Your trails need you!
Following my funding web piece back in May to highlight the need for ongoing funding for Ride Sheffield (Linked here for those that missed it – https://ridesheffield.org.uk/2017/05/money-moola-wonga-wedge/ ) we’ve had a couple of sessions at the Norfolk Arms next to Lady C’s to discuss with individuals and various local businesses how we can all work together to develop a reliable income stream for Ride Sheffield to keep the trails running sweet and further develop mountain bike good times in South Yorkshire and the Peak District. We’ll have one part of it ready to unveil to everyone at the Christmas social meeting in November and the details of that will be rolled out to everyone who can’t make it shortly after.
A brief recap for those with short memory’s or who prefer reading Mr Horscroft’s rambling’s to my own. Between Greno Woods, Lady Canning’s and in the not to distant future Radmires we will have built around £150k of purpose built mountain bike trails. These will all need care attention to keep them in fine fettle. We can do so much with dig days, volunteers etc but some works will require plant, equipment, materials and contractor time which all costs money and a decent chunk of it. We would expect an annual repair bill of £20-25k to cover costs and allow a bit or surplus to build overtime to cover more major works on a less regular basis to keep trails interesting and refresh them from time to time.
In addition to maintenance an income stream will also help us to train more people to lead dig days, to check trail condition regularly (as required on all those on Council land), to potentially take on works on non purpose built trails to keep them in good condition and solve problems and finally to provide some dedicated time for the completion of various exercises that may help to generate further funds for the greater bike good.
The meetings we held have given us lots to think about, ideas to raise money, people to talk to etc and we’d like to thank everyone who came to a session or made a suggestion for your input. We’ve got a crack team working tirelessly in a darkened room to turn all the information in to something that we can use and share with you all.
I’ll finish as I did last time with some thought provoking numbers…… There are 4,500 members of our Facebook group if we could get just 250 people to donate £10 a month (or 500 at £5 etc) over the year we could generate £30k of income for the group. That’s a big number and would cover the maintenance and other costs I mentioned above and leave a little to develop the future of Sheffield as not only the #outdoorcity but the home of the best riding in the country.
Look out for more information on the Christmas social coming out soon, we’re just sorting the last couple of details. In the meantime give us all of your money via one of the following easy ways to pay and you’ll have our undying love and appreciation.
Bank transfer
Direct transfers can be made to the Ride Sheffield account, details as follows;
Account name HSBC – Ride Sheffield
Sort Code – 403102
Account number – 91574205
Paypal
