Follow-up from Bike Worcester meeting

Dear All,Firstly thanks to those of you who attended the meeting last Monday, and don’t worry if you missed it. It was great to see new faces and catch up and talk bikes and cycling for a couple of hours over a beer or two.I’ve had some feedback since the meeting, and there were some items that weren’t covered, so I thought I’d send a brief(ish) email to continue the discussions.Regular meetings and conversations are essential for us to attempt to combine our efforts and work effectively to try and improve the city to enable and encourage more people to use bikes as a mode of transport. There is still much that can be achieved between meetings, and communication is still needed, so I suggest we continue using the Slack platform as a means to have open conversations where anyone can chip in, and hopefully volunteer to take the lead with some of the threads. If you’re reading this and haven’t got a clue what Slack is, and would like to be added to the group, please contact me at dbrothwell@icloud.com and I can add you to the Bike Worcester group.An element of constructive criticism is that we are spread too thinly, trying to do too much, which I accept. That said we have about 50 people on Slack, so could easily divide up into smaller groups to move forward on any topics we so desire. As such anyone with strong views on the direction we should head in, please get in touch and I’m happy to get started asap. However, on reflection, we have a number of well-established threads (see current activities below) and I don’t see any need to step back on any of these.As mentioned at the meeting I’m happy for us to act as individuals or smaller groups under the badge of Bike Worcester to move forward with any cycling advocacy topics or ideas. Equally any suggestions of new threads or how to organise Slack more effectively, please shout up. We have about £2000 in the bank to support any activities.A quick summary of some of the threads, and their effective leads, plus some other ideas that we could move forward with (happy to discuss further on any topics) - apologies if I’ve missed anyone doing amazing work, and please feel free to throw other ideas into the mix (particularly if you're happy to take the lead on it!):

Current activities

• Social media - small team - but everyone can contribute by creating and sharing Bike Worcester / active travel content
• Cycling UK contact - Lyndon Bracewell
• Sustrans contact - Mike Cooper
• General contact/meeting with local politicians (city, county and MPs) - Dan Brothwell (plus others, plus other groups in Wyre Forest, Malvern and Evesham). Please feel free to contact them directly and mention your association with Bike Worcester if appropriate, more voices will make a difference
• Worcester News / BBC H&W contact - Dan Brothwell, but we have a monthly article slot in the WN that I need help with
• Fort Royal Park Hill Climb - Paul Sobcysk
• Bike Bus - Rob Collier
• Bike repair - Daniel and Phil Jones
• Commenting on planning submissions - Lyndon Bracewell
• West Mercia and Operation Snap Liaison - Nick Popham / Dan Brothwell
• Barrier and LTN / modal filter mapping - Nick Popham
• FOIs - Dan Brothwell - I’m happy to carry on with this with any suggestions, often not sure what to do with the information..! Replies are publicly available.
• SHIFT - Dan Brothwell - any companies that might be interested in incentivising active travel for employees, I’m available to present to those companies with evidence from Aquabio on how it can change behaviour
• Website - Matt Jenkins - any ideas or suggested improvements please advise

Other ideas (needs volunteer lead if we want to do them, hopefully, to coordinate other volunteers)

• Worcester Festival Bike Worcester stall - vacant - preparation - what do we need for the stall (happy to spend some Bike Worcester money on this - we have a banner and 2 vertical flags, Lyndon and Mike in past have Sustrans / Cycling UK / council material), talking to people about cycling and Bike Worcester
• Diglis Fields event - vacant - as above
• Other local events - vacant - as above
• Bike Worcester library - vacant - I’ve got a few books I’ve passed on, maybe a section on the website or Slack?
• Bike Worcester kit library - I’ve got roof bike carriers, roof box etc. happy to lend, maybe a section on the website or Slack?
• Worcester carnival - vacant - critical mass style inclusion on
• Adult Bikeability - vacant - rooting out people wanting to do this and arranging instructor, time and place
• Coffee on Sabrina - vacant - something I saw working in Glasgow, volunteers give out free coffee to bike commuters
• School Streets - vacant - I suspect Rob C might volunteer to head up school liaison across the board?
• Councillor rides - vacant - would be great to organise this more formally. Again Rob C is organising a car-free city council meeting
• Fundraising - vacant - we’ve got income from SHIFT from 3 local companies. It would be great if anyone with any experience of fundraising could help to see if there is any match funding available?

Keep pedalling!Dan Brothwell