Cake made by Wendy of Taste on Clumber Road
Yesterday saw the 12th celebration of Green Streets Walk/ride days that we organised to make people aware and experience what it is like to leave the car behind and make a special effort to walk, cycle or use public transport.
This is one of the numerous Transition West Bridgford initiatives to get our town involved in making it more resilient and less dependent on oil. Over this last year hundreds of local people have made this special effort and I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank you to all.
When Cllr Khan a year ago launched the campaign on Melton Road in front of Celebrations, businesses like Celebrations, Taste, The Green Boxshop, Caffe Nero, Belle and Jerome, Inspiration, Flowerbay in Lady Bay, The Lady Bay pub and Signature really put all their enthusiasm and energy behind the event, gave discounts and incentives to all those who walked and cycled and wore something Green. Nicola Pearson and Paul Philipps from Rushcliffe BC, Lin Taylor of our Library and Chris from Pedal express worked tirelessly to promote the event, designed, printed and distributed posters and flyers and cycled for miles with a bill board to announce the forthcoming walk day.
Schools like, Jesse Gray, WB Junior School, Greythorne Primary School had assemblies, sold badges and raised awareness to both their pupils and the parents. For this I am extremely grateful as I know that time is precious and that these days even primary schools are working to an amazingly tight schedule not giving much lee way to do anything else than follow the curriculum.
We had Green Streets events on the Croquet Lawn and monthly guided bike rides organised by members of Pedals and members of Transition WB. A special Thank you to: Malcome and Margaret Kennerley, Brian and Kathy Shaw, Hugh McClintock, David Nicolson Cole, Kate Troy, Sheila Hood, employees of Games Workshop and Cllr Mallender for giving their time to show people in West Bridgford that it can be quick, easy and fun to cycle to various local destinations. The events on the Croquet lawn were hard work at times but made it all more rewarding to see that every single month, members from the West Bridgford Skills exchange, Jonathan and a local resident and a handful of local businesses came to help out and spread the message.
And then, there were the badges…. 12 different ones were printed for sale at 20 p in various locations but mainly through our local schools, where little champions were selling and promoting them. I would like to give a special mention to Natasha and her friends and Eleanor Collard who I know organised special events to sell the badges and promote the cause.. The idea behind the badges was that it would be an incentive to walk or cycle that day not realising that it had an even more diverse impact on the children.
Collecting these badges meant they had to be persistent and determined, they had to save their pocket money, they had to take care of them, treasure them and not loose them and that the reward of doing this would be that they would be entitled to go in the prize draw to win a bike.
Today is that big day, with the money received from all the 20p’s that you have paid to buy the badges, we have managed to buy a bike and helmet, The Green Streets birthday cake, the catering for this event and possibly 3 bike maintenance lessons in West Bridgford in the near future. If you are interested in these, please sign up and leave your details.
We have all contributed to this celebration in our own little ways and hope that you will continue to promote the last Friday in the month as a walk/ride day to your friends, colleagues and neighbours by handing out a badge to wear proudly on the day. The badges, some literature on cycling in WB and a window sticker are in the goodie bags that you will receive on your way out. Happy Walk/ Ride days and Thank you for making this year so rewarding for so many people.
The lucky winner of the bike was Cameron. Congratulations!
