Blackpool Youth Group wins CTC National Awards 19/05/2011

The CTC AGM, Annual Dinner and Prize Giving was held at the National Sailing academy in Weymouth over the weekend. CTC are the National Cyclists’ Organisation and a Bike Club partner organisation.

I was absolutely delighted to be a guest at this prestigious event when I accompanied Boathouse Youth, from Blackpool, to collect their prize as CTC Young Peoples’ Group of the Year 2010.

To make the event even more special, the guest of honour was Magnus Backsted, who as a professional cyclist won the most famous spring classic race the Paris – Roubaix, together with several stage wins in the Tour de France and Giro D’Italia. He is now the Vice President of UK Youth, another Bike Club partner organisation and Founder and Manager of Team UK Youth, the most recent professional cycling team.

Collecting the prize from Magnus

Magnus presented the prize to Laurance Hancock, the Youth Worker, in recognition of the fantastic programme of cycling activity which his organisation have provided for the young people of a particularly deprived part of Blackpool.  The trophy is brand new and is sculpted from bike parts.  Laurance’s colleague, Ben Wilson, collected the prize as Runner Up Young Volunteer of the Year 2010 for his part in organising the programme of cycling at Boathouse and the distance he has travelled over the last year from being a none cyclist through to completing a Coast to Coast ride just a few weeks ago.

Ben Wilson, Runner Up, Young Volunteer of the Year

I felt so proud to see a Club from Blackpool picking up these new awards.  They were thoroughly well deserved,  given the brilliant experiences that the young people have had since the Bike Club was set up last Easter and there’s a lot more planned for 2011.   Magnus made reference to the partnership working which had particularly impressed the judging panel, including that with Cycle Blackpool, who were key delivery partners throughout 2010.  

Being at the Dinner gave the three of us a great chance to swap ideas with other groups and we were really interested in a cycling trip to France for 50 people which is being organised by a Bike Club from Exeter.  This is something we would really like to emulate when a funding opportunity arises.

At the start of the Wessex CTC club ride

still smiling despite the hills

         To make a great weekend even better, on the Sunday morning,   we joined up with Wessex CTC, who are celebrating their cetenary, for a really interesting ride around the Dorset countryside.  Coming from Cumbria, I thought that southern hills would be easy.  How wrong I was!!.    

We had a great time as guests of CTC and were really pleased to make the long journey back up north with two major awards recognising the fantastic work being done in providing lfe changing experiences for young people in South Blackpool.