It’s easy to dismiss online tools like Teams and Zoom as cold and impersonal. But if we pause and look at what they do, they truly enable, they are a low-cost game changers for delivering meaningful and positive mental health support.
I want to share two stories illustrating how we’ve embraced a hybrid approach to deepen community engagement and provide genuine assistance and long term support free of charge.
🏍️ Case Study 1: Mental Health Motorbike
When I talk about “hybrid” I mean combining online connection with real, in-person human interaction. It’s a simple formula, but the results can be powerful and very effective.
Mental Health Motorbike is a Charity set up to reduce suicide in the UK. We work with the industry, bike groups and individuals associated with the motorbike Community. When we launched our charity in March 2020, we were buzzing with excitement to hit the road and connect with this diverse community. Then, the UK entered a national lockdown due to COVID 19 – who would have anticipated this!! We faced a tough choice: put everything on hold, or find a creative way to meet bikers online? We settled on the latter, diving into the unknown world of Zoom (can you believe that was only five years ago?).
The rise of video conferencing such as Zoom, Teams, and other tools completely transformed remote working. While businesses saw huge cost savings (which frankly led to some employers exploiting employees’ – turning their homes into free office space and then expecting you to pay for everything is a separate mental health rant for another day!), for our charity, these tools offered something profoundly positive.
Finding Connection on the Screen
The Lockdown led to bikers missing the mental “headspace” a good motorcycle ride provides, bikers were struggling and even in the early days we soon started to realise just how important this Mental Health Charity for bikers would become. We started something called Virtual Ride Outs on Sunday evenings. Bikers could log in, talk bikes, and just be together. We hosted garage workshop projects, made meals together, held pop quizzes, and music nights. I remember one incredible night starting at 7 PM and finishing at 3:30 AM! It proved how vital talking and socialising truly are.
Today, with our trustees spread across the country, tools like Zoom, Slack, and Jotforms allow us to run the charity efficiently without constant travel. This efficiency keeps us lean, ensuring our funds go straight back into the community we serve. Plus, it makes those rare face-to-face meetings incredibly special—a reminder that we’re all proper human beings, not just little squares on a screen!
The Magic of Peer Support
While video calls are great, our text and photo based Facebook (members only) peer support group is the real star. Running 24 hours a day, with clear rules and skilled moderators, this text-based community (with a healthy use of emojis!) has been running for six years. We regularly hear from members who say this group literally kept them alive. With over 4,700 registered bikers, this group is nothing short of magical and is undoubtedly saving the NHS millions.
Our model works because it’s hybrid: we use the online support to connect, and then combine it with face-to-face meet-ups—over 400 events across the UK in 2025 alone! This combined approach brings support directly to where bikers are, creating a safety blanket they know is always there.
🌳 Case Study 2: The Friends of the Five Pits Trail group
We always encourage people we work with to give back to their community. Giving freely creates a completely different dynamic, often leading to unexpected and wonderful outcomes.
Five years ago, I was (no longer am lol) a self-proclaimed grumpy old man, constantly complaining about the litter on the nature trail behind my house. One day, a friend challenged me: “If you’re so unhappy, why don’t you clean it up?” So, I accepted the challenge (not realising the trail has over 25 miles of footpaths!).
From Litter Picking to Community Hub
I created a Facebook group to recruit local litter pickers. I was thrilled when we got 10 active people helping me. But then, something amazing happened: other local residents noticed the clean footpaths and liked what they saw. They started joining the movement. Five years on, this group is an incredible community of 7,500 local people.
While the trails sometimes see unwanted activity (like county lines drug runs on e-bikes, which are thankfully rare), the group has transformed itself into a vital community hub. It’s no longer just about litter; people share information about wildlife, nature, and local species. They post photos, organise fundraising for new benches and bird boxes (now hosting rare species!), and promote events like running clubs, horse riding meet-ups and foraging.
Positive Mental Health by Default
Because we’ve shown that litter doesn’t belong, people drop less of it, making the cleanup job easier over time. This small group is now providing a huge service, linking multiple villages and communities, offering a safe space to report incidents, and providing massive mental health benefits. Our community now has direct access to countryside rangers who are active in the group and quickly address issues like fly-tipping.
This group is fundamentally hybrid: members talk online, then meet up and use the trails, naturally boosting their positive mental health through physical activity and social connection in a safe and cared for space.
✅ The Bottom Line
These two distinct case studies, which rely solely on online tools and in-person connection, demonstrate the immense value of the hybrid model. Crucially, neither project receives any government funding, yet the long-term impact on reducing health needs is likely huge.
There are hundreds of groups like this across the UK, quietly providing invaluable services. We need to be much better at recognising and celebrating the creativity, dedication, and investment in ‘hybrid’ models and volunteer-led community groups. If you want to boost your own positive mental health, I wholeheartedly advocate for community engagement and volunteering. If you have any thoughts or similar projects post in comments below
PAPPA P with his little boy – this is one of the reasons why I need to look after myself better
I would like to thank all those people that contacted me after my previous blog post. I wanted to give you an update of where things are at with regards my own Mental Health and my phased return back to the Charity.
In hindsight the previous blog post was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write as it meant looking inwards and taking responsibility but also acknowledging I might not be as strong as I thought I was.
One of our charity values is transparency and it would’ve been easy for me to brush this under the carpet and keep my situation to myself. But I know the feedback I’ve got has led to quite a lot of people realising that they also need to go and visit the doctor. So this alone validates my reasons for sharing so much and writing what was a risky post.
I consider myself somebody that’s spent a lot of time around poor Mental Health both professionally and personally and in many ways I should have been more tuned in to my own situation. But as I’ve talked about in the past, this stupid male conditioning kicks in and you tell yourself you are okay you will get through this you don’t need help, all the things that we are taught on the mental heath first aid training seem to go out of the window when it’s yourself you’re trying to manage. I would never tell somebody to ‘man up’ or ‘get a grip’ but my inner voice kept saying this subconsciously to me and this is why it took me so long to get professional help. But during that delay time things were deteriorating quite badly.
This experience has really highlighted how important our charity is – particularly when you are being let down by other professional services. We provide a platform for people to talk in a non judgmental space, we won’t laugh at you or ignore you. When I look back to how I have been supported over the last 3 months, my friends from the Charity have really carried me through this difficult period and I would like to thank them once again (and my family) for helping me understand how poorly I have been.
Taking stock of things I realise it’s still have a long way to go in understanding my own mental health but I’ve realised how damaging burnout can be. Anybody that knows me will know how this Charity goes to the core of who I am and for me to get to the stage where I wanted to walk away showed something was obviously wrong. It’s not until you completely stop that you can start to see a clearer picture of what was wrong. When you’re in the thick of it so much is missed. I was burnt out after 5 very intense years creating a national charity from scratch and this burnout had a detrimental effect on my confidence and self-esteem.
Over the next few weeks I’m working with the charity trustees to look at a phased return back to work. This will start with me attending four days at Motorcycle Live and then hopefully meeting with all of our incredible Regional Coordinators and team before Christmas.
It makes my heart full of pride to see we will be at 1100 Mental Health first aid trained by Christmas. But more importantly when we look at the data we have done something in the region of 400 face-to-face events using the skills of these mental health first aiders and allowing them to put theory into practice – we take the support directly to places bikers hang out and make talking very accessible.
Something like this doesn’t just happen overnight it happens because of some very special people. Volunteers that understand the charity’s vision and resonate with it. It has meant them giving up much of their weekends to meet with and look after fellow bikers. And for me I have the upmost respect for every one of our volunteers that has done this, it is heartwarming, as I’ve been a direct beneficiary of this Support.
Poor Mental Health is that silent killer which affects far more people than you might realise. So just a few little … If you notice one of your friends or family member seems to be behaving differently or is a little subdued or dishevelled, make a cup of tea and ask them are you okay? You may need to dig a little bit to get the truth. Also give yourself some time to deal with the fact they might not be okay and will need some help. This could be a life-saving intervention. The Mental Health first aid training we deliver will give you the confidence and toolkit to do this (www.mhmotorbike.com/mhfa) and we would welcome you into our network.
I am not going to rush into doing what I did previously, I’m going to try and get a much better work life balance and be more focussed , but after lots of soul searching I still see my future with the Charity and hopefully helping to drive the team to do what we are doing better. It’s taking a lot of time for me to work out next steps, but my journey with this incredible charity is not over.
I will leave you with a few words of wisdom…
First of all great acts of kindness are made up of many smaller deeds. As we care for others we are also working on ourselves; every act, every word, every gesture of genuine compassion naturally nourishes our own hearts and in my experience this will make you a more fulfilled person. Caring for others will make this complicated world more bearable and something we should all do.
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
It’s probably worth starting this post is a long one with a trigger alert as some of the topics discussed cover suicide and depression.
To say the Summer of 2025 has been unusual would be an understatement. I didn’t go into it thinking it would be as challenging as it has been. I got to my 56th birthday and something very strange happened. I woke up and thought what am I doing? why am I doing this? and I started to doubt everything I’ve learnt about myself over the last 56 years. My confidence and self-esteem had completely deserted me. My Mental Health has always been a little bit up-and-down, I tend to be the emotional one of the three brothers, I’m not as laid back and I enjoy doing things that are not necessarily straightforward. I don’t know where this comes from it’s certainly not from my dad, he is very straightforward and likes things to be simple.
To try and set some context to this post it is worth hearing a bit of my history and where the charity came from. I’ve always enjoyed spending time with different cultures and interesting people so most of my life I’ve enjoyed travelling the world and over the last 25 years much of this has been international through my work. Brexit sadly put a stop to this as a career as we lost the mechanism to secure international contracts through the European Union Erasmus plus programme. My company had been involved in over 250 life changing projects with young people and to say this was life changing for all of us involved would be an understatement. This work gave me a real understanding of job satisfaction, making a difference and shaping young lives so that they could aspire to be something different. There is a book to be written about some of the young people we’ve worked with and what they have gone onto achieve because of these projects. But that is for another day.
I think I started to understand poor Mental Health in 2019 when many negative things collided – Brexit, a changing job situation, exhaustion and the loss of a friend Dale Caffrey to suicide. I remember going to Dale’s funeral and making a simple promise to Dale’s family and friend (Jay Lucas) that I would do something to prevent other families going through the heartache of suicide. Jay who is the other official founder of Mental Health Motorbike said I will do this with you Paul. October 2019 a seed was sown.
Shortly after the funeral I presented the idea of working with the motorbike community to Jay and he said I trust your judgement I will help you create this. And we started planning. We spent about three months researching what this should look like, talking to bikers we asked one simple question “Do you think there is an appetite for a dedicated Mental Health Charity working with bikers?” And we asked many people this question and overwhelmingly the answer was yes, but make sure it is a group that isn’t just for male bikers but open to all.
On the 1st of March 2020 we launched Mental Health Motorbike. And we started to train bikers in Mental Health first aid. Andy Elwood who was one of the previous trustees (and another key person) took a lead on driving the Mental Health first aid training forward. We started to bring a number of trustees on board, Andy, Mark JJ Johnson, Ken Finlayson and the aim was to become a registered charity as soon as possible. This happened on the 4th November 2021. I was so proud of the team when we received our official Charity number. It had taken blood sweat and tears for us to get to this stage.
We had never taken a conventional approach on how the charity was funded. Most charities would go down the grant funding route but this makes them a little bit more vulnerable as when this funding dries up, the charity starts to struggle.
A few years previously I’d been working over in Amsterdam on a very inspirational international project (Digg-Out) it was founded by a good friend called Nanette De Jong-Becker. The project was working with street prostitutes and young homeless autistic people. Nanette became a very good friend but she’d always said if you set up a charity don’t rely on Grant funding, find the useful people who can give you pro bono support and utilise this as it will save you thousands and have real community impact. When we set the Charity we looked at this model and we started to talk to the industry, to bike groups, to road safety partnerships and when we needed something we asked for support rather than financial contributions. Nanette’s model of working was really introduced early on with our Charity and it’s meant that we’ve never run out of money and we really utilise the support and caring nature within the motorbike community. It also allows others not necessarily involved with the day-to-day operation of Mental Health Motorbike to have an input. We owe Nanette a great deal in giving us the confidence to look at this as a different type of approach.
The problem with setting up a charity that comes from a very personal place means that you are completely invested. What it doesn’t take into account is just how much this investment will take out of you. Looking back over the last five years I cannot begin to imagine the hours I’ve put into this Charity and how much of my time it has taken me away from my family. I have a very supportive and loving family and they have been incredibly proud of what I’ve set up, but I’m sure at times they have really got fed up of her hearing the words ‘Mental Health Motorbike’. They are obviously much too nice to say this to me but I’m sure deep down they’ve probably felt it from time to time. As external observers looking in they have seen the impact the Charity has had on so many. They hear the stories, they read the social media posts and they see the growth of the Charity and for me it feels very very special to be able to share this with them and I know they are all very proud of me.
But there is always a dark side to being so invested. It is something that gradually creeps up on you and this is what I experienced shortly after my 56th birthday when I woke up and started to question everything. This went very deep to my whole existence of why am I here. I didn’t feel as though I should be here and I couldn’t work out what was going on. I found myself in a world of pain wasn’t quite physical but it was making me feel really ill. I didn’t know what to do. So I just stopped doing the thing that had consumed me for five years and that was the Charity and caring for others. This hurt so much, in the blink of an eye I had just fallen out of love with something that I cared about greatly. I certainly felt very lost and angry and alone. Everything went very dark and I didn’t want to see anyone except my family.
I knew things were bad because the one place I’ve been avoiding going was the doctors but I realised I needed to go and talk about what was happening to me. So I tried to get an appointment it took about six weeks of trying to fill out the online forms and getting nowhere. Eventually walked into my local village doctor was humiliated by the receptionist. Despite being in floods of tears asking for help I ended up walking out without that help – despite being distressed not a single person stepped up to offer me any help. This was me at my lowest walking down a local nature trail in floods of tears thinking what next? I don’t know what to do. At this stage I was desperate and wanted to hurt myself, or do something to stop the pain. All I could think about was my beautiful daughter and her fast approaching wedding, I knew I was safe from actually harming myself because I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise her special day – again I dread to think where I would’ve been if I’d not got the love of my family. I can also see how things escalate very quickly in the moment.
As I walked went online and I found the complaints procedure for the medical health group of my doctors and wrote a very emotional letter of complaint and sent it to them. This triggered a quick reaction and suddenly the doctors couldn’t do enough for me. I think it was because they realised I was the founder of a national Mental Health Charity. This made me a little bit frustrated and angry and something I will pick up with them at a later date. However I got in front of a very caring doctor and it was probably the most difficult appointment I’ve ever had as i has just cried for 20 minutes, not making any sense. I really felt for the student doctor that was there observing this! Dr Taylor was very patient despite my initial resistance, he gave me medication to get this under control. He also arranged another appointment for the following week. At this stage I’d started taking the tablets and my emotions were a little bit more in check and we sat and talked about feelings at this second appointment, he listened and cared and this was so important. He obviously checked into the charity and talked about the amazing work we we’re doing. He said he needed to get me well so I could continue doing this incredible work.
I’m sat here writing this post four weeks later I’m looking back I think without this professional medical intervention I don’t know where I would be. In fact I’m scared to think what would’ve happened without it. I think I am very typical of men of my age, stubborn, find it hard to talk about personal feelings, we have this belief it will just go away. So reaching out is probably one of the more difficult things men find. It doesn’t help when you’re treated badly by a receptionist. But reaching out can be life saving. We have to make this process easier and charity’s like ours are an important conduit for helping with this.
I know the road recovery is not going to be straightforward as the last few days I’ve had a complete relapse and I’m struggling again. But at least I have a plan and people are aware of what I’m dealing with. Please remember others aren’t mind readers and as a species we are very good at masking and hiding things – so sometimes telling people straight – I am not very well can really help with your recovery. It has been very hard to tell people just how bad things are. Strangely I don’t feel less of a man for doing this.
I’m writing this blog post with I hope that other men (and women) might resonate with it and it might give them the confidence to reach out for help. I believe the initial step od asking for it is the hardest.
Moving forward I still think it’s too early to make a decision about where the Charity fits in my future. But it’s worth mentioning how many people have reached out from this Charity and given me proper meaningful support and words of encouragement. I cannot thank them enough and I want to say a special thank you too all my friends (you know who you are), my family. But most importantly to an incredible man Weeble who has been there for me daily.
Please if you’re reading this and struggling find those people to talk to, no matter how hard it is it does get easier the more that you open up.
The charity has been one of my life’s biggest and proudest achievements and navigating the professional medical minefield has made me realise just how important it is for so many. I truly hope I can rediscover the love that I’ve always had for this incredible charity and the people that run it but I know this will hopefully come back in time as I work on myself. Once again thank you for being there and caring
This was a difficult piece to write but I hope if one person can resonate with the post and feel they too aren’t alone it was worth writing.
What does a full stress container look like for someone who seemingly has everything to be happy about?
Let me talk about it from my perspective, I have a good life, a lovely house, a loving family and good friends – so why do I frequently feel so sad?
Over the last couple of years I’ve started to explore this because I knew my life was a confusing juxtaposition – I love my work with the charity I created and I am very proud of what we are achieving, but when I manage to slow my over active mind, I realise that I am more unhappy than I should be but I struggle to understand why?
Some of you know how hard I can find things, my depression is seasonal and triggered by what some describe as non events. I sort of get a short pre warning of this and I have to try and implement some coping strategies quickly, walking, being outdoors, resting, but there’s still a lot I need to understand around this and why my mind really fights me to implement some of the coping strategies.
Since 2000 I’ve always worked for myself, the nature of my job has meant working all hours, travelling internationally, getting little sleep and probably partying far too much. I was good at my job, but over the years I’ve created a culture of not being able to slow down, I’ve always worked at a rapid pace, so taking breaks and holidays and time for myself has been a little alien. So in my mid 50s is there any wonder why I find myself struggling?
I think my story is probably like a whole bunch of men my age. You reach your goals, have the family, do the holidays and then you are left thinking what now? There comes a sense of emptiness because you’ve achieved your milestones and you selfishly think is this it? I think there comes at this stage a sense of your own mortality and the fact that you’re not getting any younger. I know why so many men suddenly start struggling at this stage because it’s something I feel.
One day you wake up and think ‘where has all the time gone?’ But in your mind you don’t feel any older – I still think I’m in my 30’s! At some point I really need to grow up, but my girls convince me that that will never happen, and what the nice thing about this is they then tell me they don’t want me to 🤣🤣.
When the depression looms large I know I just need to stop and switch off remove the pressure that life puts on you. This can be really hard to do, as your mind is telling you everything will implode if you do this. The tricks your mind plays on you can be very deceitful.
But what’s actually happening here is my stress container is filling up very quickly and it doesn’t take long before it flows over the top, out of control and this is not good. For me this is a dangerous place, the impostor syndrome kicks in, my reasoning is diminished and I’m left feeling vulnerable and very alone, my fuse is lit up and very short. I don’t think straight and no matter what I try to do and whatever support is around me it is really hard to get things under control. The Blacks Clouds are all consuming and not very nice. If anyone else has experienced this pre-warning you will know it is a real sense of impending doom, this is the time where you’ve got to open the tap on the stress container and get some coping strategies moving before things overflow. If you don’t do it quickly enough the claws hidden in the black clouds really sink in.
Simple things for me that work:
Getting a bath or an extra shower
Walking my nature trail and litter picking, when things are bad I can find myself doing this route twice which can be over 9 miles.
Trying to reduce any alcohol consumption.
Trying to drink more water
Managing the desire to consume lots of chocolate, comfort eating really is a big issue for me
Preparing a healthy meal
Resting
Taking some time out and letting people know why
Phoning a friend and just checking in with them.
Telling myself that my mind is playing tricks on me and my thoughts are not facts until they’ve actually happened
Getting out on my motorbike!
I have been very lucky in the sense I’ve had a stable family around me, so I know if I was dealing with this alone things wouldn’t be so pretty.
Through being around incredible people within the Charity have started to understand this situation better. I now know when my stress container is overflowing when I get over emotional at the slightest things. It’s very strange because of the last few years there are lots more tears. I’m not sure this is because I’ve given myself permission to allow this or it’s something more physiological.
So recently I took a week out and switched my phone off. The team agreed to cover my back and guess what things haven’t imploded, the world hasn’t stopped and things carry on as normal.
You will always have a huge amount of emails to pick up when you get back on Monday, but you will also have a little bit more energy to deal with them.
I hope if somebody can read this and realise that they are not alone if they’re feeling something similar depression is really cruel on you as a person and those loved ones around you. It is easy to hit the self-destruct button and cause permanent damage, because your mind encourages this.
I think it is normal to go through ups and downs, but sometimes the downs can be quite extreme.
Find your coping strategies and if things get really bad after implementing these go and see a doctor. This is the bit I’m really finding hard. I know I’m on a journey to become a little more self aware – talking about it can be a big part in understanding the cruel thing we call poor mental health.
But please try to find your tap in your own stress container
It feels like this event has come around really quickly but here we are at the start of the relay riders event.
This is a really big deal for us it’s not only is it a great fundraiser but it also creates great exposure and awareness of our Charity.
I think this is quite a big one as well for relay RIDERS as there are over 400 legs and RIDERS. A logistical nightmare for Jason, Mark and Tom, I don’t know how they do it but it is very well organised.
So we start the leg today at Mablethorpe. Michelle Gardner and her family will take a lead on starting the relay and this will be based around Kibi’s story. Kibby ended her life following excessive and undealt with bullying at school. Something we hear of a great deal of and sadly not been challenged or dealt with effectively by so many schools.
On the bike today we have Buzz Bear and a very special version of Kibi Bear, on the back of Kibi’s T-shirt we have a Mental Health first aid badge. And this is very important as it signifies the support we give to people going through the trauma of losing somebody to suicide.
The start of the day was meeting with Michelle’s family in Louth and riding into Mablethorpe together. It was really special
We arrived at the café on the seafront and there was a lot of bikers there already waiting. It was also a chance to meet with the relay RIDERS team Jason and Tom. We did a quick introduction before our group and everybody together and allowing Michelle to talk through Kiby’s story and giving her a chance to thank everybody for their support. Very emotional. After the short zoom interview for ITV calendar news we were off up to Caistor. This was even more moving because we met the fire crew that dealt with the aftermath of Kiby’s suicide. I had a chat with the station officer and some of the team about that day they told me how hard it was 
Next stop Lincoln Cathedral. Absolutely stunning place
And then the final stop of the day was over to Mansfield where we said goodbye and the relay continued on down south.
Thank you everybody for making the day so memorable.
Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that make you really happy, our new trustee Tom has enabled me to be able to blog from my phone! I’ve been wanting to do this for some while but I just couldn’t get it to work.
The awesome Dragon Back RIDERS Group 
It was really nice to be able to support our new Regional Coordinator Trevor Ward on his first official bike night at Darley Moor.
The weather was really kind to us as it can be quite hairy at Darley Moor and it’s given me and Trevor a few ideas of what we could do to build on this. The first thing we need to do is get Trevor some support to help him with local Derbyshire activities so if you’re wanting to volunteer and give him some support email him Trevor.ward@mhmotorbike.com
