Great Western Coffee Shop

An explanation / description - a personal one - in answer to a Facebook query.  Worth a share here ...

What has TravelWest SouthWest done for me?  What is TWSW??

I first 'came' to rail campaigning about 12 years ago - a letter in the local press warning about upcoming changes that were going to be very negative indeed for my home town. And not knowing anyone or what to do (or whether my views were shared, or narrow minded and selfish), I suggested in my local paper that people come round to my home one evening ...

Well - we were too late to save the changes and service levels did drop off a cliff - but they didn't quite burn in a service closure or reduction like that suffered at Brigg, Denton, Barlaston, or Pilning.  And some kind, kind souls spread the word about our meeting to officers at the local councils, to a local group who had been fighting the battle already and indeed had kept the candle burning for the previous decade, and also to TravelWatch SouthWest.

I received an invite to a meeting in Taunton.  The "TWSW general meeting", and along I toddled.  Taunton really wasn't the easiest of places for me to get to but - wow - was it worthwhile.  An opportunity to listen to those who specify and run rail and road public transport services explain their metrics - what they do, and to lift a corner on how it all fits together; a real help in finding common objectives and ways to partner forward.  An excellent opportunity to network - to meet people who were working in parallel (mostly ahead) and learn from them - who to talk to, what doors are likely to open, how our services mesh with theirs.  And a route in to enabling my / now our voice to be added to other voices in a common case in consultations and learned suggestion documents - helping make us part of the big picture.

And the huge huge kindness shown by the TWSW director and secretariat team as they encouraged and provided inputs and introductions.  The directors were (and remain) for the most part people with many years of rail and local government experience, and with a passion for helping to take public transport forward for everyone. Exceptionally, you'll find the odd campaigner without the experience of working in either sector, but with experience and a bit of a track record.  All directors fulfil their director roles as volunteers - the whole organisation runs on a shoestring with sponsorship for the general meetings, events and secretariat from transport industry companies who see the benefits to be had from campaigners being well informed and lining up their cases, requests and suggestions.  Very much partnership and not pure protest, though care is taken to ensure that 'editorial independence' is maintained.

So - that's my story - I hope it helps put my correspondent into the picture as to who TravelWatch SouthWest are in practical terms. Please get in touch if you are a new group or interested individual looking to be introduced / start something up, and look to becoming one of the TWSW family.  We (I can write "we" because I am a junior director these days!) have a very light touch; you don't need to be a member to attend the general meeting (you do need an invite which is informally easy to get). We don't get heavily involved in the local issues of any area / town / street within the South West (but guidance is there) and we don't invite big teams from each group / campaign to the meetings - ideally one established person, with a next-generation newbie to help provide backup, support, continuity - for public transport campaigning and promoting is something that takes (elapsed) time.

The TravelWatch web site is at http://www.travelwatchsouthwest.org . TWSW co-ordinates with TravelWatch NorthWest but there is not a complete UK network.  TravelWatch London is a very different beast - it grew from similar origins to TWSW though.

---

Other organisations which do related things

ACoRP. The Association of Community Rail Partnerships. An umbrella organisation for Community Rail Partnerships that encourage traffic onto predominantly existing more local services and service groups, and for stations friends groups who encourage the care and use of specific stations. Department for Transport funded (and some of that funding can trickle down to members) but very much the opposite of TWSW in terms of membership criteria and formality. National

RailFuture. National and looking much further forward in general than TWSW.  More frequent branch meetings - looking at individual projects.

Transport Focus. The Government watchdog organisation to represent the passenger.  Excellent for passenger survey / data feeds, but not a networking organisation to put groups in touch.  Also very useful indeed in helping resolve issues with transport operators where avenues of asking the transport operators have been exhausted (or nearly so) and there's a clear significant issue / problem.

Edit to fix typos