Posts tagged rain

This great piece in the Guardian talks about all the things we’re finding at You Can Bike Too:

• how incredibly flexible the bike is when it comes to catering for all kinds of abilities in fact, we have found that our bikes are great for people who just aren’t that confident about cycling
• trikes work really well for those whose balance makes using a traditional bike difficult
• riders with disabilities and able bodied cyclists can and often do ride together at club and coaching sessions

It’s great to see our supporter Ian Tierney quoted in the article too! Without Wheels for All Cycling Projects, we wouldn’t have come this far. Don’t forget you can come and try these bikes for yourselves! There are two options:

– Weekend family sessions for mums and dads to cycle with their kids – see here for full details

– Week-day adult sessions for any individuals who wants to give cycling a go – see here for full details

We look forward to seeing you there! And we’re pleased to report that so far, these sessions have been rain-free – though it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

We think it’s great that the paralympics are having such a positive effect and getting more people interested in cycling. How have the paralympics influenced your view of the world? What did you learn?

Sentences are impossible: Raw. Passion. Commitment. Determination. Sacrifices.

Discuss…

… and see more of the amazing Mickey Smith here. #feelthelove

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?