SFB's big cheque handover

A wee bit late with putting this online so apologies to those avid readers who've been clamouring to find out the information.

We presented Yorkhill Children's Foundation with a cheque for £6,400 at last month's Easter Egg Run in Glasgow.

You can see some pictures of the run here.

As you can see, we were delighted to be able to hand over that amount of money and it was all thanks to the generosity of those who dug deep into their pockets.

It made all the hours of rattling tins and buckets and packing supermarket bags worthwhile.

We'll have news of the SFB tour in 2013 soon.

Yorkhill fund-raising total

Our months of fund-raising have come to a head with the handover of a cheque to the Yorkhill Children's Foundation.

We're delighted to say that the hours of supermarket bag-packing, tin-rattling and days in the saddle in Vietnam reaped the magnificent total of £7,500.

Yorkhill has received £6,400 and Vietnam charities £1,000. 

There'll be some publicity pictures to show you early in 2012. 

Meanwhile, we've been humbled by the inclusion of the Scottish Free Bikers in Yorkhill's 2012 calendar. 

We knew we were pin-ups - but we didn't really expect to be in a calendar. That's our month, August, on the right. 

You can do your bit too by buying one of the calendars here.

2012 tour and logo unveiled

We're still dusting ourselves down after Vietnam but at the same time, we've been making plans for the Scottish Free Bikers 2012 tour.

And we're happy to say that the destination will be the Isle of Man TT races which take place between 26 May and 8 June.

Our designers have also been hard at work making the logo for next year's trip and we're proud to unveil it here on the right.

You can see other versions of the logo here.

All proceeds from the Isle of Man TT trip and events we organise around it will go, as always, to the Yorkhill Children's Foundation.

Just to add to the allure of next year's IoM TT, the Olympic torch relay will be on the island during the races. The flame reaches there on 2 June, day 15 of the relay.

We've had a few people asking about the the Vietnam tour and so we have an ebook in the pipeline which we hope will be available in the first quarter of 2012 with proceeds also going to the foundation. 

Postcard from Vietnam

John lets a local have a feel of his bike

It's day six of the Scottish Free Bikers' Vietnam tour and everyone is safe and well. Here's what John Watson had to say about the trip so far:

"We are all ok. The riding is great, very hard as they have no set rules, they literally go where and when they want.

"They even ride on the wrong side of the road and at night with no lights on. Some roads are very rough - when we arrived here in Nha Trang we were black.

"Ho Chi Minh was good but very poor outwith the hotel, people sleeping rough everywhere.

"Phan Thiet was excellent. The hotel was empty, we had the pool to ourselves and alongside the beach. Now in Nha Trang, again right next to the beach, hotel excellent.  

"The weather is really hot and very humid. We're all struggling to keep hydrated."

More pictures will be online later.

Bikers go back to school

Three of the Scottish Free Bikers have gone back to school to spread the word about their Vietnam fund-raising project and motorbike safety.

Alun, Laura and John took their bikes to East Fulton Primary School in Linwood, near one of the trip's sponsors, MCS Scotland in Renfrew.

The pupils were divided into three groups of 18.

• Alun, who works at MCS, took his group through the workings of the bikes
• John gave a talk on motorcycle safety
• Laura gave a talk on Vietnam

The children drew posters and designed tour guides, which are now adorning a wall at MCS, and they're now designing logos for Vietnam.

John said: "It was a great experience, the kids put a lot of effort and time into what they did and to say they knew more than us is an understatement."

Final preparations are under way with less than a month before the group head off to Vietnam.

More cash bagged from packing

The weekend saw another supermarket bag pack, this time at Morrisons in Crossmyloof on the south side of Glasgow.

The total brought in was £825.81, another great boost for Yorkhill Hospital.

The proceeds were helped by the raffle of a limited edition Irn Bru bike donated by AG Barr, Cumbernauld, to whom the Scottish Free Bikers are hugely grateful.

Thanks too to Morrisons, who gave us fruit pastries and children's books.

SFB packers have it in the bag

The people of Stirling are a generous bunch.

On Saturday, we parked ourselves at the end of the check-out aisles in the Morrisons supermarket and packed shopping bags throughout the day.

Our collecting buckets showed a healthy return and when the cash was counted up, we'd raised the brilliant sum of £928.80.

Thanks very much indeed to Morrisons for allowing us to do the bag pack and thanks too to everyone who donated.