the bike as well.

Now Keagan and Jared review the year past. Keagan Gartz will be the interim director as Jared is taking a six month paternity leave.

A rogue's gallery of some of the opposition on City Council.

Approval of the Bloor bike lane was a major focus, and a success.

Now the election results are announced.

Our newest board members are Melana Roberts, Kathryn Randle, Robert Zaichkowski, and Mark Shultis. Kudos to everyone who ran. It takes guts to do so, and as someone remarked to me, we had a surfeit of good choices.

Aaaand that's a wrap for this year's Cycle Toronto AGM.

Related on dandyhorsemagazine.com:

Cycle Toronto AGM 2017

Die in at City Hall Monday, March 26 at 5:45 p.m.

Bring on the bike lane brigade