Jim Hudson

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that Jim passed away last Friday, the day of his eightieth birthday.  

Jim was a stalwart member of our White Peak Group. He tackled problems tenaciously and always with meticulous attention to detail. He was always well-organized and his contributions were welcome. On top of all this, he was a thoroughly nice bloke! His presence will be greatly missed. 

Jim first contacted me in connection with a multi-user path in Ashbourne about two years ago: a recalcitrant developer was dragging his heels over building this path and Jim wanted to know what Sustrans knew about this, particularly as it would provide a safer alignment of Route 68 than that which follows the busy A515. Following a discussion about this, I persuaded Jim to join our ranger group, and he subsequently sold his idea to our regional officers. He and I did a couple of signing jobs together on Route 68 between Ashbourne and Etwall, and he also attended most of the group’s other workdays and rides, having planned at least one of the latter earlier this year. He also organized successful meetings and workdays with his fellow rangers in the Ashbourne area. 

Jim was great company on a week-long ride in north-east England in the spring of this year. The last time I saw Jim was during the Tour of Britain event at Matlock less than two weeks ago, an event into which he had put a lot of effort. 

Jim's family have given us the following funeral arrangements: 
2.40 pm on Wednesday 7 October 2015 at the Crematorium in Derby. No black to be worn and no flowers please. There will be a collection for the Air Ambulance - as Jim had the benefit of their service when he had a cycling accident.

Tour of Britain

A few pictures of the TOB going through Matlock

A few

Recording our activities

Hello everyone! Do you all record the activities that you take part in? Let me confess straight away that I have been rather tardy about this myself, but I've just started doing it as it is important to Sustrans. I quote here from the VolNet:

"Recording your activities will help us to improve the support we give you, promote the amazing things all our volunteers do, report back to our funders and seek new funding opportunities. Your volunteer co-ordinator or staff supervisor will view and collate your activity reports." 

Put everything down that you do for Sustrans - workdays (strictly, you should exclude time going to and from the workplace), meetings, events, public rides (but only include our own social rides if they include an element of work on our routes). You will need to log into your Volunteer Net account. Click here to go to there now. Next, go to "record your activity" and add the details. You will find it is very straightforward. You may find that some of your activities have already been logged by me or someone else, since we have to mention rangers that we worked with, so you may have very little extra to put in.

Tour of Britain event, Matlock

Last Friday, on a beautiful sunny day, our group staffed a stand in Hall Leys Park, Matlock, as part of a Tour of Britain celebration organized by Derbyshire Dales District Council. As well as our own members, we were aided by rangers from as far afield as Lichfield and Grantham. Dan Robertson kindly brought a gazebo and the Spin Art bicycle seen in the pictures below, which attracted many members of the public throughout this highly successful day. The Tour came through town shortly before 2 o'clock and was watched by large crowds.