My long-time partner / newly wed husband joined an album club. This seems like a pretty old-fashioned idea; you pay a subscription, and you get sent a CD every month.  It’s also a pretty neat idea – you end up listening to music that you just might not otherwise come across. One CD that came was called Europe, by the band Allo Darlin. There is a particular lyric that is resonating with me at the moment:

“These days it’s hard not to measure by what you’ve lost,

            But what you can find”

The Letter – Allo Darlin’

• Getting married to the love of my life, my childhood sweetheart, and having the most fun it is possible to have in one day with amazing contributions from family and friends
• Music, music, music – whether it’s all the amazing new music I found at Green Man (Tuneyards, King Charles, Treetop Flyers) or seeing my new husband jamming on funk bass with his new band, the Africelts
• Resilience – my Gran had an old-fashioned, grin-and-bear-it type of resilience. My resilience is a little bit different… but there are some times when you just have to keep on going, and I found this from my Gran
• Brene Brown’s work on vulnerability – the message that courage is not about not feeling vulnerable, but that vulnerability is where your courage comes from. And the title of her blog, Ordinary Courage. This year I have really found my own vulnerability, and not run away from it
• My superpower, which is exploring opportunities, asking questions to help others gain clarity in their thinking, and see a clear way through that meets with their values and belief. How cool that I can name this now, thanks to my fab colleagues from The You Can Hub. I can’t wait to get on with the important business of sharing this strength with others, with greater awareness!
  

In these times of economic uncertainty, it’s hard not to focus on the loss – loss of jobs, loss of funding, loss of services for vulnerable groups. What do you do to counter this? What have you found lately?

Last month, Mel and I attended #ccbbq2012 – The Creating Cambridge Big Summer BBQ, an event founded with the aim of bringing together the many different networking groups in Cambridge for more cross-pollination (and guess what, it rained!). Mel and I usually find that if you get us together in a space where there is also ginger beer or cider, we end up talking about changing the world. And this night was no exception.

It’s funny how an event with so many people wearing name badges taking over a beer garden can change the feel of the space, and what we found was that it actually made it easier to start conversations with complete strangers. And this is how we started a conversation with two people who weren’t even wearing name badges, and were just there for a leisurely Friday evening pint.

We joined a table with Dai and Mike, two researchers who are interested in sustainability. Since the beginning of You Can, we have talked about ideas of making sure that we are sustainable, and tried to explore what this means:

– projects that start with us but also build to have a sense of momentum that gives them a life beyond You Can

– working patterns that mean we have time for self care; pacing ourselves

– being aware of the potential impact of our work and trying to promote others’ awareness of their impact on their environment

To be honest it was pretty hard to find a way to put this into words. That’s where Dai and Mike come in. As soon as we started chatting with them, it turned that they are researching sustainability – not in the conventional environmental sense, but in three areas:

• Economic
• Environmental
• Social

Economic sustainability – Most people can get their head around this, given the amount of time in the media dedicated to banking decisions and so on…Making sure that we’re finding a way to make money that is sustainable in the long term… trying to avoid things like the recent economic crisis.

Environmental sustainability – what most people think of as sustainability. Reducing our use of environmental resources, reducing our impact, carbon quotas and footprints, solar power and composting toilets.

Social sustainability – heard this term before? I didn’t think so.

We’re only just trying to get our heads around this. But how I understand it is this:

There are an awful lot of people in this country, in the world. And a lot of them are doing a job where they’re told what to do. There are people who have paid work. And there are people who are “living off the state” – receiving support in their income because they’re not able to do paid work. What if all of these people were actually motivated by doing what they wanted to do? What if they were all able to pace themselves in their work, so that they reduced the risk of burnout and were able to manage their own stress? What if they really understand their strengths and skills and could adapt their offer to bring value – economically, environmentally, and socially?

Then I saw this video from Chris Guillebeau, and I think the actions in it speak to all of these issues:

Thirteen minutes of your time – but well spent! This video speaks to the three types of sustainability as follows:

• Economic – a “real” (hard cash) investment in the people who came to the conference.
• Environmental – encouragement to those people to think about the impact of the investment made by each of them (although I’m not sure how all the plane fares to the conference factor in here!)
• Social – not just a hard cash investment, but a “belief” element – investing in the people that came and encouraging them to “pass it on”

I’m still working on a definition of social sustainability. But for me, it’s about knowing myself, knowing my skills, and working out how to bring them to the world in ways that are both paid and unpaid, and in a way that promotes a connection between me and others. Creating social value.

What about you?

I feel like things have been a long time a coming!! But we have what Angela (Project team member) calls some “action!”

Wheels For All (Cycling Projects) have loaned Milton Country Park four adaptive bikes which nudges up our total to seven bikes….plus of course the two-wheelers that we have for parents or anyone else to ride alongside the child or adult that they are supporting.

So what You Can Bike Too will do is use these whilst we collect our own ‘family’ of bikes! (I feel like we have ‘fostered’ these loan bikes for a short while….!)

The project team are very excited at the prospect of more bikes….and also very excited at the up and coming events planned.

1. Big Weeked on Parkers Piece, Saturday 7th July – This is a really exciting event because the Olympic Torch is coming to town! Ashfield Bikes are bringing their bikes for people to try out and we will have our volunteers and instructors helping out with lots of information! (And it was such a hit last time, Outspoken are bringing their fantastic Smoothie Maker Bike along too!)

While the Big Weekend continues on Sunday, our team re-locate to Milton Country Park for the Big Bike Ride.

2. Sunday 8th July –  The Big Bike Ride is going through Milton Country Park. You Can Bike Too will have a presence in the park so riders and support will see adaptive bikes. There is still time to register to cycle as part of the event and there are two routes to choose from.

So that’s this weekend covered… what next?

3. Sunday 15th July – Park Life at Milton Country Park. Loads more fun for everyone!! As well as being able to meet the bike project, there are lots of other activities…. canoeing, water walking and circus skills to name a few!

Looking Ahead to August…

August sees the Paralympic Torch arriving at Milton Country Park on Saturday 25th! There will be lots of activities to try including the bikes at You Can Bike Too  – we won’t be missing the fun, and we’ll have more information closer to the time…

So onwards and upwards!! A busy Summer ahead for the team getting ready for all these events… Which one will we see you at?

           I’m Cyclin’ in the Rain

Just cycling in the rain
What a glorious feelin’
I’m happy again
I’m laughing at clouds
So dark up above
The sun’s in my heart
And I’m ready for love
Let the stormy clouds chase
Everyone from the place
Come on with the rain
I’ve a smile on my face
I bike down the lane
With a happy refrain
Just cyclin’,
Cyclin’ in the rain!

A wet Wednesday April 4th 2012…Milton Country Park was the place to be. The first ever mini Bike Fest took place!

The You Can Bike Too Project Team and supportive volunteers from The You Can Hub, Milton Country Park, Ashfield Bikes and Cycling Projects all came together to show Cambridge and its surrounds what is possible for people of all abilities to achieve on bikes! Outspoken provided a fantastic smoothie maker machine! Stacy and her team provided jewellery made from old bike bits! (Loved the bike tyre mirror!)

The mayor took a ride with the mayoress and a You Can Bike Too team member – now that is travelling in style…bring the bling! The smiles said it all! The bikes whizzed around the circuit! Mud was splattered but no one cared! 74 people rode bikes of all shapes and sizes. Quotes were collected and attached to a ‘Quote Bike’! A consultation was held….results/photos to be posted up soon. All this in the rain…nothing stops the cyclist!

Bicycle cake!

Oh yes and I forgot to mention it was Angela’s birthday! A cake in the shape of a bike wasmade to celebrate these two events happening on the same day! (Thank you Doreen!)
Thanks to all that attended and all who made it such a brill day!

Now it’s time for you to start singin’ and cyclin’ too!

Gosh, it’s a very exciting time here at The You Can Hub. The You Can Bike Too project team supported by the unstoppable Ruth Brannan have had an amazing response to all of their hard work so far. The team have found that there are people out there who have never ridden a bike, don’t think they can ride a bike, or have ridden a bike in the past and think they’ve forgotten how to! And then there’s the people who just want to have a go at these interesting looking bikes! So how can I get involved, I hear you cry? I can sense your cycling legs itching to get started…

All you need to do is come along to the Bike Bike Day at Milton Country Park on Wednesday 4th April. There will be loads of different bikes to try, and all sorts of bike-related excitement to get involved with. Who knows what you’ll go home with? So come on, give it a try – fun for all the family!

Where have you seen our poster? Get involved with the poster-hunt over on our facebook page.

Thank you to… This event wouldn’t have been possible without our lovely partners, seen on our flyer above – not forgetting Cambridgeshire County Council!

This week looks to be one that gets us going in the right direction! So much to tell you….where do I start?

News on the block

Tokens that have been collected on behalf of ‘You Can Bike Too’ were given in to Cambridge Building Society offices (and Cambridge News offices) by supporters of our fantastic project…the aim being to benefit from ‘Cash For the Community,‘ an idea from the Cambridge News (in partnership with Cambridge Building Society) which was about cutting tokens that were printed daily and given in….however there were 25 projects nominated for a share of £10,000. In total 39,000 tokens were given in for all the projects! So we are going to be allocated £394 which I think is brilliant – but better than the cash is the publicity that this will bring to this project!

So today Aaran (Project Team Volunteer) and I are going to the presentation at the Cambridge News offices in Milton…woooh! A photo opportunity I feel! (Honestly I just can’t help using exclamation marks!)

Instructor Training to take place

Monday and Tuesday – Wheels for All (Cycling Projects) are going to deliver 2 days of instructor training to about 14 people – including myself, the manager of Milton Country Park, a parent, a carer or two, a couple of professionals and 3 or 4 young men with learning difficulties…how cool and inclusive is that?! Thanks to South Cambs Council for paying for this and thanks to Milton Country Park for hosting this training.

Wheels For All Training gives individuals, carers and support staff the confidence to work with adapted cycles for their clients or family member so that all can enjoy the benefits of cycling in a sociable environment.

Once we have these volunteers trained up we edge closer to the day when we see All Ability Cycling take place in Cambridge!

Funding

On Wednesday one of the project team and myself are going to Guildhall in Cambridge to make a presentation to Cycling and Pedestrian Members Steering group ….they are going to decide if the project can have some funding for the next year, with an emphasis of making sure that the project team of people with disabilities are kept in the picture as this project develops. This is an essential requirement…the idea for All Ability cycling project  came from a young man with disabilities and we need to make sure that in our effort to get this off the ground that these amazing volunteers are at the front of this project!

And on the other days I’m off to my ‘day’ job!….my other life! Till next time…

Editor: Update to this post – here’s a photo of Aaran and Ruth collecting their Cambridge Evening News cheque!

Well nearly time to count them up! I had 400 given to me by the social work student Karen!!! Aaran bought his along to project meeting….there has been some real token collecting going on! I had to resist the challenge on Sunday night of rummaging around in people’s blue bins!! (The ones where there may have been Cambridge News with tokens still intact!) I’m also getting lots of messages ….people telling me from far and wide how they are collecting…I feel as though everyone deserves a big pat on the back…..or a chocolate!  So thanks guys!!! I’m sure we should get a little bit of the £10,000?

I seem to have lost a blog in between this one and the last one but no matter! So wheels are turning….The Cambridge News have nominated You Can Bike Too as one of the projects (out of 25 in total) for Cash in the Community! Actually that means that we need people to cut out the tokens that are going to be printed in the paper every day for about one month, then label them “You Can Hub” and take them to the nearest Cambridge Building Society branch. They count up the tokens and we should get a share of £10,000. That would be a BIG help so if you know anybody that reads this paper ask them to cut out the tokens!

The ‘Professionals’ (I always hear that theme music when I say that!) had a meet up at Milton Country Park to talk about how they can support the You Can Bike Too project to move forwards. We had a great turn out – people from local organisations: Councils; Sports Development teams; Sustrans; Cambridge Cycling Campaign; Outspoken bike couriers and trainers; Milton Country Park (which provided the venue for us!); Ability Plus. We also had a representative from national organisation Wheels For All, which has cycling projects all over the country. It was great to get them in all same room talking All Ability Cycling! There were lots of creative ideas and everyone had suggestions of how they could help, from publicising upcoming events to printing flyers, providing lunches, and suggesting contacts. To borrow language from the Do Lectures, all the “little do” actions help the wheels keep turning! Now it’s time for a “big do” from us!

The meeting definitely highlighted the need to think about how we can roll the project out on a practical week to week basis. Do we have membership? I like that idea! Individual membership and possibly corporate membership! Get those Big Boys in!! The local business community could have such fun with these bikes…we’d have the trained up volunteers to support them to have a go.

The Project Team also visited London on Saturday – a benchmarking trip to Victoria Park to see and try All Ability Bikes at Bikeworks in London …and thankfully we weren’t snowed off! Cambridge News met us at the Railway Station to take photographs of the Project Team for a piece in the paper in a couple of weeks – stardom is coming I feel! More details of this visit and pictures to follow!

What a week! Never mind about Blue Monday …We have Cheerful Tuesday – news that a grant applied for last summer was successful! £4000 winging it’s way to buy an adaptive bike! Ker-ching!

Not to mention Wonderful Wednesday! Great Press – a Cambridge News article for all to see! Onwards and upwards! Now we just need to secure £15,000 to run the project for the rest of the year!

Cluzion Music and The You Can Hub are very excited about a partnership that is making an instrument accessible to the local community in Cambridge! Dave McKenny is an expert in the Javanese Gamelan, which is best described as a whole room full of gongs, xylophones and drums… we’re pretty sure you won’t have seen anything like it before! The first event will be on Monday 19th December. Take a look at our Gamelan Workshop Flyer December to find out more. You can also complete and return the Gamelan Booking Form 2011.

Dave is keen to share his expertise with anyone interested in making sound. The You Can Hub is excited because the instrument has to be played as a team – so everyone has to work together! We’re also working together with other organisations to make sure the event is a success. The You Can Hub will be there as facilitators, to support anyone with additional needs and make sure that everyone has a great time! We hope to see you there!