Good Leapings Day

By Lionel Cox (Secretary Berkhamsted MC & CC Ltd)

Well what a good leaplings day for both the Berkhamsted Motor Cycle club and the Waterways Experiences.

29th February 2020 was the day that the Berkhamsted Motorcycle Club handed over a cheque for £1000 to the Waterways Experiences, motorcycles and canal boats meeting on the Grand Union Canal.

Since the year 2000 Berkhamsted MC chooses a Charity and runs a motorcycle trial in its aid. To date, with the hard work of the Committee and club riders alike, they have raised just over £23,000 for various charities.

For 2020 their chosen charity was the Waterways Experiences (www.wexp.org.uk ), an organisation situated on the same site as themselves, Nash Mills Recreation Centre, and both having an interest in developing healthy and lively opportunities for local youth.

Waterways Experiences is a registered charity operating three large canal boats from a beautifully landscaped boatyard on the Grand Union Canal just to the south of Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. Their mission being to promote well-being by providing affordable canal boat trips particularly for the disadvantaged. As well as day trips all year round, they provide very special holidays for teenagers with learning difficulties or other disadvantages. Waterways Experiences operate without any paid employees. As volunteers, what makes them tick is the satisfaction of being able to share their passion for the waterways and canal boating with people normally excluded from this pastime.

Berkhamsted MC (www. berkotrials.com) was formed in 1908 and is now one of the oldest clubs in the country. We have a record of providing continuous motorcycle, and in earlier years, car sporting events with only interruptions being the two world wars. Now one hundred and twelve years old they concentrate on trials events. They have their our own practice ground, club headquarters and enjoy a membership of around three hundred with a very active events programme eachyear.

Along with its charity work Bekhamsted MC prides itself on its Youth Policy. Having training events and specific youth trials they were asked for a second time to run five rounds of the 2019 South Midland Youth Championship as it was recognised that the club held the key to rejuvenating the ailing South Midland Youth Championship.

So the charitable synergy was there, location and youth. Thanks to the riders, Berkhamsted MC's Club President Ted North and Waterways Richard Tregoning.

Well done and good luck to both organisations.