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news
La Marzocco coffee machineHelp Herne Hill Velodrome get a £7k coffee machine...via Twitter
A software company is offering to donate a £7,000 espresso coffee machine to Herne Hill Velodrome, in return for 1,500 new followers on Twitter.
Azeus Convene provide software for paperless meetings for Android, Apple and the web, and one of its employees, who happens to volunteer at Herne Hill Velodrome, mooted the idea.
Fans and supporters of Herne Hill Velodrome, and coffee, are being asked to help increase the company’s followers for the La Marzocco coffee machine, which will help raise further funds for the grassroots facility and provide hot drinks for visitors. Convene is currently more than halfway to its Twitter target, with approaching 800 followers.
If we get @AzeusConvene 1.5k new followers Herne Hill Velodrome gets a £7k coffee machine. Follow them, spread this, #GetTopCoffeetotheTrack pic.twitter.com/pKu2LCL8JA
— Friends of HHV (@savethevelodrom) November 21, 2016
Phil Wright, a Herne Hill Velodrome Trustee and Friends of Herne Hill Trustee, told road.cc: "The coffee machine will be provided by Brixton-based Volcano coffee, who are giving us a good price on the machine, and will supply the velodrome with the coffee beans and also train up 20 volunteers as baristas.
"The profit on coffee is amazing and if we can get volunteers to sell it that will be a great revenue stream. There's hundreds of people there every weekend; there's lots of kids training and their parents are sitting around and we have had people say they're happy to sell coffee.
"I like the idea of teenagers at the track getting trained up as baristas so they can get a bit of extra money while they're training," he said.
One of the volunteers, who coaches kids on a Friday, works at Convene, and suggested the idea to the company. Convene started the day with 480 followers, which means it needs almost 2,000 followers to trigger the donation.
Work begins on Herne Hill Velodrome pavilion
Meanwhile, the £1.8m Herne Hill Velodrome pavilion is nearing completion, and fundraising for the interior is due to begin in the next couple of weeks, via a crowd funding campaign. One of the oldest cycling tracks in Britain, Herne Hill is the last remaining finals venue from the 1948 London Olympics that is still in use.
The scaffolding is off! @ConamarBuild @savethevelodrom pic.twitter.com/F91kHRXBmh
— Herne Hill Velodrome (@HerneHillVel) November 12, 2016
Today, however, adverse weather got the better of the velodrome, when the access road became flooded following heavy, prolonged rainfall, and today's Wheels for Wellbeing session had to be cancelled.
Today's Herne Hill session (11-1.30) is cancelled folks. Approach road flooded. Keep dry and see you there next week.
— Wheels for Wellbeing (@WfWnews) November 21, 2016
Wright told road.cc the access road will be the last thing repaired as trucks are still coming in and out of the site. He believes Conamar Building Services, who are building the pavilion, will likely repair it.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
Latest Comments
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22 comments
I have now followed with three of my twitter accounts
Is this not very much a case of "teach a man to fish"?
Yes they could spend the money on getting cycling equipment but once that is worn out it is gone. Through getting this machine, training and supplies they are able to get a regular income that they can then invest in the previously mentioned cycling equipment. Assuming that a coffee costs ~10p to make, it will be staffed by volunteers and the coffee is sold for ~£2 a cup with 1k sold a week it is easy to see this coffee machine making that money back so many times over.
Just my thoughts
Well said ClubSmed. That's pretty much the plan.
Unconstituted and Freddy56 and TheMartinCox: Please come down to the Track next time you're near. Ask for Phil. I'll show you all the (admittedly 'first world') people having fun on bikes. Men and women, boys and girls, all ages, all backgrounds, all abilities. I'll tell you all about our long struggle to 'Save the Velodrome' and the many things we're doing to keep prices low and make all our different sessions accessible to all. Hopefully I'll also be able to buy you a very good cup of coffee.
I never knew coffee was so pivotal to cycling, how about they stick their coffe machine and buy the velodrome a load of bikes?
The velodrome has enough bikes and providing more wouldn't be an additional revenue stream. Herne hill is growing into an amazing community asset and Phil is a huge driver behind that. I can see it may seem silly from the outside but this could be a real opportunity for the velodrome
Have you been cycling long? See also, cake.
Just for the record: All the profits the Friends of Herne Hill make go back into the venue. The idea is we get this machine for nothing, make some money from selling posh coffee and so help to secure the future of our iconic cycling facility. Herne Hill Velodrome has been manufacturing cyclists for 125 years, we want it to continue to do that for another 125 years. We think that's a good thing to do.
It is. Why people on this website of all places would be against something that helps to keep a velodrome alive and accessible is beyond me.
I do applaud them for only riding sub £100 used bikes in their threadbare cycle kit though, what with them giving all their money to more worthy causes and all. You can understand why they wouldn't want to do something that costs them absolutley nothing.
p.s. Only visited for the first time recently, fantastic track! Be glad when the road is tarmac'd again though .... a track bike shouldn't get that muddy! (oh and when you can get a coffee)
Because we're not a tribe of lemmings.
People draw their own lines about what they think is worth campaigning or funding for.
For me it just looks extravagant, when I know for a fact this could be doen smarter and put to better use. Auctioned off to fund frames or course time for guys from a disadvantaged background. You can buy a solid catering coffee machine for under a grand.
We all have things we appreciate and don't. To expect everyone to go with the flow because it's a cycling site? Just not realistic. This is an indulgent sport, but I draw my lines where I please. Definitely wouldn't count myself as all in.
Nothing against guys who think is cool and signed up, just not for me. I'd rather type my thoughts on it than take a second to follow on Twitter.
Hope there aren't any tea drinkers at HHV...
https://youtu.be/8DWFWyz9f2w
(in particular, from 3:10)
Seems like a generous offer from a local company, enabling HHV to give their users decent coffee whilst generating much needed income for the track. Why people (on road.cc of all places) find that so offensive is beyond me. Good luck to Convene and HHV...
Binary choices..........
Follow on twitter, then unfollow and in the meanwhile make noble contributions here:
https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=U...
£4 a twit! You'd be foolish not to enable that donation.
As for yow clickbaiters, the world has to turn and I'd rather give of myself to assist the third world...
(Noat yow is awroight for fowlks fram rownd 'ere!) well summary like that I 'ai a chap from 'ere sow wat wuld I know!
'nuff said
Wow. The negative types are creeping out from under the floorboards today. Haters gonna hate...
Well that's us told. Alright guys, follow their Twitter spam so some guys can have an expensive coffee machine to use in between riding around on their bikes.
Then back under the floorboards. Chilly today.
Why not just follow, wait until the coffee machine has been delivered and then unfollow? Or follow then mute? No spam then.
Edit - I'm assuming that the mute function does indeed stop their tweets appearing in your feed! Disregard if it doesn't.
If the velodrome then sell it and give the cash to refugees or the homeless, then I'll follow.
Such a first world bag of shite.
Almost everything we like about cycling, including this site, could be described as a first world bag of shite. But it's mostly harmless, often moderately positive. Which is why I signed up to Twitter and followed that company. And since it's not one or the other, I give cold, hard cash to more deserving causes too.
Clever idea. Costs the company £7k but they get plenty more advertising, including here on Road.cc
They could have also crowdfunded it by offering reduced prices on coffee for backers for a limited period. The coffee doesn't cost a huge amount to buy so would fund itself pretty quickly.