Great Western Coffee Shop

The questions asked at last night's (5th August 2019) "Meet the Managing Director" session were as follows (quick links to each included):

1. Future "Meet the Manager" sessions at major stations? - http://gwr.passenger.chat/22017
2. Decarbonising local railways - http://gwr.passenger.chat/22018
3. Trolley service on IETs - http://gwr.passenger.chat/22019
4. When things go wrong... - http://gwr.passenger.chat/22020
5. Are the jobs of train guards secure? - http://gwr.passenger.chat/22021
6. Finally: Three wishes! - http://gwr.passenger.chat/22022

A big "Thank You" to Mark Hopwood and his team at GWR for taking part in the session - and doing so enthusiatically, and with full and open answers.  A big "Thank you" to our moderators / admin team (especially Tim, Bob and Chris) for all the work put in before and during the event to have it run so well and so positively. And a big, big "Thank You" to you the members and readers for submitting the questions, commenting during the sessions and reading what was written - again all with a very positive approach.

"How did we do?"

Too early to give full feedback - but what I hear and read is very positive.  A first image - overnght from Google Analytics showing the number of users day by day to the Coffee Shop site - averagiing around 430 but up to 721 yesterday. 


What next?

The Coffee Shop's database of discussions forms a useful archive - with new arrivals coming to read later what has been said, and how discussions continue.  As I write, there have been 1979 views (in total) of the six individual question threads and I woud expect that number to grow. We'll continue to monitor the threads activey for a week or so, and we'll also look to have answers provided on the forum to subjects our members asked us to raise, but for which there wasn't time or any for which the answer might better come from other industry, government or political sources.

Again - a big, big "Thank You" to everyone.  Although the live session is completed, the process of communication for better tuned provision, positive partnership and informed passengers continues.

And a Thank You to you Grahame, for organising it all and hosting it on your website/system.

One thing for review - whether questions should be anonymous, in the name of transparency?

If the buffet/ trolley question had been submitted anonymously , we would still have known who made the submission ! :P

well, yes.....but Mark might not have, for example

And of course, the same general question may well have been asked by a number of people with the actual wording arranged to cover them all.

Mark would have !

:D Well you have to give him high marks out of 10 for his persistence and belief in having a buffet stating the case both on this and other forums.

But times have changed with regards to catering and customer needs so we need to move on.

Broadly speaking, yes!

I wonder whom it could have been  :)

Returning to the more general issue as to whether questions should be anonymous or not, I have no strong feelings either way.
There is a lot to be said for transparency, but on the other hand, publishing the name of the questioner could be misleading, when the question might incorporate elements of similar but not identical questions from several members.
If attributed to one particular member, they might have reason to complain "I never said that"

The other reason for publishing the name of the questioner is to deter rude, libellous, profane, or otherwise improper  remarks. Not applicable in this case as the questions were reviewed before submission.

I don't see any need for it.  Even if I was to be informed that Broadgage, or Timmer, or TonyK had submitted a particular question I don't know them personally, and they are not accountable to anyone, so it make no difference.

Can I say how welcome it is that Mark has continued to follow up some of the discussions today in a supportive and constructive way. It certainly makes me feel even more that the session has been useful and positive rather than just being a PR exercise, and that Mark is listening to all our points, even if he can't commit to take on board all of them.  

I second those comments from Celestial. I cannot help thinking that this is the way forward, and that this online M the M should be repeated regularly. I feel it has achieved far more already, than any number of  face to face meetings might have accomplished. The choice of questions were spot on...well done the moderator team.... and I was pleased to see that Mark was able to give detailed and robust responses even if I didn't always like the answer !

The forum names of the person who asked each question are known to the people who chose / seeded them (that's a couple of the admin / moderator team) ... and in practise most of the admin / moderator team, and question asking members, have been around here long enough to be well known. The questions were good ones and I don't think it really matters / mattered who put them - indeed it could be considered far better to get a wider interest response than to a particular individual.  Happy with that.  

I know who asked one question (based on a comment that questioner made in the follow up that took possession), I'm pretty sure I know who asked another, and I was involved in a group which asked a third.  Beyond that, I don't know and I'm happy with that.  We *would* have an audit trail if needed, and (subject to the member's agreement) we would put them directly in touch if further background data was needed to clarify or follow up the question.  

In summary - happy with the approach we took.  A couple of "fine tuning" things / learning points from the session as a whole.



Hear, hear!

That, or the matters we raised as a group were being dealt with already behind closed doors, and now we know about it. Either way, the news is very welcome.