Report (1) to AGM From the Webmaster - what has happened in the last year

[whole diary]

[grahame]

The Great Western Coffee Shop Forum

* Founded in 2007 by rail campaigners concerned at developments on First Great Western
* Over the 12 years move from primarily a protest group to primarily partners


- Running from 2007 to 2019 as a private site with help from a growing group of members, moderators and admins
- Requirement for continuity planning "for the next 12 years"
- New Constitution based on Community Rail pillars with candid friend approach
- Official acceptance (DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)) via successful CCIF^▸ (Customer and Communities Improvement Fund) bid and committed financial support from GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)
- Responsibility for posts remains with individuals posting them
- Editorial oversite and direction remains with moderator and admin team, who are confirmed by voting members


Last year
- Strong forum (data to follow)
- GDRP - we conformed anyway (always have done) but re-checked with members. 2 out of 2000 left.
- Closing down of TransWilts members board; forum "spawned" TransWits CPR but they "divorced" in 2018
- entered ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) awards (small project) ... short listed and third placed
- Identified need for continuity planning and positioning
- Applied for CCIF grant in October 2018
- Revamped format of extra pages over Christms
- Added "Transport Scholars" - 52 + 12 admins / moderators
- Addition of Facebook and Twitter feeds to point towards forum
- Worked forward allowing for either outcome
- Extraordinary meeting in February
- Constitution vote in March
- Set up GWR contact point at whole-franchise level with quarterly meetings
- CRP^▸ (Community Rail Partnership) style input to GW^» (Great Western - used as an abbreviation for the area / lines under the Great Western franchise, as opposed to FGW which includes "First", the company operating them too. For tickets - about) conference invites
- Appointment of finance team / thanks to Jo for taking on treasurer role
- Community Rail in the City in May
- CCIF success - soft outcome; we are officially listed so can confirm


Some Statistics -June 1 2018 to May 31 2019

* 27,267 posts (v 24,440 in previous 12 months)
* 79,623 users of whom 78,362 were new.
* 309,213 sessions, 2,042,003 page views = 6.6 pages per session
* Of these UK^▸ (United Kingdom) - 293,167 sessions, 71,993 users of whom 70,792 were new.
-- Webmaster happy to talk on sources and voracity of these statistics.



There is a historic correlation between posting rates and major talking points with GWR
* However - we have a 12% rise in posts year on year
* There is an element of widening our coverage to associated 'grey' areas
* Core traffic remains guests; key arrivals via search engines


Metrics of our visitors

Ages of users well spread; 18 to 24 a bit low.
Predomiantly male (75%) ...
These differ from typical train user metirics BUT
They are far less biased towards old men than most rail user groups








A huge THANK YOU

To our active admins and moderators

- BobM and Chris from Nailsea
- Bruce, JoHoare, Lee, Phil, Red Squirrel, Richard Fairhurst, Timmer, TonyK and Western Pathfinder

To our members

- the 250 of you who have been posted in the last year
- the 200 others who have been logged in but not posted in the last year

To guests

- and from people approaching us at Reading, I know how much we do for you too

To supporters and wellwishers within the rail sector

- ACoRP, Cross Country, DfT, GWR, Network Rail, Rail Future, SWR^» (South Western Railway - about), Transport Focus, TravelWatch SouthWest
- Rail user groups, station friends groups and Community Rail Partnerships