Farcycles Win Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service
Faringdon’s champion of cycling, Farcycles, has won The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, thanks to its community work promoting the physical, mental health and wellbeing benefits of cycling.
During the last 12-months, a team of 135 dedicated volunteers has made a significant impact to Faringdon and its surrounding Oxfordshire and Wiltshire communities, including:
Over 4,000 visitors to the Faringdon Cycle Park that Farcycles raised funds for and built in 2019. The only facility of its kind in the UK
Refurbished and sold over 200 donated bikes, and supplied them back into the community from its pop-up shop in Faringdon – this proved a popular service for the town during lockdown and continues to thrive
Successfully launched and delivered a ‘Couch to 10k’ back-to-cycling course for adults alongside the delivery of its cycling tuition for children
Hosted the Tour de Farcycles cyclosportive for over 200 cyclists
Organised Faringdon’s Pink Bike OVO Women’s Tour celebrations
Continuously lobbied for improved transport infrastructure with safe cycle routes
The Queen’s Award is the highest accolade presented to a volunteer group in the UK and was created in 2002 to celebrate The Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Recipients are announced each year on 2nd June, the anniversary of The Queen’s Coronation.
Representatives of Farcycles will receive the award crystal and certificate from the Lord-Lieutenant of Oxfordshire later this summer and two volunteers from the group will attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace in May 2022.
Founding member of Farcycles, David Williamson, said: “We are absolutely delighted to win The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service which helps shine a light on our hard-working group of volunteers in addition to our vision that every child and every adult has the opportunity to learn to cycle in safety, and then to continue to enjoy cycling and all its benefits. The major barriers to cycling are safe roads, affordable bikes and confidence.”
The Farcycles group is proactively addressing these barriers through the model village cycle park it raised funds for and built, its teaching of children and adults, the Farcycles pop-up shop where bikes are re-cycled, serviced and sold back into the community and through its lobbying work to future-proof safe cycling.
David Williamson added: “Faringdon is a growing town and it is important we improve the infrastructure to encourage more cycling. For example, Park Road is due to be resurfaced later this year, which presents an enormous opportunity to create a cycle lane from the town centre to the supermarkets. Farcycles would like to see further investment in cycling as a transport choice and will continue to work with policy makers to help make it happen.”
There are lots of ways for families to get involved with Farcycles this summer including a new family ride, ‘Peddles and Picnics’, that will form part of the Farcycles cyclosportive, 17-18 July. There are also spaces left on cycle teaching courses, taking place on 6 and13 June and during August.
Farcycles is one of just 241 charities, social enterprises and voluntary groups to receive the prestigious Queen’s Award this year.
