Ahead of Ford RideLondon-Essex on Sunday 28 May, it was important to ensure that the event would bring communities together by supporting local businesses, amplifying community initiatives and encouraging residents to get to know their neighbours and rally on those who were taking part in the 60 and 100-mile challenge.
London Marathon Events and Active Essex supported parish and town councils, local businesses and community groups to engage their communities and provided a ‘pitstop’ service to riders and spectators through the Ford RideLondon-Essex Pitstop Fund. Grants were available up to the value of £1,000 to support venues providing activities, refreshments and rest facilities or other community events as appropriate.
London Marathon Events worked with each successful community provider to ensure site suitability, and where appropriate, provided additional facilities such as toilets, water bowsers, shelters and marshals if needed. Applications were made via the Essex Association of Local Councils, who also promoted the scheme to members.
St Nicholas Church in the Chignals, were one of the local organisations who benefitted from the Community Pitstop Fund. By setting up a stall selling cake and hot drinks to cyclists at the Felsted welfare stop, it helped them to raise funds for much needed improvements and repairs to the church. We caught up with Gill Thomas from the church to find out how the fund and RideLondon event, helped them to raise over £5,000 for St Nicholas Church.
Gill said; “We were very pleasantly surprised by the extremely positive response we received from the Ford RideLondon-Essex team to our initial enquiry. They were really keen to engage with us and to ensure the local communities along the route were able to benefit from the event as well. There were approximately 10 volunteers on the day, but we had about 40 volunteers in total – it was a real community effort to bake so many cakes in the run up to the day! Judging by the number of serviettes we got through and cups used, I’d estimate that we had around 2,300 – 2,400 customers on the day.
We couldn’t believe how much money we were able to raise and this will help fund improvements and repairs to the church, which include bringing running water into the churchyard as the church currently has no connection or access to mains water. It’s a beautiful, historic church but lacks many modern and often taken for granted amenities.
It was a privilege to be part of such a prestigious event. We are so very grateful to the Ford RideLondon-Essex team for their support and guidance throughout – they really cared, and this helped ensure our success on the day. But it wasn’t just about raising money – it was fantastic to see all the cyclists, so many doing it to raise money for charity, whilst also completing a massive challenge. We were extremely pleased to be able to offer them a well-earned tasty home baked cake at the halfway point.”
