News

WiCR hosted their AGM on 7th December at 10:00 am.

Where they reflect and celebrate the past 12 months and discuss the aspirations for the year ahead.

We can now share the results:

Chair Marion Atkinson

Deputy Chair Marjorie Birch

Treasurer Dawn Bigland

Membership Secretary Sheila Davidson

Secretary Jayne McLoughlin

We also Welcomed Edna Woname to the Steering Group.

January

Support Officer: We warmly welcomed Jayne McLoughlin to the team, and very much look forward to working with her.

EDI: An Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy statement was drawn up and accepted by the steering group. (Now in section ‘Our Core Values’ on our website.)

Breathing Space: ‘Achieving and Maintaining Work/Life Balance ‘was the final session in our first series of these lunch- time virtual meetings.

March

International Women’s Day: WiCR hosted a session at the DfT conference on IWD. This included a quiz featuring Inspirational Women, and also an opportunity to ‘Meet the Members’ by watching short videos made on our phones to introduce ourselves and describe our contribution to Community Rail.

WiCR South: Our new sister group hosted their first AGM and celebrated their achievements so far. A guest speaker from Women’s Aid talked about the Rail to Refuge scheme, which offers free travel to women and their children fleeing domestic violence.

May

Breathing Space: The first in a further set of these meetings, all on aspects of event planning, was ‘Risk Assessments and Method Statements’

Training: As part of our commitment to providing free training to members, we ran an on-line Stress Awareness Training Day which generated very positive feedback.

June

Breathing Space: The subject of this second session was ‘Event Management’.

National Volunteers Week: Due to COVID restrictions we couldn’t host a tea party, so we handed out goody bags containing cake, an Equalitea tea bag and a WiCR pen to our  Community Rail volunteers as a ‘thank you’ for their hard work(write up and photos of this in July’s CRP newsletter) Training: In response to suggestions from our members, we ran a Confidence  Building Training Day, which was well attended and received excellent feedback.

July

Breathing Space: This third session dealt with ‘Hosting Hybrid Events.’

Sprout Pencils: These represented Growing Together (our aim to grow the group’s membership. The pencils were sent to members, who were asked to plant them then send us a photo of the daisy plant they grew.

You can get the full reports of all these achievements on our Members Thoughts page.

August

Tomorrow’s Women Wirral: WiCR has been working with TWW to support a group of women who have faced challenges in their lives. They’ve created pieces of artwork on the theme of ‘Light at the End of the Tunnel ‘which are displayed in three of their local train stations. WiCR will continue to be a part of their support network, and work to help them make permanent life changes.

October

Training Day: This event, shared with the Tomorrow’s Women group and NHS Social Prescribers, was designed as a ‘journey’ for women towards improved mental fitness, enhanced social skills, and greater self-belief and confidence. The trainers achieved this by addressing issues of Mental Health and Motivation, Social Isolation, and Effective Interview Techniques, and participants were encouraged to derive maximum benefit from the event by moving freely between each training area.

Abbey Line Community Rail Partnership presents it’s 4th Community Rail Fun Day. Reflection, Thanks Giving & Togetherness, why not join us?

It’s a free event, all as we ask is that you book to join us via the website, the address and more information about the day can be found on the attached poster .