Hi everyone. We hope you’re keeping safe and well. This week we’re highlighting forthcoming training and events, and ongoing discussions on recovery – and, as always, scroll down for good practice examples from our members. If you have stories for future bulletins, please email Nik.
Events and training coming up
We have a growing range of training and events open to our members – all online at the moment, but still enabling sharing, networking and learning from others’ experience and expertise, within and beyond community rail. Some are geared specifically at CRPs, their chairs or officers, some are more relevant for station groups, and some open to all. Keep an eye on our events diary, and this bulletin, to ensure you can take advantage. Here are a few coming up:
- Community Rail Conference, 8, 9, 15, 16 Mar – aimed at CRPs and their rail partners, this joint conference with DfT is open for bookings (via links in email invitations sent last week). It will explore opportunities to develop impact on the Community Rail Development Strategy’s pillars, especially to support Covid recovery. Please book separately onto the four sessions. Read more.
- Networking sessions for CRP chairs and officers – email invitations have been sent directly to members for these interactive learning and sharing sessions.
- Recruiting volunteers, 16 Feb – interactive training session on reaching out and engaging more people in your community, including in a post-Covid world. This session is already fully booked. If you missed out, please get in touch and add your name to our waiting list. We’ll contact those people first with details when we run a similar webinar.
Moving towards 21-22, we’ll be promoting further webinars and sessions, especially to help members navigate current challenges, and contribute to recovery and building back better.
Recovery and rail promotion
We continue to engage with industry and government partners on community rail’s vital role in recovery from the pandemic. As the rail industry considers how it can rebuild patronage when restrictions are lifted, we have been working to get across that community rail can play a key part, through local engagement and communications. In these discussions, we’ve continued to draw on our briefing on recovery, and we encourage you to make use of it too in conversations at local and regional level. If we can do anything to advise, please let your usual team contact know.
We are also now planning, in partnership with Rail Delivery Group, a series of six regional/national PR campaigns in late March, to raise the profile of community rail work. This will be focused at showing how railways and communities are working together, rather than promoting rail travel, but we hope it will act on a positive precursor to rail promotions starting up again. Members and partners in each area will be contacted directly.
Welsh Transport Strategy
A reminder to all members in (or linking in to) Wales & Borders that the Welsh Government’s consultation on its forthcoming Welsh Transport Strategy closes end of Monday. Community Rail Network is putting in a full response, and liaising with Welsh Government and TfW colleagues, to convey how community rail can support their aims to achieve a sustainable and accessible transport network. As always, we encourage members to respond too, sharing local insights and experiences. See the consultation.
News from our partners
- Developing partnership working with community rail
- Call for participation in public rail consultation for Manchester
- Transport Focus – Covid-19 return to rail travel – latest research summary
News from our members
- Derbyshire’s Buxton Station goes green with message of support
- Great Yarmouth Station receives makeover thanks to new tourism initiative
- Community Rail Lancashire virtually launch Along the Line
- Mid Cheshire CRP news round up
- WiCR host further Breathing Space session – Weds 27 Jan 2021
