Murdoch Meander a success!

We hosted the second MM this past Sunday. The Meander was inspired by the Giro d' Perth. We had a pretty good turnout with about 50 people braving the warmer-than- ideal temperatures- including a LOT of families with younger children. Riding around the MU campus was perfect for them, with smooth wide paths and little in the way of obstacles, and lots of interesting places to discover. The design of the Meander, broken into 2 options, ensured there was something for everyone- the longer route took about 2 hours to complete and went around Bibra Lake as well as the campus.

We learned a few things: having an event ambulance service on hand seemed a bit 'overkill' but I am incredibly grateful we did in fact have one, as someone had an accident on campus and fractured her wrist. (She's OK!)

It was really hard to get volunteers, so big thanks to the 2 students who came and helped out, including Rowan who did a lot of postering in the local shops in the weeks ahead of the event (on his bike, no less!) From our face-to- face surveys, most people heard about the event from our display advert that ran in three editions of the Herald Newspaper, or Facebook. No one mentioned the posters at all, so I wonder if the days of using posters as outreach material are well and truly over- given they are expensive to produce and distribute, I won't mind that too much.

I can't upload the photo of the family who won our little competition- mum, dad and 3 small kids, all on bikes and all keen as mustard! They really captured the spirit of the day. I used the $50 Rebel voucher MU won through its Your Move Stories points to thank this happy family for joining in and posting about the event.

Attaching here the Murdoch Meander resource (map and clue sheet) and if anyone is interested in holding an event like this in their own area I'd be happy to talk about lessons learnt, etc.