Play on Pedals would like to wish everyone a very happy holiday and New Year and to thank all of you for your support over the last year.
Here are just some of our favourite highlights from 2015:
Obviously, the biggest highlight has been the number of children we have reached through Play on Pedals in Glasgow – which is now over 2500!
Kids across the city have been learning all about the parts of the bikes as well as becoming really confident riding them – here’s one soon-to-be cyclist fixing bikes with Cole from the Bike Station .
In 2015, we have delivered 30 Instructor training days across the city, in all weather conditions, boosting our total Instructor numbers up to 208. One particularly memorable day was at Scaraway Nursery where we all got so soaked that we had to tumble dry our trousers and socks during lunch!
This year we also devised and delivered training for our first Instructor Trainers – we now have 10 qualified to deliver training to others and will grow this in 2016. Here’s Karen delivering her first session at St Francis’ Nursery in Gorbals.
Our June Bike Amnesty was a big success and thanks to Glasgow Life for offering drop-off venues, we managed to collect over 100 bikes for Play on Pedals! Even more wonderful was hearing the news later this year that a mum from Eastwood Nursery had taken it upon herself to organise her own bike amnesty by writing to local forums. She collected 15 secondhand bikes from locations all over the southside and has donated them to the nursery! Here she is with a member of staff from Eastwood and Victoria, from South West Community Cycles – the local Hero Organisation.
Our summer was filled with Drop-in events right across the city, with families joining us at the Riverside Museum, Kelvingrove Tennis Courts, Alexandra Park, Lambhill Stables, Glasgow Green, Drumchapel Park, Maryhill and Knightswood Park to name a few! Our busiest day saw 95 children attending Play on Pedals in 4 hours. We’ve really enjoyed these events and have seen loads of kids start pedalling, its been great also for meeting enthusiastic parents. Here’s one image we tweeted earlier in the year – look at her beaming face!
We’ve also been working hard on our project evaluation and have been overwhelmed by the positive feedback from Instructors at the 6 focus groups we’ve held this year. This feedback is being drawn into our final project report which will be ready in early Spring. Here’s a snap from the North East cluster focus group chatting with Jenny, our project evaluator.
At the end of the summer, one of our project partners Cycling Scotland was awarded funding from Transport Scotland to roll-out the training element of Play on Pedals nationally, which is a fantastic highlight for 2015 and means that Play on Pedals can reach all preschool children across Scotland!
Certainly meeting Nicola Sturgeon at the of the launch South West Glasgow Cycle Highway made our November! And gave us the highest twitter response of the year …
We’ve really enjoyed working closely with Hero Organisations across the city this year to deliver a whole range of engagement activities, including Dr Bike sessions across south Glasgow with South West Community Cycles; community events with De’ils on Wheels, Dumbarton Road Corridor Environment Trust and Lambhill Stables; mentoring support with Urban Fox; and dads sessions with 3D Drumchapel and Wheel Fix It. Here’s a great snap of all the children receiving their certificates for completing the 3D Drumchapel Play on Pedals course.
And finally, our most recent highlight has been having great fun at Chesters Nursery shooting footage for our new Play on Pedals film….. watch this space – it’s coming to you soon in 2016!
Thank you to all of you who have been involved in making Play on Pedals such a success in 2015, including those not mentioned here – we’ve had a great year and can’t wait to return in January for more.
Happy holidays everyone!
