Zoie Richards, the Strategic Bike To Work Week (BTWW) team leader, is an inspiration for Campbell River BTWW team leaders.
Bike to Work Week 2014 will run May 26 - June 1 and Richards has been the Team Leader for the Strategic Natural Resource Consultants BTWW team – a group of 55 people – over the past seven years. Richards started by sharing her passion for biking.
However, over the years Richards realised BTWW is more than sharing a passion. It is an inclusive way for her co-workers to participate in a common activity. There is no exclusion, anyone who is game can give biking to work a try. There are no limits. The participants can ride between one or five days of the week, or keep riding through the summer or even until next year.
Richards explained, “signing a team up was easy just go to http://www.biketowork.ca/user/register and follow the instructions.”
There is an exciting new website where individuals or a team leader can enter their own results. On the website, individuals can also map their route along with lots of other biking information.
As a team leader Richards gets a goody bag, which includes a BTWW T-shirt.
Richards encourages all her co-workers to ride during BTWW. In addition to signing up the team she makes efforts to muster up motivation with humorous e-mails in the weeks leading up to BTWW. Richards keeps the e-mails, short and humorous and provides relevant information, like where to get free breakfast and how to avoid hills. She has even offered to stop by homes and ride with her co-workers to work. She does not find the task onerous or challenging and, in fact, gains great satisfaction hearing co-workers’ stories.
Richards always hopes in registering a team she will: remind previous bikers to get back on their bike, encourage new bikers to give it a try and show co-workers there are more benefits than challenges in riding their bike.
Richards is proud of her co-workers achievements. There are co-workers that: dust off their bikes, borrow bikes, ride huge distances and find imaginative ways to transport their kids to daycare and school.
During BTWW Strategic has a feeling of camaraderie and happily, many of her co-workers continue with biking after BTWW. A happy day for Richards is when she looks out the window and sees the bike rack at work is full.
Richards highly recommends becoming a team leader for the Campbell River BTWW. It’s as easy as riding a bike.