Building on the fantastic enthusiasm and participation of groups around the county in Bike Week 2014, Mayo Sports Partnership in conjunction with Mayo County Council, An Taisces Green - School Programmes, Road Safety Authority and Westport Smarter Travel is now inviting applications for funding from interested community groups / sports clubs for Bike Week 2014 (13th -21st June) events.

If your group is interested in promoting cycling as part of a fun, national programme, this is an ideal opportunity to apply for funding to help deliver your event.

Key information points:

Grants for Community Groups are available up to a potential maximum of €500 per successful community group (depending on the scale of the event). An overall allocation of €3,000 is available towards these community events.

Events that will be eligible for grant assistance in 2015 must be fun / novel, target outreach to non-cyclists or aspiring cyclists. They can be targeted at the whole community such as a town centre cycle festival with events for the whole family or can be aimed at specific groups such as BMX tryouts for teenagers, women only leisure cycles etc

Note that successful events to receive funding will need to be located at a venue which is visible to passers by / general public

For the purposes of these grants, eligible expenditure will include:

Ø Costs involved (either directly or through partners) in organising one or more local fun cycling events for public participation e.g. mass cycle, slow bike race, cycling obstacle course, road race, forest cycle, fancy dress parade, bike fest etc

Ø Costs involved in organising public information events on cycling

Ø Costs of purchase of items etc to raffle or give as prizes for participants in events

Ø Costs of complementary activities for event days, e.g. musical entertainment, face painting, novelty bike displays (unicycles, tricycles), electric bike display

Ø Costs relating to publicity for events

Ø Please note that expenditure will not be allocated for sweets / fizzy drinks etc.

For more ideas, see the 2014 photo galleries and event information on www.bikeweek.ie

Application is by providing information as requested in the attached form. A list of costed activities or events must be supplied with the application.

Applications should be emailed to msp@mayococo.ie or, alternatively, application forms can be posted to Mayo Sports Partnership, Mayo County Council, Castlebar, Co. Mayo

The closing date for applications to Mayo Sports Partnership is Wednesday 20th May 2015.

Funding is at the discretion of Mayo Sports Partnership / Mayo County Council and as such applicants may receive all/some/or no funding applied for.

The dedicated contact person will be informed of the proposed amount to be granted by Wednesday, 3rd June 2015.

Successful community groups / clubs will receive the grant following confirmation by the dedicated contact person of acceptance of the grant amount. Where a grant is in respect of a local community group, the contact person will be deemed responsible for handling the application, expenditure of grant and return of vouched expenses.

The dedicated contact person will be required to submit a brief report on the success or otherwise of the Bike week events and activities. The report should be a brief summary of the event of no more than two A4 pages or maximum of 500 words (bullet points suffice) and should ideally be accompanied by not more than two photographs of the event. This information will be used to help plan future Bike Week events. Photographs of the event may be uploaded to the Bike Week website.

If you have any questions, you can contact me by email at clambert@mayococo.ie or phone at 094-9047025