Meeting Summary Aug 10, 2023

Attending: Hultgren, Clark, Seraz0, O’Keefe, Palmer

The meeting began shortly after 7 pm in the lobby of the Nash-Zimmer Transportation Center.

Hultgren and O’Keefe reported on the fundraising for the 4th grade bike education project, and said that pending the school board’s approval, there may be end of the year funds that can contribute towards purchasing the storage trailer for the bicycles that will be purchased with the funds that have been raised. They said they were still expecting donations from several local businesses, and since the program will not begin until the Spring of 2024, there is still time to receive donations. It was suggested that social media posts be made about the programs start in 2023-24 and the success of our fundraising to date. Hultgren will ask Valentine to make an initial post with more detailed posts after the school board has acted.

Volunteers will be needed to assist with the 4th grade program at the school in the spring. Hultgren relayed that Waldburger (who has assisted in the South Windsor program for several years) said that the best way to prepare volunteers is to have them go see the South Windsor Program in action this fall. South Windsor’s program will be taught at its Phillip Smith School on September 18, 19, and 21 and at the Orchard Hill school on Oct 3, 5, 6, & 10. Ken Sek coordinates the volunteers visiting or helping with their program, and his phone numbers are (860) 644-9405 (h) and (860) 305-0754 (c). We will need to coordinate with Betsy Parker, one of the two PE teachers at MES, to make sure she’ll have enough trained volunteers to run the program.

Palmer and Hultgren said that the ARPA grant application to the Town requesting funds to purchase an e-assisted trike-shaw and a storage shed to get the Cycling Without Age program started in Mansfield had been submitted. The request was for $22,000. Regardless of whether the grant is received or not, work to set up/organize the program with the main participants (Senior Center, Mansfield Rehab Center, Juniper Hill, etc.) will need to take place this fall.

Ideas for an activity for the Bike Mansfield Booth at the September 30th Mansfield Festival were discussed. These included some type of a demonstration bicycle, a fixing a flat demo, a contest to inflate a tire the fastest, an identify/arrange chronologically the age of different types of cycles (from pictures), and the identification of different types of bicycles (from pictures) by name (examples: Mt Bike, Beach Cruiser, Cyclocross Bike, Commuter Bike, Folding Bike, E-Bike, Unicycle, Racing Bike, Recumbent Bike, Adaptive Tricycle, etc). The contest could be a random drawing for a gift certificate to a local bike shop from all entries, or an actual contest with the winner drawn from correct entries. (Note – in the past everyone who participates in the activity was entered into the drawing.) Assuming this last activity is what we do at the booth, we’ll need some good pictures of the different kinds of bikes!

Hultgren showed the changes he was working on for the reprinting of Bike Mansfield’s map of Town Bike Routes and Points of Interest. He said that instead of the “suggested short rides” text to the left of the map, he was planning to insert information on the closest rail trails, since “where is there a rail trail near here” is a very frequent question from people receiving the map. A chart of where to go for parking and how far various places are on the Hop River and Airline trails is being worked up. He also said that the map will include lists of the 2023 business members (now up to 30), and the 13 donors that contributed $500 or more to the 4th grade education program.

Clark said that this year her Bicycle Working Group (BWG) at UConn was going to work on things they could do to improve cycling on the Storrs campus that wouldn’t require expensive measures. She said they were going to try to document bike riding data, including injuries and accidents and work with the undergraduate student government to get out messages to the campus population on safety and dealing with e-bikes/ e-scooters. The first meeting of the BWG this semester is set for August 15th.

The meeting concluded at approximately 8:02 pm.

Lon Hultgren, Secretary Treasurer
hultgrenlr981@gmail.com