Adaptive cycling through the woods at Middleton Park? Finding new routes and ways of exploring where you live? Experiencing the great Yorkshire countryside? Gaining skills, confidence and independence?
If any of that sounds like something you want to do, but feel you need support to do so, then why not join Experience Community, a not-for-profit organisation, based in West Yorkshire, promoting inclusive access to the great outdoors for people with physical disabilities.
Led by members of staff with first-hand and personal experience of disability and supported by
knowledgeable and experienced non-disabled colleagues, Experience Community has a wide breadth
of knowledge and understanding. The benefits of the outdoors and the countryside should be for everyone, and the team is there to help you experience that.
Go along to their hub in Leeds at Middleton Park. Try some adaptive cycling out on the trails, borrow an off-road wheelchair and have a ramble around the park, or find the new bit of equipment that will help you explore the outdoors more independently.
Long-time participant, Meryl, had this to say about her time with Experience Community:
“Experience Community is an organisation that has shown me I can still be free to
enjoy the ‘great outdoors’ even as I lose the ability to walk – meeting new people,
making new friends and visiting different places. My advice, whoever you are — is to
take a deep breath and come along to see for yourself!”
Activities on offer:
- Inclusive walks and rambles using specialist off-road mobility equipment
- Adaptive cycling sessions in Leeds at the Urban Bike Park in Middleton Park,
and further afield across the North - Wheelchair skills sessions and courses across Yorkshire
- Active travel support, to help disabled people move around more confidently
Hire and sale of mobility equipment, wheelchair clip-ons and cycles
The organisation has grown over the last decade into what it is today. Craig Grimes, founder and Managing Director, started the organisation himself after becoming paraplegic owing to an accident during his final year of university. He found that he was no longer able to experience the outdoors as he once had and became an advocate for inclusive access to the countryside, creating videos and reports,
documenting the accessibility of various sites and routes.
This type of work still forms an integral part of what Experience Community does as an organisation,
working with partners such as the National Trust, Yorkshire Water and National Trails, to advise on how they can make their sites and trails more accessible for more people.
If you want to come along and see for yourself, there are demonstrations of equipment and activities Tuesday to Friday at the Leeds Hub in Middleton Park, with further sessions every 3rd Saturday of the month; the next one being Saturday 19th July.
Countryside rambles run twice monthly on weekends at various locations around Yorkshire. There is also an upcoming wheelchair skills courses running in Slaithwaite (Mondays from 30th June to 4th August), Wakefield and Keighley.
Further details can be found here.
