Ben Woodley starts his training for Hospitality Rides

Amanda rides once again

Licensed Trade Charity (LTC) fundraiser of the year 2025, Amanda Thomson will be taking part once more in the Hospitality Rides 5-day cycle challenge – this time across Cuba. She’s part of a team of hospitality professionals who will cover 400km raising funds for the LTC and Only A Pavement Away (OAPA). In preparation for the trip, Amanda will be meeting up with team members to see how their training and fundraising are coming along.

Ben and I agreed to meet in Grantham as a half-way point between us, and the plan was to get a training ride in before Christmas. Ben is one of two Prison Relationship Managers at OAPA, and we had plenty of time to talk about this relatively new role, how the funds raised will be used, and his training preparation for the challenge.

I had planned a relaxed 35km route along undulating country lanes, and checked that the weather would hold. No rain forecast in the morning, great. It meant we could ride and chat, and get back in time for a coffee and a slab of cake.

We started the ride and conversation with a question about his role at OAPA. Ben had previously worked as a police officer for 8 years so was already familiar with how lives can so easily become derailed. As the job title suggests, he works with prisons (and employers) to help prison-leavers into gainful and constructive employment, thereby dramatically reducing the chances of re-offending.

If you thought OAPA only place prison leavers in FOH and BOH roles, you’d be way off the mark (I was). The scope is huge – think of office-based jobs, maintenance roles, electricians, plumbers, decorators. It’s the versatility and scale of UK hospitality that makes the sector such a valuable resource. Collectively, we’ve saved the public purse a massive £32m through reduced government support, giving individuals financial independence.

Not only that, Ben confirms that OAPA have placed 65 custodial members in 2025 alone, racking up an impressive 250 placements in total. Bear in mind that prison leavers who leave custody with a job are 87% less likely to re-offend, ending the revolving door of repeat offending.

In the first, he’d lined up a placement for a candidate in a perfect live-in role on leaving custody. The candidate had been placed on remand and, in the view of everyone but the judge, had served his time. Being a trained chef, his skills and experience were obvious and the role that Ben coordinated with the employer was a great fit in the lead up to the busy Christmas period. The judge, however, decided to add a further 4 weeks to the sentence, and this ‘short’ delay was a total show-stopper for the employer who could not afford to keep the job open. That individual was then released from prison with nowhere to live, and no job.

In the second case, Ben describes an individual who was placed with an employer who recognised their potential, putting them onto their internal training program and then, after a short stint at a site near the prison was offered a transfer to a venue much closer to his family, thereby providing stability and social support to underpin the person and the role.

What these examples illustrate is how much work is involved in the lead up to and after the placement. As Ben says, ‘people who come out of custody and become advocates, thriving in their work, make it easier for those who follow. When it all aligns, it’s totally brilliant.’

Ben agreed that the cycle ride didn’t go to plan. I massively underestimated how long it would take to get around and we got caught in heavy and persistent rain. The short cut to curtail our misery didn’t work out well either, as it meant the last 8 miles were along a main road with impatient drivers and lots of road spray. It reminds me that the word ‘undulating’ doesn’t mean flat. Ben revealed that his cycle training to-date has involved taking his dog for a short run in the woods – so his seat, if you get my drift, hadn’t been fully road-tested until this ride. Our ride came to an unceremonious and soggy end in the station carpark.

I’ve come away from this ride with a real appreciation for the custody side of the charity and in exchange Ben has a hills training plan and a survival shopping list for essential cycling kit to get him across Cuba in April!

Thanks Ben, and hope the aches and pains have subsided! Next time I’ll be meeting up with Joby Mortimer from Licensed Trade Charity.

Thank you to my sponsors

This year, I’m pleased to confirm I’m being supported by the following corporate partners:

• FastCharger
• Footprint
• E-keg
• Brown & Brown Insurance.

To discuss sponsorship opportunities please call 01638 563237. For more information visit our webpage or the Hospitality Rides website