After the excitement of Christmas and the New Year, we're in the lull of deep midwinter which this year doubly quiet because of the Coronavirus lockdown that keeps us at home apart from essential journeys, and prevents us meeting those outside our immediate 'bubble' even at home. "
Everyone should stay at home, with community rail, station volunteering and face-to-face activities all on hold" instructs
GWR▸ , with a request to percolate the message through Community Rail Partnerships. Sadly, it's a sensible message because of the current circumstances, yet it leaves a large number of people who are not involved in work that's essential cut off from their normal activities and perhaps feeling at a loose end.
But there is a great deal that we can do. And a great deal of it is important in being prepared for the future too - perhaps more important in these changing times. The GWR instruction to
CRPs▸ (
http://www.passenger.chat/24479 ) links to "ten things a station adoption group can do from home". The Coffee shop is not a station adoption group - we do many of the same things and much more, so I have added ten more things ... here are the full 20 in alphabetic order:
* Contact members to see if anyone needs help
* Enjoy a rest
* Exercise taking you past unstaffed stations to see they're in order and discourage vandalism
* Feeding information to your
TOC▸ and other planners about the best service balance to restore
* Get to know your partner better
* Have a look at your risk assessments
* Make a plan to promote your station for visits once the restrictions are lifted.
* Offer help and support to your TOC and bus operators getting their messages out
* Practice making better coffee
* Recruit some new members
* Research, write and publish historic articles
* Review your constitution
* Review your group?s objectives for the remainder of the year.
* Run online meetings and attend online consultations
* Update web sites and technology
* Use online channels to keep people making essential journeys up to date
* Write a book with rail / community interest
* Write a press release for your local newspaper or magazine.
* Write a staff newsletter
* Write an article for Community Rail News
It's important we look ahead ...
- Short term, during the period of lockdown, limited travel and restricted activities
- Medium term, as travel opportunities and desire re-opens
- over year(s), as we settle to a "new normal" whatever that might mean
- over decade(s), as we retune to take account of climate change and the need for sustainability
We should have one eye on each of those, minded that short term actions could be contradictory to what's right for longer periods, but that we can usefully be looking very much ahead in the opportunity of time offered to us by lockdowns.
From
GWR - Intercity Express Train named after Michael Bond, January 2018
