Lots of meetings and events have happened since we last wrote, its high time we gave a Play on Pedals update of events over the last month….
Play on Pedals at Free Wheel North
We attended our fourth June weekend event, this time at Free Wheel North, to coincide with the Glasgow Cycle Festival. We were graced with the presence of the fantastic Professor Balance, bringing his balancing expertise to the children at Glasgow Green and providing parents with top tips to get kiddies pedalling.
For those who don’t know, Free Wheel North is an amazing project based near the children’s play area in Glasgow Green providing a range of activities for children and adults with disabilities. They have a huge range of adapted bikes, hand bikes, tandems and even a 6-seater ‘Conference Bike’which can all be used to ride around their track on site; they also offer led-rides during the week for anyone who cares to join. We hope to be working with Free Wheel North again throughout the Play on Pedals project and would recommend anyone to drop down and check them out.
Westercraigs Nursery Photoshoot
Children from Westercraigs Nursery were very obliging models for Play on Pedals last week. We carried out a taster bike session and worked with photographer John Cameron to take some snaps of the children to use in our training resources. Here’s a sneak peek at a couple of the images…
North Lanarkshire Early Years catch- up
We owe a great deal to North Lanarkshire Early Years team! Their nursery staff have been fountains of knowledge regarding the instructor training and delivery to children. We met with Jaqueline McArthur again this month to show her our newly created Play on Pedals Instructor training manual and resources and to give her a big thank you to pass on to her team for their guidance during the start of Play on Pedals.
Meeting new groups
We’ve also been visiting some really exciting groups across Glasgow:
North Glasgow Homes delivers a great ng legacy sports programme which is currently in full swing with its summer activities – offering a huge range of sports for local children in the north of the city. Play on Pedals met with Greg Cann, the programme’s coordinator to discuss North Glasgow Homes becoming a Hero Organisation, offering local volunteers the opportunities to learn bike maintenance as well as delivering the Play on Pedals training to local early years groups.
Ed’s Cycle Co-op in Bishopbriggs have been delivering cycle training to little children across East Dumbartonshire and had lots of ideas for Play on Pedals training – including the simple tip to turn around the saddles of any bikes in need of repair to prevent children from jumping on, simple yet effective! The team may well be enlisted to support Play on Pedals to deliver our maintenance training to volunteers.
Playbusters provides a whole range of activities for young children in the east of Glasgow, including cycle training and mountain biking as well as free play sessions out and about in the local community. Play on Pedals is excited about the potential to be working with Playbusters and adding to their existing cycling programmes.
Urban Fox is yet another fantastic group working in the east of Glasgow with local young people. They have vast experience with cycle training and regularly take their groups out for mountain biking sessions as well as road cycling; they also offer a bike loan scheme to local families. We look forward to learning lots from Urban Fox staff over the coming months.
Glasgow Life has been a great support to Play on Pedals since the project was initially funded. We met to discuss how we might be able to link training opportunities for some of their young sports coaches and with the community sports hubs across Glasgow.
Thank you to all who have been involved in the project thus far – we look forward to working with you (and lots of other groups) increasingly over the next two years and thank you to the People’s Postcode Lottery for enabling Play on Pedals to happen!
