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Jayne McLoughlin is the new part time Support Officer and much needed addition to the popular growing and dynamic Women in Community Rail (WiCR) movement.
Funded through London Northwestern Railway’s Customer & Communities Improvement Fund while hosted and supported by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Jayne will help build on and grow the movement through digital, project and administration support.
Jayne worked in the rail industry for 17 years and has hit the ground running at a crucial time for Women in Community rail. Jayne said “After just my second week I am leading on our celebration event on International Women’s Day and showcasing all of the amazing work that has carried on through lockdown by the WiCR steering group. Obviously, our events like most are being delivered through a digital platform so I’m excited about the challenge ahead.”
Vicky Cropper-Clarke London Northwestern Railway’s Head of Stakeholder and Community said “WiCR have done some amazing work and are really proactive in working toward making community rail a more diverse and inclusive area of the rail industry. We are delighted to support this dynamic movement and hope the funding will help promote and grow the fantastic work they do.”
Chair of Women in Community Rail Marion Atkinson said “this funding from London Northwestern Railway has not only created an employment opportunity when the pandemic is doing the opposite but will help continue our work in creating an inclusive and diverse community rail environment. There are lots of exciting things we need to be getting on with and this job will help us achieve them, I have no doubt.”

On 4th November, Kelly Burton from Avanti West Coast joined WiCR members to deliver training on mental health awareness. Slides are available to download on the events page. There is still time to register to attend our WiCR South
Breathing Spaces Event for December. All information can be
found on our events page.
Please contact Edna Woname at Edna.Woname@hertfordshire.gov.uk to find out more.

Our Mental Health Awareness training event was fully booked. It was possibly
one of the most thought provoking sessions we have held since we began our
training programme.
See a member’s thoughts write up about the day with hints and tips to support you
and your mental health. You can also read comments and feedback from those
who attended. Please take a look.

We were delighted to launch the new
website for members to access, use our
resources and get up to date information.
We have worked hard to get the website up
and running in a super fast time. We
believe this is a tool that can help WiCR
continue to deliver on their core values of
networking, inclusion and tolerance.
Our thanks to Northern particularly
Carolyn Watson who have supported WiCR
since its inception but also sponsored the
website to ensure our vital work continues.
Also a big thanks to Community Rail
Lancashire and Karen Bennett our social
media guru who led on the development of
the website.

Women in Community Rail (WiCR) are making this Friday 16^th October a double ‘show and tell’ celebration.

WiCR are supporting the national ‘show racism the red card’ day by donating and encouraging their members to wear the badge to kick racism out of society. Chair of the group Marion Atkinson said “our aim is to encourage tolerance, inclusion and highlight the importance that racism still exists and should not be an acceptable part of our communities. Our members span the length and breadth of the country so we will be spreading the message far and wide and showing our support to the campaign.”

Friday also brings the opportunity to launch and tell as many communities about the newly designed WiCR website  wicr.org.uk. Funded by Northern, the website will be the go-to place for anyone who is interested in getting involved with Women in Community Rail.

Carolyn Watson Northern Director of Stakeholder and Community Engagement and member of WiCR said “Northern were delighted to support the group with their ambition to develop a website to promote all of the excellent things they are involved in. This is a real opportunity to bring not only the rail industry but the wider community together, to get actively involved in promotion of inclusion and tolerance.”

WiCR are going from strength to strength and despite being a relatively new group have been integral in the development of an industry recognised and adopted code of conduct, national award winners the Community Rail awards ‘Influencing Positive change’ category along with influencers and policy advisors on equality and diversity.