29th December 2003
Minutes of our December meeting are now available.
> Meetings

24th December 2003
Hackney is "very good cycling country", confirms the English Regions Cycling Development Team's report on the state of cycling in our borough. There are some inaccuracies and oddities in the report, but overall it doesn't give an unreasonable impression of the current position, taking into account that its focus is largely on the performance of the local authority.

1st December 2003
Minutes of our November meeting are now available.
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27th November 2003
Transport for London Street Management has just announced which schools and colleges will benefit from the first stage of its cycle parking project. Out of 200-plus application forms received, 45 locations will get parking installed from next January. A second tranche of installations is expected to be announced around March, although there is some uncertainty about whether fresh applications will be invited, or if locations will be chosen from the applications already received.

There's good news for Shacklewell Primary School, which has been successful in its application, and will have ten parking places in the new year. For the rest of Hackney, we know the demand is there, and 20 of the borough's schools and colleges did get around to requesting application forms. However the forms are by no means simple, and we suspect that the majority simply found them too difficult to complete. It's a case of 'let's try harder next time', and we certainly hope they will be given further opportunity to apply soon - and support in drawing up those applications - so that pupils and students who choose to cycle to their place of education find the proper infrastructure when they arrive.

25th October 2003
STA Bikes, the Sir Thomas Abney school cycling project, beats all comers to win LCC's Youth Cycling Award for 2003. Yeah!

16th September 2003
Hackney has seen the biggest growth in cycling out of the whole of the UK. Read the LCC's news release. This amazing success must be in no small part due to the changing demographics of the borough, but we like to think we've done our small part in encouraging this growth....

13th August 2003
Sportsdesk. We have sent our response to the consultation on Hackney Council's draft Sports and Physical Activity Strategy to Rhys Lewis, head of sport. Our response was put together using a wiki an easy-to-use collaborative tool that we may be using a lot more in the future.

20th June 2003
The Department for Transport has announced that Hackney has just won no fewer than five Cycle Projects Fund awards!

And the winners are:

Friends Of Grasmere School (FROGS)
Safe Routes to School initiative focusing on cycle training and cycle maintenance sessions. £12, 000.

Lauriston School Association
On road cycle training and maintenance classes. £5,970.

Friends of Jubilee School, Stoke Newington
Extensive cycle training package for primary pupils based on existing successful scheme at neighbouring school. £11,740.

Grazebrook Primary School Parent Staff Association, Stoke Newington
Extensive cycle training to increase the numbers of children cycling to school, and reduce car congestion at the school. £11,890.

Strike Foundation
A cycle hire scheme based at two sites in London. £7,100.

You can read more about the Cycle Project Fund 2003 awards in the DfT's press release.

5th June 2003
May's meeting minutes are online now. You can also download and read or print out our June/July newsletter insert (see right), which has details of Bike Week activities (also listed on our diary page).
> Meetings

2nd May 2003
This website is finally back online, after a tedious process of regaining control of the domain after our kind benefactor Cerbernet, which registered and hosted the domain for years, was acquired by a monolith called Business Serve plc. Many thanks to Daniel Harris, formerly of Cerbernet, for helping us out in getting the domain back in our hands, and thanks also to Wham-e Ltd which is currently hosting the site for nothing.

Gives us the opportunity to put the minutes of our April meeting online.