The Bike Bus runs through a neighbourhood

• Most of that neighbourhood doesn't know it exists
• Or watches from a distance
• Or waves from a window every day, week or month and has never been thanked

There are people on your route who are already part of your Bike Bus

They just don't know they are yet

Five things we tried

• Honest verdicts
• Some stuck. Some didn't. (The bus kept running.)

What's constant

• Every one of those projects tried to reach beyond the people already on the bus
• What never wavers: the bus itself
• The parents show up. The children arrive smiling. The volunteers keep coming back.
• That takes almost everything the community has. As such, there isn't always much left.

So. Is the Bike Bus the community engagement?

• Or is there more?
• We think there's more
• And we think the children on your bus can show you what it is

Ask a child to imagine their route and they won't describe roads

They might describe trees, streets, signs, people, sounds, smells, feelings

Gary shakes homemade tin-can bells and shouts through a road cone

• Mr and Mrs Window wave every single morning
• The staff at Lucky's Lunchbox cheer from the industrial estate
• Two children. Eyes closed. Ten minutes.
• None of that came from a community survey.
• Today we want to share an example of how to find it in your own community

One note on how we try to work with children

• We try not to plant the answer before asking the question
• When children draw their maps, their placement is final
• No adult corrects it
• Genuinely open questions produce genuinely honest — and genuinely surprising — answers
• It will likely not be the answer you expected, maybe not even the answer you want. That's the point.

We're not here to give you a Bike Bell Ambassadors project

We're here to help you find your version

Whatever form that takes — a bell, a poster, a conversation, a flag in a window

First: the soundscape

What does your Bike Bus sound like?

• Call them out
• Tyres on tarmac. Gear clicks. Bells. "Good morning." Children laughing. Dogs.
• Build it together

Draw your route the way it lives in your mind

• Not the way a map would draw it
• Use all the paper. Make it bold.
• It doesn't need to be accurate. It just needs to feel right.

Draw yourself on your bike

• Your way. It doesn't have to look right.
• Everyone finds drawing bikes incredibly hard. This is not just you. (It really isn't.)
• Cut it out. Stick it to a stick. You're going riding.

Place yourself at the start. Start riding.

• As you go: write or draw the people, sounds and places you imagined
• Name them if you can. Give them a name if they don't have one yet.
• Who would you most want to stop and thank?

What did you find?

• Who wants to share someone from their map?
• What surprised you?
• Does that person know you look for them every week?

What could you do with it?

• A bell. A poster. A flag. A note through the door. A coffee.
• All of them are right. Genuinely.
• And the honest question underneath: do you have the energy — on top of running the bus?
• (That's not rhetorical. We'd actually like to know.)

Between these maps there are [X] cities, [X] routes, and more local legends than anyone in this room could name

Take your map and other maps back home — it tells you what to expect if you run this with your own children

We'll share the full set back to everyone

Before you leave — write one intention

• It doesn't have to be a project
• It could be a conversation with a child, a walk down your route, an idea you want to try
• Write it down. Keep it in your mind
• Set your intention and ring the bell on your way out