Tuesday, December 31, 2013

End of Year recap - and what a year it has been!

2013 was a real blast and for us has to go down as one of the best years we have had, so much stuff has happened and what's more the best thing about this year is the stuff we have planned for next year. Overall one of the most pleasing things for us is there is a real feel about stuff happening in Hereford, yeah there is still a bunch of people winging about how terrible stuff is and how the world is going to end next week but most people, it seems, have been gathering themselves and building projects back up. There is a great feel of stuff that is happening and of community involvement. We think people have come to terms that the Council and the Government are no longer people dishing out money and that starting projects and businesses means having a quality product or goal and thats what will see it through as being a success. There is a lot more good quality stuff about at the moment.

We recently heard about a great community bread scheme in Hereford that has has a little bit of lottery funding, it appears to be a bunch of people who are just dead keen on getting good bread into homes in Hereford, I've seen them meeting up in a local pub, pouring over bits of paper, all smiles and not one of them bothered about making a fortune out of the project, it is great to see a community pulling together to run something like that and the gains are of course way more than a loaf of bread for everyone, there are friendships made, communities strengthened and time shared, those are the foundations for progress and it is great to see more stuff like that happening in Hereford.

It is also noted that particularly in cargo type bikes there is a real swell of interest in Europe and indeed in the UK. There is even a guy in Hereford who has bought a cargo bike for his own use! We plan in 2014 to launch our own Cargo Bike Hire project, we've had some great funding for it and have spent most of the year waiting for various permissions to be granted so we can place a bike in a local community for them to use. We are really excited about it and can't wait for other people to be using cargo bikes. If you are in Hereford and you do fancy using a cargo bike, get in touch, we can lend one to you before the project goes live. 

So in a nutshell 2013 has been great (more about it below) and we have a great feeling about 2014 and the general energy people have for communities and doing stuff in Hereford.  Here is to a great year!

2013 a recap...

We started the year with some great news about funding to enable us to develop a project to put cargo bikes in communities, we got some funding from various different pots and the CTC were one of them, they wrote this on their website.

Then things got cold, it snowed for ages and was below zero for a couple of weeks, stuff ground to a halt but not us, truth be told we had a great time:

As things brightened up we sponsored a couple of things, gave free advertising to local businesses and sponsored the equipment for a bunch of soldiers riding the length of the country for a very good cause.

Mothers day came round and we were once again out on the streets loaded with flowers spreading the good will!

As always a lot of people used us for their special days, weddings, proms, stags and hens..
 A couple of good friends got hitched and it was a pleasure to be involved.

Some Hen parties were more of a handful than others..
But our favourite has to be our very own Ben Matthews getting hitched to a girl he met whilst riding a pedicab!
 
As summer rolled on we began a set of sponsored city tours, we pedalled non stop every Saturday for 10 weekends, taking on new staff to run the project and giving hundreds of people a historical insight into Hereford and also information about the new developments and the future of what might happen.
Our parcel delivery went through the roof, thousands of parcels delivered by bike, lots of stuff ordered on the internet which travelled, by air, lorry, van and then finally by bike to the front doors of sometimes surprised customers!
Our very own Tom 'The D-burger' Donaldson escaped work for a week to represent the UK at mountain boarding, he did everyone proud and brought home a bronze, putting him 3rd in the world!
We broke some bikes
We helped other people get bikes fixed..
We featured in magazines
We got even busier! Expanding our range of postcodes covered for a number of large delivery companies.
We experienced some really rubbish weather
Bought some new bikes
Took Santa to switch the Christmas lights on
Opened a bridge


And of course got plenty of punctures

We got up to lots of other stuff too, too much to write about really. But as we mentioned, next year is the one we are looking forward to, lots of very interesting projects coming!

So from us, we wish you a Happy New Year. Make and keep some good resolutions and break the rubbish ones!