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Showing posts from April, 2023

First Hands-On Training Session

 Hats off to Joanne Foote for braving through our first actual hands-on training session with Klare!  We were having so much fun that I completely forgot to take any pictures. Being a gorgeous (if slightly cool) afternoon and a wet and windy forecast for the weekend, I was keen on getting some tread time in before the end of the month.  Fortunately Joanne's scheduled opened up and the stars aligned for us to spend an hour (or more?... don't really know where the time went but we had a great time) in the afternoon under sunny skies to go over the basics of the trishaw operations first and then a road trip. I went through a checklist we plagiarized from Wisconsin and touched on all the basics of all the operative features of the trishaw from the mechanical parts to operating the electric assist and battery removal for remote charging.  Since lunch hour had just passed at the High School (Rick Hansen's) opposite my place we opted to take a short cut through their grounds to a

Requirements and Responsibilities of Facility Coordinators

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 This Cycling Without Age - Mississauga program would not be feasible if not for the interest, dedication and participation of the staff of the senior care homes and retirement residences.  Under the guidance of the Life Enrichment Manager, a ride co-ordinator will ensure that the rides are promoted to the residents and the ride slots are booked appropriately on the days assigned to that facility. We intend to use Book2Go , a ride booking platform developed by the main Cycling Without Age program in Denmark.  For that purpose, we require all levels of the organization to understand how to use the program.  The four levels of administration are: Manager of the location will oversee operations. Coordinators create and populate rides for pilots who have been cleared by them Captains train and graduate pilots according to their abilities Pilots accept rides after they have been approved by Captains Facility Coordinators will need to make sure that passengers assigned to the rides have thei

Using and Sharing our CWAM app

 To help spread the word about Cycling Without Age - Mississauga, I have created an app that can be installed (saved on home screen) and shared by anyone with a smart phone.  If opened on a desktop, the app will also give you an option to save a shortcut from your desktop. If you are reading this off your desktop, you can scroll down on the app screen below (which is how you would view it on a smart phone) and scan (or click on) the QR code to save the app to your phone from where you can there share it with relatives, friends, colleagues and care home workers who may be interested in the program. The first link in the app is to our profile on Canada Helps, a convenient portal for making small donations.   It helps provide tax receipts to individuals who wish to help support our program for a percentage fee.  If you wish to make a larger donation (more than $100) we would welcome a direct donation to save on administration fees.  The first three methods on our website DONATE page wi

Second online Zoom meet: 10 Skills

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 On Saturday, April 8 2023, Holy Saturday to some we conducted our second Zoom session as part of our Pilot Training program to go over the ten skills of a qualified CWAM pilot. We were lucky to have veteran pilot and founder of the Brockville CWA, JoAnn Bell, join our small group for which we were thankful despite it being a long weekend in Canada.  We recorded both the main session and the Q&A, both embedded below.  I went over the 10 Skills of a CWAM Pilot document describing the main points of each of the 10 skills.... the most over-riding being SLOWNESS.  Taking it slow is the key to avoiding many of the pitfalls and accidents that we have seen with trishaws, albeit thankfully rare. Although our pilots and co-pilots are experienced bicyclists, they need to learn a new set of three-wheeled riding skills where the passengers, not the rider, are the main focus of the ride so the ideal ride is done slowly with a lot of talking, laughing, stopping to meet other pedestrians both tw

Proposed Waterfront Trail route

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While plotting the proposed route in Plotaroute along the Mississauga Waterfront Trail I decided to import the KML file into Google Earth and make a recording of the fly over to give you a feel for the route we will be taking. Ideally we would be starting from Tall Oaks Park at the bottom of Hurontario just south of Lakeshore since we propose the trishaw will be stored at Port Credit Residences at 33 Hurontario St.  Riding along the trail and board walk is a scenic smooth ride until we have to negotiate the P gates leading up to the Port Street multiuse trail.  Will take that trail to Snug Harbour and down to the end of the quay from where passengers can view the opening of the Credit River into Lake Ontario. Depending on the time and willingness of the passengers to go further, we can cross over the Credit River pedestrian bridge and take a short ride on Front Street to catch the Waterfront trail again in J.C. Saddington park.  We can take a ride around the park and return or continue