This Volunteers Week, we are celebrating those in the cycling community who are continuing to do incredible things. Today, we are focusing on how the Scottish Cyling Women's Development Group are helping others during Covid-19.

Kirsteen Durkin

I'm now into the tenth week of redeployment from Fife Council Cycling Development to help run Burntisland Emergency Action Team, in my local community.  Myself, the community centre and community council came together to develop an emergency response.  Within 2 weeks I had 60 volunteers ready to help and the phonel ringing non stop!

Over the weeks we have we have delivered 400 meals and food parcels across the town, collected  and delivered over 250 prescriptions, collected shopping and taken a poorly cat to the vets! Donations came in from across the whole town and we have been able to send out plentiful parcels to anxious families.  

In addition, we found older adults who would benefit from a cooked meal and have now provide 50 meals a week.

Working in this crisis in a local setting has highlighted the harsh reality of how many people live day to day. We had a neighbour report a man who had been sitting in the dark for six weeks and a family who share one laptop for five kids trying to get school work done.  

The centre has a Bike Project  that has been overwhelmed with requests with bikes and repairs. Watching the boom in cycling has been incredible and I am excited to focus on the Bike Project and start to develop cycling in Fife again.   

The lasting legacy for me is definitely how important connecting with people is;  communities matter,  the small details are what make people happy and what makes projects work.  

I'm really proud of the involvement I have had and the difference it has made to my town. I've worked with over 60 new volunteers and hope to keep some of them for cycling!!   

Pauline Capaldi

I  have been working throughout the pandemic and due to working for a private healthcare company who are currently supporting the NHS I have been kept busy. However, I have loved being able to cycle most days and although pre-Covid most of my rides were as a Breeze Champion I have rediscovered the joy of cycling with my 21 year old son. 

I was honoured to complete my 100th Breeze Ride in early March and I am keeping in touch with our regular Breeze ladies on our Facebook page by sharing information about the joys of cycling on quiet roads for a change from the shared paths which are very busy at the moment. 

I have also spent some time at the entrance to cycle paths and sharing my knowledge of the cycle paths and spreading the word about Breeze. Along with a friend I have set up another WhatsApp group called 'women on wheels' and we are sharing routes and of course all important coffee and cake stops!

Leanne Farmer

My usual daily life is running cycle tours for visitors to Edinburgh with my company, 'A wee pedal'. From the announced Lockdown, all my bookings from March through to October had of course, emptied overnight.  I craved a sense of purpose and the feeling of helping others find joy through riding a bike. I needed to find a way to feel useful, other than helping with my son's home learning tasks! 

I volunteered to service neighbours' and friends' bikes that they had dug out the garage after many years. It gathered momentum and I soon found myself working on them almost every day.

Meanwhile, my fleet of bikes were just gathering dust so I lent out my fleet to key workers as well as servicing bikes. They have included critical care nurses in Covid wards, a Cardiologist also caring for Covid patients and learning support assistants in special schools which remain open. We are now into week 10 of lockdown and I have now serviced over 30 bikes; a large proportion of these are Keyworker's bikes.

I am now at the stage where I feel I am contributing a very small piece of this jigsaw. I have received many wonderful messages of thanks, that they are now using their bikes not only to get to work but also for pleasure - some cases, the first time in 20 years! 

Last week, I received a lovely message from a doctor who has one of my bikes, to let me know that she is now cycling to work for the first time and is loving it. She is also enjoying cycling with her daughter, age 10 who has raised over £1000 for a children's trust by cycling seven miles everyday. For her and her daughter, who rarely cycled before, this is a massive achievement. This makes it all worth it for me! Stories like this, make me so happy to feel I have helped be part of it. 

Find out more about the Scottish Cycling Women's Development Group HERE.