Bury St Edmunds Rickshaw

We asked a few of our passengers to tell us what they thought of their ride in the rickshaw, and of our volunteers.

Another selection of our volunteers.

What a fantastic first season we have had!  We are taking a break for the winter, and today was our last day – and just as busy as all the others.

It started with a visit to the Dementia Hub at Gatehouse, then we met a party of children from Howard Community Primary School who all had a spin round the Abbey Gardens. Sam (blue hat) greeted them after they had walked into town especially to see us.

The final job of the day was a Bury Local Links sustainable transport network meeting, where Libby gave local businesses an update on our progress since they last heard from us in May. Since then we have clocked up 1300 miles, hundreds of rides, and thousands of smiles.

Jean’s son booked a ride in the rickshaw for his mum’s 95th birthday party.  Here she is (right) with Chatty Chum Joan in the Abbey Gardens. They didn’t stop talking the whole way round except to pose for this photo. With a combined age of 179 there was a lot to discuss!

We are busy sorting out a route for Bury’s fabulous World War 1 Trail, and from September we will be offering rides round the Trail every evening and weekend.

2018 is the centenary of the end of World War One which resulted in 17 million deaths and 37 million casualties.

An art trail has been created around Bury St Edmunds to commemorate this, which features 18 pieces of the work of local artists depicting relevance to the War. The charity My Wish (which runs the Every Heart Matters appeal) will benefit from any donations made by those who enjoy the trail (which also has a competition for people who wish to discover all 18 pieces).

The trail is similar to the successful ‘Wolf’ trail around town in 2015. Whilst some of the War trail is inaccessible to the rickshaw, it is an opportunity to allow people who may not normally be able to view the artwork to see most of it.

We visit Hillcrest every other Tuesday.  Chatty Chum Linda (left) sits with the residents who come out for a ride. It is amazing how riding in the rickshaw stimulates conversation, and we love to hear about people’s lives as we go along.

Today we met with some great people and organisations who are working to end loneliness in Bury St Edmunds. The Togetherness Fayre at the Athenaeum was organised by St Edmundsbury interns – two of them took a quick break in the rickshaw 🙂

Sam took Terry from We Love Bury St Edmunds – he was there to talk about Meet Up Mondays – out for a spin round the Abbey Gardens and he took this lovely video of the ride.

We have a great crew of volunteer riders and Chatty Chums – here’s a few of them.

The Abbey Gardens tops our list of favourite destinations for the rickshaw but the whole town is looking florally good thanks to Bury in Bloom. The rickshaw was waiting with volunteer rider John at the Abbey Gate today for Britain in Bloom judges in case they wanted a lift round the Gardens.

We did some rides at Glastonbury Court Care Home today, which was fun and we will be back for their fair later in the summer.