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Well, well, well, you just wouldn't believe where my humble idea has gone, and is continuing to go!

We have now officially become SWF Bike Park and have a website www.swfbikepark.org.uk

Please check it out and register as member!

I thought that now we have an amazing 202 facebook members that I would update everyone on who we are and what we are doing. I'll keep it short and sweet, but please feel free to ask ANY questions and we will do our best to reply.

First of all, we are a volunteer, non-funded, community group that come together to get the old BMX track in South Woodham into something sweet and worth riding.

Your committee team currently consists of me, Daniel Chesterman and Gill Nash as the co-chairs, and Carrie Sparks as the secretary. We also have a design group that is being headed up by Kieron Hood and some pro-riders.

All of our committee meetings or events are open to everyone and you are all invited. To keep the meetings productive and organised, we have to follow an agenda, and as long as your question or input is relevant to the agenda point then you can freely get stuck in. If it isn't in the agenda, then you can ask when there is a chance, normally towards the end.

Being a community group we have to get whatever track we design approved of the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) and South Woodham council.

The people supporting the group range from 10yr olds to 20 somethings, to 30- 40yr olds and even people 60+. That means that we need to make something for everyone. And yes that means, areas for beginners, areas for intermediate and hopefully an area for the more hardcore of us.

The bike park will need to be maintained by us. The more mental it is, the more jumps, the more anything means more time re-building where people have cased the lips or bailed out, and general wear and tear. We have to factor this into our design.

We are always reading the facebook page, and encourage you to join our group on our new www.swfbikepark.org.uk website.

At the moment we are extremely busy, on a daily basis, researching what we are going to present to the council at the next planning meeting so that we will have a bid for the land. We are 'competing' against other community groups so we need to show how much support in the town there is for the bike park and what we are planning on doing. Have our assurances, your current team are working flat out juggling full time employment, family life, and doing the back office stuff to make the bid successful.

Once we find out if our bid has been successful then we will then start getting more stuck in to the design and build element, and making the group official with the charity commission or tax people.

So there we are, as short as can be!

Keep your fingers crossed and lets see where we end up!

Congrats, that all sounds like it's certainly heading in the right direction, and it looks like a lot of work has been put in.

Keep us updated, I have no skills to offer, but further down the line would be happy to get involved with a shovel when (note the use of 'when', not 'if' ) you get that far!

Chris


Edit: Actually, I can use a camera (knew there was a skill I could call on somewhere! ), how does a mini-documentary about the whole project sound? Maybe split into bits, letting people know how it's all going, and encouraging more people to get involved and hopefully inspiring other people to do similar things elsewhere? Could be fun? Your call though!

We diverted to SWF Asda on the way home from Danbury on sat and saw the small BMX track sign, so after i'd picked up a bandage and easter egg we went to take a look, but it was a dead end by a tip ?

Jon its the bit of land next to the road it's not been used for years. There will be alot of work to do. I take my hat of to dan huge project

This sounds great!

I will share the offer at the next committee meeting!

Thanks!

Certainly is work in progress, but wait until you see what we are planning.

Watch this space and keep on eye out on this forum for updates, or please check out www.swfbikepark.org.uk



Thanks Karve