Karshare Blog

The team at Karshare recently took a day off work to volunteer their time at Phoenix Community Farm in White City. One of Karshare’s core values is to do more with less, which is why we saw our quarterly team day as an opportunity to not only get together, but to help out a local community initiative too. From rebuilding beehive fences, to ploughing and deweeding, find out how we got on!

Here at Karshare we think it's important to showcase inspiring eco initiatives and community champions. Our #KarshareKudos series focuses on individuals and organisations who are helping others make steps towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Today we’re bringing you a round up of the people we gave kudos to this March.

Many of us are feeling the pressure with price spikes from every angle, so what can you do to plan ahead and alleviate some of the financial stress? We’ve rounded up some tips from a few of our favourite creators who have shared some simple but effective suggestions for keeping track of your money and combating the price rises.

At Karshare we understand the importance of not only sharing cars, but the importance of switching shorter car journeys for alternate modes of transport as well. Our key mission is to help create a world where we never have more cars than we need, and it’s because of this that we’re very proud to be partnering with Voi in Bristol. Voi provide shared e-scooters and e-bikes to cities across Europe where residents can easily rent these using the Voi app. They partner with cities and communities to champion a transition towards shared, multimodal and zero-emission mobility, which is where Karshare comes in.

Are you a Leeds resident and interested in sharing your car with Karshare? Well we have some good news for you, as Leeds City Council are offering free KarshareGo technology installations to the first 10 Leeds residents who join Karshare with their vehicle! KarshareGo (worth £195) is the kit that enables all rentals to be 100% contactless and managed via the Karshare app.

As we continue to grow our business and share the benefits of car sharing with more and more people, we want to find ways of taking you behind the scenes to show you what life at Karshare is really like. This week, we’re here to tell you about our recent testimonial video shoot that took place (on a very, very rainy day) in Bristol a few weeks ago. As we’ve launched in more and more areas across the country, we have learned that ‘social proof’ is key to reaching new audiences.

One of the most difficult aspects of living through this pandemic has been not being able to support our local favourites who formed such a huge part of everyday life back when the world looked a bit different. Luckily, thanks to Zoom and some ingenious thinking, a lot of Bristol’s independent scene has made the move online, shifting their offer to suit our lockdown lives. To help you continue supporting your locals, we have listed some of our favourite at-home experiences, brought to you by the best of Bristol.

We’re coming up to our first weekend in Lockdown 3 and with nowhere to go and temperatures inching close to zero, we’ll be plonking ourselves on the sofa for some back-to-back binge-watching. If your plans are looking similar, check out our list of hard-hitting, truth-talking, inspirational movies and documentaries about the environment to get you through lockdown this month.

Part 2 of our Cared for by Karshare series sees us checking in with Julie Dempster, Founding Director of Bristol Outreach Services for the Homeless (BOSH), a charity in Bristol. Mum of two and grandmother to two gorgeous grandchildren, Julie has lived in Bristol for around five and a half years. BOSH have been working with Karshare to borrow a van throughout the pandemic to support their services across the city.

As part of our Cared for by Karshare series, we spoke to Esther, the Project Coordinator at Caring in Bristol. Her work primarily focuses on their food aid service ‘Cheers Drive’, running the day to day logistics and working alongside their group of amazing volunteers. Caring in Bristol have been making use of a Karshare van throughout the pandemic to support their services across the city.

When the pandemic struck the UK, Karshare asked local communities in Bristol to donate their cars to NHS, frontline and key workers so they could get to work safely. Public transport was less frequent and unreliable, so having immediate access to a car made their life and journeys easier.

The Karshare community scheme to help mobilise front-line workers during the Coronavirus crisis was first launched in Bristol – and as a Bristolian I was both inspired and grateful to the public and all the healthcare professionals and volunteers who jumped on board this car sharing scheme so readily. To see first-hand how it has changed peoples’ lives in my home town during this crisis has been a privilege.

As part of the operations team at Karshare I’m privileged to meet some truly remarkable people – not just car owners who selflessly donate their cars to people who can use them, but also the inspirational healthcare workers going above and beyond to help people during this Coronavirus crisis.05

On Friday I drove out of London and down an eerily deserted M23 to Brighton. I was on this journey to meet one of the teams we are supporting at the Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project, and my objective was to provide them with their first “donated” car from Karshare. It’s about two hours to Brighton from where I live in south London, but I didn’t realise how much of a trip it would turn out to be.

Remember normal life? It seems like a distant memory after so much time spent in lockdown, but today (May 17) marks a big step towards the return of that life. New easings on restrictions open up a world of possibilities, allowing people to sit indoors at restaurants, pubs and cafes, while cultural and entertainment venues such as theatres, cinemas and museums can open their doors for the first time in months. Holidays also get a lot easier, as hotels and B&Bs are back in the mix and groups can now travel together. All of which means it’s time to get out there and explore the UK again. A great place to start is Manchester, a hotbed of creativity, art, culture and gastronomy. Here’s how to make the most of Manchester under the new guidelines.