Andy had an old school bike and it had been gathering dust at the back of the garage for a lot of years. With a flush of enthusiasm to get fitter, a restoration project was born and the bike was dismantled to have the frame repainted by Bob Jackson in Leeds. A beautiful job was done.

Putting the bike back together was a lot more tricky than taking it apart and a friend recommended asking John for a little help. Over a few Saturday afternoons at John’s the bike was completed, looking better than new. Along the way, Andy leant a hand cleaning up and fixing some of the charity bikes and enjoyed the garage chat and cake. He blagged a favour from Spa Cycles wheel builder, Dave, and he ran a wheel building training evening for a small group. The possibilities of using these skills to save some cost in fixing donated bikes was great. Replacement wheels for cheap bikes are hard to justify. Andy went to a church leaders event at a large church in town and was chatting to the vicar about the bike project and how it was overflowing the garage space. ‘Why don’t you look at our crypt?’ said the vicar.

That didn’t work out but several other options quickly emerged. Next was the disused cottage at the back of another church, then the basement of another church hall. Neither worked out. Andy was on a mission now! The pieces finally came together with an offer of Westcliffe Hall basement, the home base of Kairos Network Church. A Lottery funding bid was assembled and accepted and Resurrection Bikes was born (a great name from another story in Andy’s work blog!)

The project now has a good space in a friendly church building with zero overheads (except cake) plus the benefit of the church VAT registration and charity status to allow VAT reclaim on all the setup costs and GiftAid on the bike proceeds. God certainly knows how to look after the pennies!