The wonderful folks at Bike On Trust donated Bike Northland 3 electric handheld pumps for us to give out to schools with their own bike fleet. The pumps are like an electric battery-powered drill and super easy to use with a digital display to see what pressure your tyre has.
How to decide which of our 20 plus schools with the programme should get the pumps?
We put the challenge out to all participating schools – “Tell us why your school should get one of these electric pumps.” It could be a letter, photo, or video
Jesse, the “bike manager” at Raurimu School, had taken on the responsibility of maintaining the school’s bikes. He immediately wrote a letter explaining why an electric pump would help him by making his bike checks faster and that his responsible leadership qualities would ensure that a pump was well used and looked after. Jesse is a Year 8 student. When I asked what would happen to the bikes next year, when he moved on to high school, he informed me that he was training up a younger student to take over from him. Great work, Jesse! Succession planning is a true sign of excellent leadership and responsibility.
At Onerahi School the responsibility for looking after the bikes had fallen to Room 17.
Since they had taken on the role, the bike shed has had a makeover. With the help of a wonderful community volunteer, Grant Harrison, the students had established a system for identifying bikes that need repairing and regularly checking the bikes. One student had taken their learnings home and had been pumping up Mum and Dad’s tyres! Room 17 are year 4 students. The existing floor pump had proved quite difficult for many of them to use properly, so they immediately identified that an electric pump would make their job much easier. We received ten letters complete with pictures as well, explaining why they needed an electric pump.
Ruawai School had their bikes for several years. They had close to 50 bikes, so keeping all the tyres pumped up was a big job. The students used the bikes nearly every day. The school was lucky to have a bike track and a pump track, plus a huge asphalt area right in front of the bike shed. Mahailiaz wrote us a letter on behalf of all the bike monitors asking for an electric pump. Ruawai School also had a fantastic volunteer, Kieth, to help the students look after the bikes.
