Bikemeet support Mentor Link – Stourport-on-Severn Carnival 05/09/15 – Pics!

Scooby-Do and Marching Bands too!

Mentor link is West Midlands based charity that provides a mentoring service to children and young people. Its’ aims to provide one to one support to youngsters who may be having a difficult time in their life. They do some great work for those kids who feel they can’t get through things on their own.

So when a friend of mine who works for them asked if I could do anything to help to show case the organisation to more people I was only too glad to help. She knows that biker groups often do a lot for charities and their request was to provide some bikes to join the parade at the Stourport Carnival. We would literally fly the flag for the organisation and bikes would catch the eye of the large crowd.

So this was how Thumper, Ses, Kat and I come to found ourselves lined up behind Scooby-Do on a trike and be ahead of a marching band yesterday! Not one of our normal ride-outs it has to be said!

Working out how many Mentor Link flags we could strap to our bikes…

The full squad in matching T shirts…

Thumper was pleased he wasn’t the oldest one there…

Tucked in behind Scooby Do and a lorry load of undersea characters..just another ride-out…

The pace was, how can I put his…walking! But the huge crowd that lined much of the 1.5 mile route greeting us and the rest of the cavalcade with considerable enthusiasm and it is to date the only forum ride-out greeted by a local Mayor and council in full regalia

Our very own Wild Hog: John Travolta eat your heart out…

This is what the whole day was about…bringing attention to this cracking organisation

It was them pesky kids…

I think I forgot to salute

The bikes were suffering with the slow running and starting to overheat so we all cheated by free-wheeling on parts of the course with the engine turned off. I was pleased with the response we got and seemed to go down well with the crowd, with one super eager onlooker even jumping on the back of the Fireblade for a photo!

Kat explaining Mentor Links work to a keen bystander

Once we completed the cavalcade we joined the Mentor Link team on their stand, parking our bikes around it to draw attention to their work. This tactic seemed well to work as a steady stream of people came to the stand taking part in bike based quizzes with prises donated by our local Motorcycle dealer. Kids were enjoying colouring in pictures of bikes too.

Karen of the Mentor Link team rather took a shine to the HD…

Charity work certainly works up an appetite as two of the team demonstrate as they enjoy the traditional light salad..

The full team at the Mentor Link stand

So all in all the day was a great success, we brought some focus to an important local charity and will be doing more to help them in future. Watch this space for news of a ride out next year to help boost their coffers a little.

Thanks to Andy (Thumper), Karl (Katana) and Matt (Ses310) for bringing  their bikes along and to all the team at Mentor Link for making it a fun day out.

Learn more about Mentor Link here:

http://www.mentorlink.org.uk

Also thanks to Steve and The Motorcycle Mart for the donation of the competition prises

https://www.motorcyclemart.co.uk/