Well, our Historic bus tours are over for this year. We’ve had a great time and so did the 170 people that came along as passengers helping us donate to our chosen charities.

This year we collected a total of £1,300.00 that was then donated as follows:

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Charity which provides equipment, services and facilities over and above that provided by the NHS. We specifically asked for our donation to be used to help rehabilitate injured service personnel – £400.00 – http://www.qehb.org/

The Birmingham Conservation Trust which exists to preserve and enhance Birmingham’s threatened architectural heritage – £400.00 – http://www.birminghamconservationtrust.org/about/

The Transport Museum Wythall – £400.00 – www.bammot.org.uk/In addition our passengers are also helping to support the work that the museum does through the bus hire charges.

In addition we made two small donations:

To the Macmillan “Worlds Biggest Coffee Morning”, which (it turned out) was on the same day as our final Outer Circle Tour this year – £50.00 – http://coffee.macmillan.org.uk/About

To Asthma UK in memory of DJ Norton http://www.photobydjnorton.com/ whose photographs we use on our Outer Circle Tour maps – £50.00 – http://www.asthma.org.uk

Finally,  no personal expenses were taken out of the ticket receipts; instead we bought shares to the value of £400.00 in the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Steam Railway. The railway is now laying track northwards to reach Broadway and the new share issue is to raise funds for the repair of five bridges which will enable the last 2 miles of track to be laid. http://www.gwsr.com/bridges-to-broadway/bridges-to-broadway.aspx

We don’t have any plans in place yet regarding Historic Bus Tours for 2014, but will post information here as soon as any plans are in place. If you are not on our mailing list please get in touch and we will inform you directly as soon as our tours are arranged. You can email us at OuterCircleBus@gmx.co.uk

Once more – thanks again to all our passengers who gave so generously this year, and to the guys (& girls) at Wythall Museum who prepared, drove & sold tickets on our buses!