On Your Bike!

Half Term holidays are nearly upon us and what a great chance to get out with the children on their bikes and enjoy the fresh air. To ensure that they are seen why not have a look at our great range of spoke reflectors, these help you to be seen on your bike day, dusk and night… and they are really funky especially if you collect different colours. The reflectors are particularly good for increasing visibility from the side so helping you to be seen by traffic at junctions. As our motto is Be Bright Be Seen and get on your bike this 1/2 term.

Experiments with a kitchen composter

A few months before Christmas I bought a kitchen composter from evengreener.com. We already compost all our uncooked waste organic matter and I wanted to reduce the contents of our landfill load still further.
For those of you who don't know what they are a kitchen composter is a plastic box into which you can empty scraps of organic waste including cooked food. Each time you do this you mash the food down with a masher (supplied with the composter) and sprinkle bokashi bran on top. An airtight lid seals the waste in. The scraps of food don't decompose in the composter; they are kind of pickled by the bacteria in the bran. You keep doing this until the bin is full. You then leave it with the lid on for a couple of weeks to ferment after which time you can add it to your compost or dig it straight into the garden.

One of the by-products of the process is a liquid that can be drained off via a tap in the bin. This liquid can then be used as plant feed. It is a miracle feed. We had a tomato plant that had some green tomatoes on it that my daughter had grown at school and for months they had stayed green. We had given up hoping they would turn red. We started feeding the plant in November and shortly afterwards the tomotoes started turning red and ended up fully red.

It costs a bit to get started and it costs a bit for the bokashi bran but we are reducing the landfill and getting some composts for the garden and some wonderful plant feed. I thoroughly recommend this for anyone who wants to reduce their carbon footprint.

A word of warning though the liquid stinks so dilute it with some water on your houseplants!

Walking Buses go Multicolour in Medway with BrightKidz

Children from Medway's Walking Buses are being kitted out in new BrightKidz UK made waistcoats thanks to the scheme by the KM Walking Bus group and funding from Medway Council.

The first school to be presented with the waistcoats was St Andrews School in Rochester. Parent coordinator Sandra Mumford said

“There's certainly no groaning when I tell them to put them on now in fact they can't wait to wear them.

“They've proven so popular that I have had another eight children register on the bus since they've seen them.”

Spring Walk to School Week

Is spring round the corner? Living Streets believe so as they have just announced the dates for the Spring Walk to School week, running from 17th to 21st of May. It may seem a long way off but if you want to get your school involved its never too early to start planning.

This week is a great way to get everyone thinking about walking to school. They can try it for the week and then hopefully adopt it for the longer term. We've got lots of handy hint and tips for just the job with lots of items that can be given away as prizes and incentives for the children. why not visit our website for more ideas and to down load a booklet on ways to get children walking to school.

Be mine this Valentine

Be mine this Valentine - why not get that special someone something completely different which shows how you care for them but has the added bonus of keeping them seen in the evening. These rigid reflectors attach to clothing or bags and show up in car headlights. Who needs flowers and chocolates when this reflective heart lasts a lot longer.

Big Lottery Photo Shoot

Gorgeous sunshine today and lots of smiles.... but freeeeezzzzzzing cold for our photo-shoot with children from Kettering Park Junior and Park Infants schools Walking Bus.

Some time ago BrightKidz had funding from the National Lottery's 'Awards for All' scheme to help with one of our 'be safe be seen' educational projects. Today we fixed up a photo shoot with children from one of the schools we worked with at the request of the 'Big lottery' fund for publicity to show the kind of project they support.

It was actually a bit of a re-enactment in the lunch hour, as it's not a great idea to have a professional photo-shoot outside busy school gates as hundreds of other children and parents arrive in the morning! All the children who took part are regular 'walking busers' and really enjoyed being part of this special photo shoot in their different colour high vis jackets... I must say they looked stunning and loved the 'fame'!

School Travel Plans

Did you know that school travel plans can cut school traffic by between 8 and 15%. So what are school travel plans? The government has set a target that all schools will have a School Travel Plan by the end of March 2010. The aims of these plans are as follows:

• to bring about a significant reduction in the use of cars travelling from home to school.
• safer travel to and from school
• fitter, healthier, happier pupils
• greater awareness of environmental and health issues associated with walking to school

All admirable qualities and so easily achievable. For more information why not check out our website www.brightkidz.co.uk/walking-to-school/school-travel-plans.html.

Modeshift Training Day

Alison is heading to the dizzy heights of Bristol tomorrow for a training seminar. The event is being organised by Modeshift an organisation set up to support sustainable and active travel for young people and school communities by supporting those who are working with them to achieve these goals.

The day promises to be enlightening, spent sharing best practice on using arts and media to promote sustainable travel messages. Its a great forum for like minded professionals to share ideas in how to achieve sustainable travel.

Lunch boxes

Lunch Boxes - much has been in the press recently about healthy eating and what are we putting in the children's lunch boxes. Why not grab one of our super new sports bottle, so that you know that they have sufficient fluids to keep them going until its time to fill up again.

These super new sports bottles fit really well into our hi visibility rucksacks which can be used by both children and adults alike. So lets all get healthy together!!

Co-operative Walking Bus Scheme

Its amazing the number of Walking Bus schemes that have emerged over the last few years. It definitely seems to be a response to the media and concerns over healthy life styles. Schemes seem to be popping up all over the place as schools are recognising the need to encourage more children to walk to school.


The Co-operative group has become actively involved and made it one of their causes where by they are offering schools walking bus packs if they are located close to a Co-operative Group Store.


So get in touch with the Co-op and together we can all do our bit and get more children walking to school.

Brake to Thank Supporters at Westminster Reception

Another trip down to the ol' smoke tomorrow as I'm heading to road safety charity Brake's Annual Reception at the Houses of Parliament.



We'll be finding out their plans for the year ahead and meeting up with other businesses which support Brake's aims.



They'll be announcing the winners of the 2009 Road Safety Parliamentarian of the year Awards (ie an MP who has been super supportive of road safety initiatives and deserves a good pat on the back) and Volunteer of the Year.



It will be good to meet up with like-minded people... and of course I'm also looking forward to the canapes!

Blue Monday

Apparently today is officially Blue Monday so here are 4 reasons why it shouldn't be classed as that.

• The weather feels positively tropical
• The snow has gone so walking to school much easier with the children
• We've passed the shortest day so the nights are drawing out
  
• OK its Monday but only 4 more days then its the weekend!!

So throw off those Monday morning blues and get out and about in something bright and cheerful.

Peppa Pig Buckles Up

The production team for cartoon character Peppa Pig have decided to draw in seat belts and other safety features following complaints from parents. See the BBC article.

Reducing speed limits in villages

What do you think to a 20mph speed limit around villages? A report from the charity Living Streets shows that 1 in 5 parents say they would be more likely to let their children walk to school if speed was reduced. A further study undertaken by Hull City Council shows that following the introduction of a reduced speed limit, the council saw a 74% reduction in the number of child pedestrian casualties.

To make this more achievable, under Department for Transport proposals, these lower limits can be introduced without the need for traffic calming measures which makes the whole scheme more attractive.