Great Western Coffee Shop

Unusually, this looks like it's a week that I stay in TransWilts territory - but an extraordinary week. Yesterday - Tuesday - a very thorough board meeting of TravelWatch SouthWest held in Westbury, Thursday will be a stall in the entrance to Swindon Station prior to Great Western's Community Rail Conference the following day, and I'll be attending that on Friday together with a "Market stall" which allows all the attended at the conference to go round and network - there's a massive amount to be learned from across the area.

Arranging literature for our summer campaign - and our stall at Swindon Station where we make first use of much of it - has been a significant undertaking, as has arranging booth cover.   We are so fortunate at TransWilts that we have an excellent team of volunteers / helpers - to the extent that I'm able to be something of a "floater" at the event and pick up any issues as they arise without pulling myself off the leafletting task.   Please say hello to us if you're passing through Swindon Station on Thursday - or indeed if you're at the Community Rail Conference on Friday.

I'll be following up this diary thread with some much more technical feedbacks ...

I look back on a week that was so packed ... I can't really believe that 7 days ago at this time I was newly arrived back into Fishguard awaiting the boat train to Cardiff, with the prospect of riding over the Landore curve for what I think was the first time.   Many memories of Ireland - not written up, but perhaps they'll come out as snippets and experiences at a later date.   A first post on the forum dipping my toe into descrirbing the adventures there reminded me that - like Shrek's journey - there was little inital interest in "Far far away" or in this case Tipperary.   And I'll keep the rest up my sleeve.  To those members with Itishs interests - I have now taken a none-scientific look, on the ground, at all four of the lines that have been under threat of review for closure within the past couple of years.

Tuesday was a TravelWatch SouthWest board meeting (held in Westbury).  I always feel very humble and uninformed amongst the group there, who have the knowledge brought on by professional careers in the local government or rail or other industries, and the wisdom and the desire to question that you'll see in so few.  Much of the activity at TWSW relates to partnering, to passing messages on, to pointing things out quietly to people; razmatazz is lacking.  But what I have also found in this last week there is a deep concern for each other within that core team.   Coming up from TWSW - the XC consultation next week, the transport planning masterclass a couple of weeks later, and the first newsletter to be sent out between general meetings. It's copied at http://gwr.passenger.chat/twsw_1.pdf

As you / a group becomes established and establishment - accepted and respected - it needs to be careful not to damage its direction through provocative or worrying wording or ideas - even is there's a desire to to express some of those words or ideas.   So I can comment here that there were various discussions on Tueday as to "what's the purpose of the ORR", but I'm not going to tell you who was asking; I can tell you that I didn't leave with any really good answers to that question, and I was not alone or even in a minority.  The question as to whether TWSW should be a campaigning group in stating what it is - as well as in fact - as also raised.  "Campaigning" raises the defences in some quarters, with such a high proportion of campaigning groups looking for change that would negatively impact some parties ("campaigning AGAINST" is common) whereas the TWSW approcah - like indeed the Community Rail one - s very much more partnership. But still campaigning.

Wednesday - a quick trip to Swindon to check out the lie of the land for our booth at the station on Thursday - for sure I know the station, but never the less where the use made is different to the norm, worth checking out ahead of time.  And packing boxes of literature for Thursday and Friday - a handful of new pieces, existing and third party literature.   Also organising rotas to suit our team (some 10 to 12 helped over the 2 days / four events) with last minute updates, ensuring we had furniture, banners, table cloths, note pads, cables and the rest in place too - and to have everything loaded into the c-a-r for early Thursday. Fial checks, final reminders of the objectives, and  short night. And so to the events.

The Thursday / Friday events have been well covered by Bobm - see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=19245.msg239806#msg239806 - and rarather than draw out a repeat here I'll commend his writing and pictures to you. Sadly, I had to travel home after the day's stand at Swindon station and giving the commentary on the train, then up again the next morning. We did a small stand to greet delegate attending just the conference rather than the smaller networking meal. And - in reallity after all the preparation and with such an excellent team and lot of help, these two days were long but straightforward as everything came togather as it was planned.   I sit today amongst some of the remaining literature from Thursday, Friday's leftovers still awaited as one of our team drives fairly near by, and getting ready to be doing two more events this week.   But that's a story for my looking ahead post.