Chomping at the bit to be back helping the community – the bike team look back on 2020

Bike team manager Matthew Midgely takes a look back at how his team have pulled together during 2020 and some of the charity work they are excited to get back to as life, hopefully, returns to normal.

A large part of my job this year has been about welfare and looking after people’s mental health while everyone has been at home and unable to socialise as normal both in and out of the office.

As a team we have all done our best to keep each other going and lend our support where we can.

I tried to do my bit by running interactive quizzes for my team – let’s be honest who didn’t participate in at least one Zoom quiz this year.

And we have all tried to laugh through the phrases we’re all sick of hearing, “sorry, Teams froze” or “you’re still on mute”.

I’d be intrigued to see the phrases everyone else has enjoyed and loathed in equal measure this year.

My contribution however is entirely minimal compared to the work two of our team members are embarking upon this Christmas.

Rosie Dawson and Shona Kennedy are volunteering for Age UK to act as a telephone befriending contact for the elderly and the vulnerable over what can be a challenging time, regardless of the pandemic.

They are both due to start this shortly and are looking forward to lending their support and their ears to whoever may need a chat or a pick me up.

I wish both Rosie and Shona well in their volunteering and thank them for setting a great example for us all to follow.

Minster Law are passionate about helping out in the local area with charity work and giving back to the community, and the bike team are no exception.

As a business we are heavily involved with Fareshare and have been for a number of years now and are proud to continually provide members of staff to volunteer.

Unfortunately, due to the well documented year that is 2020, we have been unable to complete a volunteering day, but I can guarantee that when we can freely move and got involved in volunteering again, the bike team will be at the front of the queue to help out.

As we have been unable to get together to lend our support this year, I thought it would be an opportunity to look back on the volunteering days and charity work the bike team have been involved in over the last couple of years.

We have done a wide variety of volunteering, whether it be spending the day at a dog shelter in York, pulling up weeds around the footpaths at Newmillerdam in Wakefield, or turning into van drivers to collect used Christmas trees for a charitable cause, we have turned our hand to all sorts! While we have had fun doing this, the more important aspect is being able to give back to our local community and hopefully our time and effort, however small, can go a long way to improving lives for everyone in the area.

Asides our volunteering days, we are fortunate enough to be involved in fundraising and earlier this year we hosted a charity day on behalf of the Nick Brisland trust.

This included a “pin the biker on the bike” game, a raffle and a bikeathon, among other activities, which got most of us out of our comfort zone by spending 4 hours on a turbotrainer covering several miles.

We were delighted to be able to raise £500 in an afternoon.

The Nick Brisland trust was set up by Ria, the mum of an avid biker who was killed at 19-years-old when a resident pulled off their drive forcing him to swerve into oncoming traffic.

Ria set up a trust in his name which raises money to put defibrillators in biker cafes and accident black spots around the UK.

As soon as we are able to we look forward to working with more charities, so watch this space for more embarrassing photos and stories, all in the name of a good cause.

Here’s to 2021 and hopefully being able to getting back to doing our bit for charity and the local area.