A Welcome to VickiS as Data Super-Manager

[whole diary]

[grahame]

I would like to welcome VickiS to the forum. 

Our forum has become so big that it's daunting to newcomers, and our posts sometimes become lost in acronyms and abbreviations. We have an acronyms and abbreviations page, but it (and also sticky topics to welcome newcomers) are stale or so out of date that they are no longer correct.

We are a forum "by passengers, for passengers" and as traffic rebuilds on public transport across Thames Valley, South West and South Wales we should present a current and clear welcome to guests (who outnumber members) and new members.  Current regulars are second to none in their friendliness and welcomes - THANK YOU - but sadly that gets diluted with the issues on the forum that I have just mentioned.

Vicki will be updating the acronyms page over coming weeks and months, and uploading new copies from time to time.  As part of that exercise, she'll be going back through recent posts and finding things that are not immediately clear to her due to their shortening, and editing a few public posts to add in clarifications there too.  Things WE commonly use (I noticed "WECA^» (West of England Combined Authority - about)" is not in the acronyms, for example) may confuse newcomers, and an occasional reminder is a big help in recent threads.

Although a newcomer to the forum, I and some of the rest of the wider team have known Vicki for a number of years. In the "Save the Train" days, it was Vicki who sat in the Chamber of Commerce office in Trowbridge handling customer enquiries - phone calls in those days - from people who had heard about the trial runs and were looking to find out more. Those trips were - well - the start of something.  Vicki now lives far, far away from Trowbridge and comes to us with the freshness of a newcomer, but with a customer and transport knowledge that will help her identify issues, resolving many and poking me or anyone else doing data management where intro sticky threads have gone mouldy.  We have some funds remaining from our CCIF^▸ (Customer and Communities Improvement Fund) (yes, that one IS listed!) grant - obtained to bring the forum up to date and prepare for the next decade - which is exactly what this work will be doing.  The continuity of data management and the time it takes has been a bit of an Achilles heel here and we have tried other solutions - knowing Vicki (and having spoken with her about this role) I have great confidence that this way will work.

Welcome, Vicki, to the team.

[VickiS]

Hi everyone!

Thank you Graham for that lovely introduction and welcome to the team. 
Just as you say, I´ll be starting today with clarifying acronyms and abbreviations in posts and comments (thanks for the hint about CCIF^▸ (Customer and Communities Improvement Fund) by the way!).
I´ll leave a little edit comment so you all know who´s done it, and who to turn to if there would be any issues or misunderstanding in the text, (me being Swedish and all!).

Have a great day and please keep safe out there!

Vicki

[rogerw]

May I be the first to welcome you to the forum Vicki. Although you may now be based abroad, I know that you have connections with the area and, in particular, Wiltshire.

[VickiS]

Thank you very much Rogerw!

I have indeed! Wiltshire is my second home and before COVID-19 I generally visited 4-5 times a year, which I hope to be able to continue once this horrendeous virus leaves us. I have travelled with public transport a bit all over the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), however nowhere near as much as I would have liked yet. Much yet to explore!

[TonyK]

May I be the second to welcome you, Vicki! To our shame, this is a job that certainly needs doing if the Forum is to remain instantly useful to anyone stumbling across it for the first time.

[VickiS]

Thank you TonyK!
I find this page very interesting and fascinating, but yes, some of it gets confusing without knowing the meaning of the abbreviations and acronyms. I hope I'll be of some use on that front! Have a good day!