Cycling Minds March 2022 newsletter

A message from our founder, Toby

Great minds think alike… Cycling Minds was conceived partly to boost cycle tourism in our beautiful county and so we were excited to hear recently of Visit Northumberland’s drive to “make Northumberland a premier cycling holiday destination in England”. The tourist board has brought together local businesses with an interest in cycling, as well as major landowners in the county such as the Forestry Commission and Northumberland National Park to achieve this; Cycling Minds will also be part of the plans moving forward.

These include drawing up the Northumberland Cycling Charter where businesses can demonstrate that they have all the requirements of “Cycling Friendly” establishment to give visitors confidence in bringing their bikes along on their trip to Northumberland.

Also in March, Northumberland County Council released its plans to enhance the walking and cycling infrastructure across the county, which are now subject to public consultation. The plans are limited in scope as they only cover the county’s 12 main towns (Alnwick, Amble, Ashington, Bedlington, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Blyth, Cramlington, Haltwhistle, Hexham, Morpeth, Ponteland, Prudhoe) but it is good to see the Council starting the conversation around sustainable transport which they say will inform where they target investment to “support a fundamental behaviour change to how we travel”. 

All these developments can only be good for Cycling Minds as they boost the use of bikes in the county and lead to a gradual improvement in infrastructure to make cycling safer and more pleasurable than ever in our beautiful county.

Popping up everywhere

March saw Cycling Minds run a total of four very successful bike check pop-ups across Hexham. We wanted to reach all four corners of the town and so arranged events on the Priestlands and White Cross estates, on Tyne Green and at the Farmers’ Market in the Marketplace. Every event attracted a queue of people at the start keen to get their bikes back on the road for spring and over the month we checked and repaired over 50 bikes – a fantastic achievement which our team of volunteers should be very proud of.

A big thanks goes to Karbon Homes (one of our funders) who gave us permission to set up our gazebo on Priestlands, to Peter Sansom from the Farmers’ Market, and to Ellen Moran from No. 28 for use of the community house’s back garden.

These events underlined the demand for a bike shop in Hexham and everyone said they would visit The Link after it has opened.

Net Zero Fair

Hexham held its first Net Zero Fair on 20 March, which Cycling Minds attended, not only to raise awareness of the project but to contribute to the efforts to achieve the town and county councils’ Net Zero targets for 2030. The event also gave us a chance to network and we came away with two potentially game changing partnerships, which could ultimately result in more jobs for our beneficiaries to move into after their training with us.

Stronger together

Cycling Minds’ memberships give an indication of our mission. We have joined ACT (Association of Cycle Traders) and have become an Investor in Cycling through the Bicycle Association as we are both a bike workshop and an advocate of cycling. We have also become a member of the Voluntary Organisations’ Network North East (VONNE), the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and the Association of Mental Health Providers (AMHP) given our role in the social prescribing and charitable activity space. Being part of these organisations means we are already making new contacts and finding synergies as The Link is increasingly becoming a honeypot for all things cycling in Hexham, even though we haven’t opened our doors yet! “Build it and they will come” goes the old saying, which is clearly proving true for us!

Volunteers in the spotlight

We refer to our volunteers collectively as Our Minds because it is their combined knowledge and experience that are and will make Cycling Minds a success. We therefore thought it was fitting to put each of them in the spotlight with a fun questionnaire.

Our first volunteer to respond was Jeff Wild who is on our Rides team and will assist beneficiaries and the paying public on the guided rides we run. Here’s a bit about him:

1. Why Cycling Minds? It’s a social enterprise that involves one of my main hobbies and will benefit the many who are touched by it.

2. What’s your funniest, most amazing or hardest experience on a bike (or all three)? Funniest – watching others fall off, as long as they aren’t hurt; most amazing – Land’s End to John O’Groats, the training and the 10 days and 1,000 miles of memories; hardest – Hebridean Way on a tandem, up and down over 380 miles in weather that wasn’t always helpful.

3. Group or solo rides? Why? Group, because I like company and it’s safer.

4. When and why did you start cycling? Back in 1997; I knew somebody involved in putting the C2C together and he was drumming up rides to get the thing off the ground – hooked since!

5. What do you want to get out of Cycling Minds and how do you hope to contribute to our project? Make me and others feel good/better through either contributing something or receiving something, or both.

6. Flapjack or energy gels? Both, and cake in between!

Image: Cycling Minds volunteer Jeff Wild doing what he loves best: discovering new landscapes on his tandem

What about outcomes

None of our efforts so far will be worth anything if we don’t ultimately have a positive impact on the local community and individual lives through our charitable activities. This includes how our young beneficiaries’ lives are changed by our Step On(e) guided ride programme (name change here because we realised “Let’s Ride” had already been used by British Cycling) and Persevere to Succeed training and employability programme. As we prepare to open The Link and welcome in our first beneficiaries next month, we therefore thought we’d share the outcomes wheel that we will use to track their progress. Let us know what you think.

We also celebrated Social Prescribing Week running from 4 to 11 March, which is an annual celebration of social prescribing, recognising local community groups and projects which have kept us healthy throughout the pandemic and will increasingly continue to do so as the NHS ramps up its person-centred care approach. As the attached social prescribing wheel shows, Cycling Minds will cover many aspects of this approach when we open our doors. We can’t wait to get going!

A stronger financial position

When we started fund raising to cover our start-up costs, we never knew how successful we’d be. However, funders have really been enthusiastic about Cycling Minds and shown this through the grants they have awarded us. Starting up what is effectively a business and a charity rolled into one is a tall order and has thrown up some unexpected costs, but with our funders support, we’re now ready to open The Link.

A big thanks to the Community Foundation Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, which demonstrated its belief in the Cycling Minds project awarding us two grants through the Blackett Family Community First Fund and the Wellesley Trust Fund. Also to Waitrose for the unexpected surprise of a cheque for £1,000 through their Give a Little Love community programme. This money will be used to purchase some of the IT equipment and software we need to go completely paperless – something we have set out to do from the start in line with our Environmental Policy.

Cycling Minds is also now benefitting from the backing of the Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner after receiving a grant from the Operation Payback fund which uses money seized from criminal activity under the Proceeds of Crime Act to fund community projects. The grant is being used to build up our fleet of e-bikes.

PCC for Northumbria, Kim McGuinness , described Cycling Minds as: “one of several ‘stand-out’ projects that can really help to repair the harm caused by crime and anti-social behaviour in Northumberland”.

We look forward to working with NPCC to make a positive difference to our neighbourhoods.

Image: Volunteers Matthew and Will enjoying a sunny day next to Hexham Abbey fixing bikes for customers at our free pop-up event

Next steps

One of the biggest milestones so far was that we were handed the keys to The Link on the last day of March. So it’s all hands on deck now to get it shipshape to open our doors on Friday 8 April. We’ve had plenty of bikes donated and have already had enquiries about bikes for sale and repairs so look forward to getting all those people out cycling very soon.

We’re busy planning our first Step On(e) rides, the first of which we’ll be test riding within the coming week, and hope to take our first beneficiaries out over Easter. We can’t wait!

Until next time, free your legs and your mind will follow!