Milton Country Park – Autumn Festival

This article was published in 2015, in Newsletter 123.

Hundreds enjoying the Milton Country Park Autumn Festival. Photo: Sarah Harris
Image as described adjacent

On Sunday 27 September I took the Campaign’s stall bike to the Milton Country Park Autumn Festival. It’s the second time this event has been run and the first at which the Campaign has had a presence. The organisers had arranged for a lovely sunny day, very welcome so late into the year. The festival is a wonderful mix of street food, community and craft stalls. A real highlight for families is the hay fight at the centre of the festival.

Tom and Matthew at the Campaign’s stall in amongst lots of cycling fun. Photo: Vicki Blamford, Photographvie.co.uk
Image as described adjacent

Our stall became part of a bike-themed area, with YouCanBikeToo setting out their all-ability adaptive bikes on one side and Outspoken drawing in crowds with their bike-powered jukebox on the other. I had many positive conversations -introducing people to the Campaign and our recent focuses, notably the Milton Road protected cycleways petition. A few just wanted to whinge about bad cyclists; they were quickly shown the educational literature we produce on safer cycling and weren’t numerous enough to spoil a good day.

Events like these are a great opportunity to raise awareness of and get new members into the Campaign. Increased membership in turn strengthens our collective voice when campaigning. However, the success of these events really does rely on enthusiastic volunteers helping out on the day. They don’t require a huge time commitment and when you aren’t on the stall there is usually a vibrant and exciting event to explore. They’re a great opportunity to meet and chat with like-minded individuals, and you’ll always be supported by a member of the committee to help with the rare anti-cycling whinger!

Our next big event is the Mill Road Winter Fair on Saturday 5 December. If you’d like to help with this, please get in touch on contact@camcycle.co.uk or via the Winter Fair Cyclescape thread (http://camcycle.cyclescape.org/threads/2067).

Tom McKeown