What a BikeTASTIC time our Holiday Club had this August!

Children at our Holiday Club had a real treat this August when they got on their bikes with British Cycling and Odd Bikes in Potternewton Park.

British Cycling have been running our regular Wednesday lunchtime Learn to Cycle sessions for adults (which will be resuming at Potternewton Park on 2 October at 12 noon), and Andrew from the team joined us for a special youth session with our Holiday Club.

By the way… It’s worth noting that you are never too old to learn to ride a bike, Andrew taught a 82 year old to ride a bike at our Wednesday adult sessions just before we broke up for the summer!

Dan from Odd Bikes, the community bike repair and recycling project, also joined us at this Holiday Club cycling special, and kindly donated reconditioned bikes to all the children that didn’t already have one. Find out more about Odd Bikes on their facebook page here.

We were delighted to welcome our local councillors Cllr Taylor and Cllr Mohammed joined us for the presentation of the bikes. They were both very impressed with the session and all the work Feel Good Factor are doing with children in the community at Holiday Club.

Watch the children in action here:

Beverley Gilbert, our Community Wellbeing Worker, said “I am so pleased Feel Good Factor can work in partnership with organisations like British Cycling and Odd Bike to bring the pleasure and the skill of cycling to children who might not be able to have their own bikes or learn how to cycle. That’s a basic skill that everyone should have the chance to perfect. We were delighted that this dedicated session about cycling ended up with this surprise of free bikes for 8 of the 12 children who took part but didn’t have a bike of their own, so that all can carry on practicing what they learned today. A big thank you to everyone involved.”

And the children also had plenty to say…

“Do you mean I can keep the bike and take it home?”

“I never knew holiday club would be such fun!”

“I don’t believe I have learnt to ride a bike this afternoon!”

“ I loved the freedom of going down the hills!”

Summer activities for our Holiday Club also included a one night residential to Yorkshire Dales staying at Grinton Lodge Youth Hostel, funded by Yorkshire Dales National Parks. We also visited Scarborough for a day of fun with Yorkshire Cricket Foundation playing beach cricket against other teams and watching Yorkshire vs Essex, this was also in partnership with Northern Rail. A day at Temple Newsam park included games and visiting the farm plus we’ve enjoyed lots of sport, craft, dance and yoga. The cost was £5.00 a day for all the activities including the residential.

If you would like to know more about future Holiday Clubs contact Beverley Gilbert – Mobile: 07702 869457 / Email: beverley.gilbert@fgfleeds.org

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