Celebration of the fruits of LSTF, and of the people who have helped and are helping
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-12-15 05:51:49 - Graham Ellis
There's an event in plan for a celebration of what the Local Sustainable Transport Fund is bringing us, with important people down from London for the event. It was intended for that event to take place within a short period of the introduction of the improved TransWilts service, and one or two of us at the CRP were asked to provide a list of people who we felt should be invited to that initial celebration. And, as this celebration is also designed by the marketing experts to maximise coverage of TransWilts and other LSTF works too, we were asked (and as junior partners, concurred) with requests to keep other first day of the service publicity / official invites low key and not to muddy the waters for the main event. As people's diaries are very busy, the celebration event has now slipped away from the actual start of the new TransWilts service and into the new year, when invites should go out in good time. Many of the CRP members are meeting on 30th December and it's going to be an agenda item there, but the final invites will go out from Wiltshire Council in the new year.
There are many, many stalwarts who have helped us along the way over the years - over, above and beyond 'duty'. And one of the unfortunate things, I feel personally, is that these people who should have been there on 8th or 9th December and honoured for their work may feel forgotten / ignored / slighted. That's really, really sad. So - huge thank you to those who have helped, a big and unreserved apology for how the initial invite might have appeared to overlook you, and a hope that - like me - you feel the important thing is to get the service well used, with any initial operational issues being ironed out quickly and further publicity and marketing (currently hard underway) and further developments (in plan) all keep raising both the usefulness and the profile of the service and linked / connecting bus, train, cycle and foot routes too.
A "Thank You" listing a couple of dozen names was published in the Melksham Independent News on 5th December, and an extended version online the following day -[here]. I'm going to add that the list in there is only a shortened one - the list of people who should be invited to the official event extends three times as long - enough to fill the train, in fact. Please watch this space / keep an eye on your mailbox.