Clyde Cycle Park SCIO Request (Applicant)

Clyde Cycle Park SCIO Request (Applicant)

Organisation Description

Clyde Cycle Park has the mission of promoting ‘cycling everyone. We offer cycling lessons, regular coached skills sessions, led rides and opportunities to try different forms of cycling – road, cyclocross, BMX and Bike Trials. We work with many partners to offer cycling to people of all ages and abilities (including disabilities like autism and dementia) for active travel, recreational purposes and utility cycling. Over the 2023-24 period, we have had 3,000 participants in our courses, and in November 2023, we were awarded the Scottish Cycling Recreational Cycling Award. See our website: www.clydecyclepark.org.uk or our social media @clydecyclepark

What are they looking for?

We are looking for two forms of advice. 1. Governance and finance. Clyde Cycle Park SCIO was established in 2016, with a board of 8 trustees. The problem we have is that a huge proportion of our income is in the form of grants for capital investment. In the latest financial year for which we have audited account (2022/23), we have restricted funds of £536k (grant awards for groundworks, fencing, compound works etc) but only £1.2k of unrestricted funds. So, our organisation appears to relatively well-off which renders us ineligible for many grant schemes. Our Fore Strategic Adviser recommended that we consider creating a second charity which we could use for operational activity and grant applications, leaving the big capital investment in the current charity. We would welcome advice on the governance arrangements for creating a second operational charity and relationship with the current SCIO. 2. Strategy. We have two different strategic futures depending on whether we continue with Phase 1 or are able to get the £1.5m funding for Phase 2 (of which we have £800k awarded). We would like advice on developing the strategies and associated business plans for each of these futures.