A new minibus for Christ Church Community Projects

Christ Church Stocksbridge has been very fortunate in being offered a new accessible minibus for its church and community activities.

Christ Church’s first objectives are to use it for:

1. the new lunch club for older people on Thursdays;2. the new social café for isolated adults on Mondays;3. enabling people to come to Christ Church on Sundays.

Of course, it will also be available during the rest of the week, and Christ Church is interested in discussing with groups who would be interested in using it, or new ideas for helping isolated people get out.

We hope to agree with three or four other groups at least, a regular booking each week, and it will also be available for evenings and weekends, and occasional bookings when it is available. Priority will always go to the regular bookings. Groups must be local voluntary organisations.

It is a 17 seater, with an accessible lift at the back and re-moveable seats to accommodate wheelchairs.

Each group using the minibus will have to supply its own drivers, and they have to be competent to drive a minibus and have the D1 class on their licence that permits that. They will be put on PSCT’s insurance, and PSCT will pay for them to do the MIDAS course.

When a group uses the minibus, it will have to pay a charge per mile for the use of the vehicle (currently £1.50p per mile, rising to £1.60 in April 2017). That includes fuel and all maintenance and insurance costs. Groups will be able to ask passengers for a donation towards the cost, but only if it is a donation, the group is charitable and the driver is not paid, but doing the driving voluntarily.

The minibus is being provided by Pitsmoor and Shiregreen Community Transport (PSCT). PSCT was founded in 1976, and is now 40 years old. It is a voluntary organisation which has run two minibuses for the use of local community activities in Pitsmoor and Shiregreen. This has been mainly lunch clubs at churches, support groups for older people and stroke victims, scouts, and other community groups.

PSCT applied on behalf of Christ Church for a new minibus for the Stocksbridge area from the recent Department for Transport Rural Minibus Fund.

The vehicle belongs to PSCT, but it will be based at Christ Church and managed locally by Christ Church under a management agreement with PSCT.

PSCT has two minibuses already, and is also getting one for Hillsborough Trinity Methodist Church’s community use. So it will often be possible to swap vehicles around when routine maintenance is needed for each vehicle.

Christ Church StocksbridgeA United Reformed Church/Methodist Church

Ecumenical PartnershipManchester Road, Stocksbridge

A new minibus

for Christ Church Community Projects

We are thrilled to be offered a new minibus for use by the community activities being developed at Christ Church.

It is also available for other user groups in the community.

Christ Church will want to prioritise the use of this valuable asset for the community and so it will not initially be on a first come first served basis, though an early expression of interest would be helpful.

If you are interested in using the minibus for your community group, please ring Jenny Clarke, who is the bookings secretary for the minibus, on 0114 288 3674

Our minister, Ian, was the founder of PSCT in 1976 and is now the Treasurer of PSCT as well as being the minister at Christ Church.