September 2020 Review

Dave Scott Chris Hancock

Rain. Sun. Rain. Sun. A familiar pattern developed over the transitional Summer to Autumn month of September.

Starting with the good news!!

Chris Hancock, who joined RoSPA Advanced Drivers and Riders East Yorkshire (E-YARD) earlier this year, took his Advanced Motorcycle test with examiner John Summerfield and acheived a top grade of Gold. Brilliant for Chris, and the group, as he will now commence training as Group Tutor.

A week later, Dave Scott made it a double whammie with another Gold bike test with Chris Hood. Dave will also be continuing his progress with the group as he embarks on tutor training as well.

With Covid19 restrictions being fairly relaxed at the beginning of the month, plenty of training was taking place, both associates and trainee tutors being developed.

Advanced Tutor Rosie got out with associates Chris Hancock, Dave Scott (see above) and Neil Ford, as well as Tutor Training with Rod McAndrew

Our other Advanced Bike Tutor Ian Streets, was also out, training up Rod as well, using associate Kelvin to 'practice' on! In a similar vain, Ian was also out with nearly qualified Paul Morton using Adam Meakin as stooge!

Meanwhile Pippa continued with her instruction with Chris Cross whilst John Wright sorted her husband, Dave Cross and Don Hooker

The September Group Meeting, due to take place Wednesday 23 September with a presentation on globe trotting motorcycling by Pippa, unfortunately had to be suspended due to Covid cases rising and a restriction on numbers of people being allowed to meet.

Whilst this could have taken place legally, as a community and educational group, the Chair and committee members agreed that continuing the meeting would not show either the group or RoSPA being in the spirit of the Covid legislation, and the perception may indeed have been recieved in a negative way.

Being the "Inclusive, Not Exclusive" club that we are, Rosie had a ride out with Scraborough IAM - letting them see how it's done(!) for a social, and Chris Hood managed to get his picture in the IAM magazine. Watch out! E-YARD are on the road for world domination!

But on a serious note, it is great to be able to mix, liaise and join up with other groups, whether RoSPA or other providers, and this fits with E-YARD' philosophy - it's about safety and social.

A fair bit of social riding went on, all within the rules under Covid Regs.

Quite out of the blue, E-YARD were contacted by Humberside Police BikeSafe team who had decided to provide 3 BikeSafe sessions in September and October.

Ian Streets went along as an observer, and Rod McAndrew shadowed one of the police team as part of his tutor training program.

Again due to the Covid situation, car tutoring hasn't taken place as neither the car tutors or the associates have felt comfortable resuming training. This has been highlighted even more with the localised lockdowns due to the increased infection rates.

Although the end of September saw a serious return to restricted liberties due to the Covid R rate rising, E-YARD have continued to develop their portfolio of products to assist our members, or indeed anyone accessing our material, with Ian and Rosie producing and filming the initial video in a series of 'How to...The E-YARD way" on how to carry out a POWDDERSSY check.

This is likely to be released closer to New Year - timing of release is important to get Hollywood considering us for the Oscars!