Wokingham Borough Connect
 Pupils from Floreat Montague Park, winners in the schools (total points) category
Thousands step forward to Beat the Street
Over 14,000 people took part in this summer's Beat the Street, a game that awards points for exploring Wokingham Borough by walking, wheeling or cycling.
Players racked up a staggering 163,680 miles in total, the distance equivalent of more than 13 return trips from London to Tokyo.
They either used a contactless card or a smartphone app to check in at more than 100 "beat boxes" across the borough, all marked on a map.
About 6,200 people took part when we last held Beat the Street, so we're thrilled to have more than doubled participation.
This year's community winners were:
- Schools (total points) - Floreat Montague Park Primary School
- Schools (average points) - Westende Junior School
- Empowered schools (total points) - Addington School, Red Eagles
- Community and workplace teams (total points) - Redwood Early Years
- Community and workplace teams (average points) - Southlake Unofficial
- Running and cycling teams (total points) - Finch Coasters Running Club
- Running and cycling teams (average points) - Finch Coasters Running Club
- Small teams - Active4 Health
- Charity - Wokingham Foodbank
- Individual leaderboard (adult) - Max Polkinghorne
- Individual leaderboard (child) - Harsh (eight)
Beat the Street was run by Intelligent Health in partnership with our My Journey Wokingham active travel team, and funded by us and the Government.
 Don't just take our word for it...
Harsh, who won the individual child category, had a blast playing Beat the Street with his mum Bharti. The pair walked 1,209 miles and won 34,860 points.
Bharti tells us: "It was an incredible experience, and enjoying activities like running, cycling and walking has significantly improved our health and work-life balance.
"We've found that we prefer going out to collect points rather than staying at home with gadgets. Throughout this period, I've managed to do a lot more exercise and never imagined that we could do this without a specific goal in mind.
"We started just by collecting points, but we soon realized that we needed to take this on as a challenge. This led us to start competing on the leaderboard with others, and made us more determined to earn even more points.”
Don't miss our summer Bike Bonanza on Thursday, 15 August! This fantastic annual event takes place between 11am and 2pm on the track behind the FBC Centre in Finchampstead. Come along and have some fun on our bikes, make a smoothie, have a FREE bike check and more!
 Saddle up to win big this September
It's quick, free and easy to sign up for Love to Ride's annual Cycle September challenge, which we're supporting to help people travel more sustainably.
All you have to do is register and start logging your trips - which you can do all year round as part of the Love to Ride campaign, but there are loads of extra rewards for doing it in September.
There's a £1,000 cash prize for early birds who register before 31 August, a grand cash prize of £2,000 and a prize draw for those who encourage others to sign up.
There are also workplace prizes as well as goodies like sweaters, T-shirts and more.
You can log journeys and win points with the Love to Ride app (available for Apple or Android devices) or by syncing it to Strava or MapMyRide, and there are points for getting your friends and family on board!
 Our schools are STARS for greener travel
We're delighted to announce that we're one of the top councils in the UK for taking part in a healthy school travel scheme.
Wokingham Borough now ranks eighth among "small" local authorities (those with under 100 schools) for participation in Modeshift STARS.
The scheme, backed by the Department for Transport, encourages schools come up with ideas to get pupils walking or cycling more instead of being driven.
Thirteen of our schools are now accredited and we'd encourage any others who are interested to find out more. Our Modeshift STARS schools are:
- Aldryngton Primary School, Earley (very good)
- Crosfields School, Reading (very good)
- Westende Junior School, Wokingham (very good)
- Earley St Peter's Primary School (good)
- Emmbrook Junior School, Wokingham (good)
- Floreat Montague Park Primary School, Wokingham (good)
- Gorse Ride Junior School, Finchampstead (good)
- Nine Mile Ride Primary School, Finchampstead (good)
- St Mary's Shinfield Junior School (good)
- St Crispin's School, Wokingham (approved)
- Windmill Primary School, Wokingham (approved)
- Hawkedon Primary School, Earley (approved)
- Shinfield Infant School (new approval - not counted in league table)
We're also working with nine other schools to help them get accredited, so we're hoping for more good news in future!
Supporting the next generation's health
We support Modeshift STARS through our My Journey Wokingham team, because reducing unnecessary car journeys is key to improving air quality.
We're also doing all we can to become a carbon neutral borough by the end of the decade, and schemes like this are crucial to fighting the climate emergency.
We're also working with the Government to reduce air pollution around our borough's most affected schools, as exhaust fumes are dangerous to growing children.
By reducing traffic on the roads, we can also alleviate congestion for those journeys where driving is more likely to be necessary.
 Creative children draw up a car-free world
As part of this year's national Clean Air Day, we held an art competition encouraging primary school pupils to imagine our borough without cars - and how people might travel more sustainably.
This is important because fuel-burning vehicles like cars and vans are the biggest source of harmful pollutants in our air, and we're working to tackle this.
The winner was from Zoe (Year 4) from Emmbrook Junior School, Wokingham town. Her colourful design, called Clean Air, Clean Minds, showed children walking, scooting or cycling to school beneath a beautiful rainbow.
Zoe won a year's worth of online air quality monitoring data for her school, provided by industry leader EarthSense, plus a My Journey goody bag.
The three runners up, all from Wokingham town, received £10 book vouchers for the school and My Journey goody bags. They were:
- Jaahnavi - Year 4, Windmill Primary School
- Beth - Year 3 from Emmbrook Junior School
- Jolie - Year 2 from Wescott Infants School
Air pollution - find out more
We've developed two fun and engaging animations for primary schools to teach their pupils about this issue. Please see:
 More chances to win prizes
Why not celebrate this year's Olympics in Paris by taking part in our latest schools competition?
We're asking primary school aged children to answer 12 facts about the Olympic games on a simple quiz sheet. Please return it to us by Saturday, 31 August.
Correct entries will be entered into a draw to win one of two commemorative Olympic games medal, with runner-up prizes also up for grabs.
 Together in electric (vehicle) dreams...
Want to find out more about electric cars and E-Bikes or E-Cargo bikes, including the cost of buying or running one?
Come along to our event on Saturday, 21 September, which takes place between 9am and 1pm at Elms Field in Wokingham town centre.
We'll also have information about EV charging points and renewable energy options for your home or business.
We're still finalising the details of the event and we'll share more on our website and social media pages soon.
 Upcoming activities and events
You can get free bike checks with Dr Bike (booking essential) at:
Also coming up (more information on our website) are:
- Bikeability Level 1 & 2 and Level 3 Cycle Training Courses - various dates in the summer holidays, visit Avanti Cycling's website to book
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Running Places for Women is a free weekly outdoor running group for women aged 16+ of all abilities to build confidence and fitness. There's a 3km and a 5km route, starting and finishing at Wokingham Leisure Centre.
- Free Balance Bike Club at FBC (Wednesdays from September)
- Free Balance Bike Club at Woodford Park Leisure Centre (Thursdays from September)
- Learn to Ride sessions (£10) at FBC in Finchampstead (Wednesdays from September)
- Learn to Ride sessions (£10) at Woodford Park Leisure Centre in Woodley (Thursdays from September)
- Woky Wheels 4 All at FBC in Finchampstead (Thursday mornings from September)
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