September 2021
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#SpokesMtg – Local Bike Campaigning

There’s a flourishing of locally-based campaigns for cycling infrastructure and for wider car-reduced living, supporting walking, wheeling, local public transport and places no longer dominated by the demands of the car.

Our meeting, at 7.30pm on Wednesday 22 September, hears from a range of local campaigns, together with city-wide groups BEST and Spokes, and is followed by our usual fullsome QA. We’ll hear how and why groups started, the challenges, the successes and what comes next. We hope it will give you some ideas too!

Register (free) for the meeting here. Register in advance so that you don’t miss the start of the meeting.

Our meeting is also part of World Car-Free Day and Climate Fringe Week.

The new campaigns have a range of local and wider motivations, but all largely fall under the general theme of developing places and ways of getting around that are less car-dominated, safer, healthier, more climate-friendly. For example, ranging from fighting for a specific cycleroute through to lobbying for a wide low-traffic neighbourhood, bike buses for safer school travel, or banning motor traffic from inappropriate locations such as Holyrood Park.

Some groups are formed initially to support a welcome, or oppose an unwelcome, traffic proposal. Some because one or two local individuals feel passionately that their area needs to counter the insidious growth in the number, size and dominance of motor traffic on their local streets. There is also the unfairness that government allows this to happen to public space with zero public consultation, whereas measures to restrain the car do (rightly) have to be consulted on.

At the meeting
  • A range of groups will speak for 5 mins each on how and why they started, the challenges, successes and what they have learned
  • Our 45-minute QA session will then be chaired by Alix Davies. Alix is the Secretariat of Edinburgh Climate Commission and experienced in organisational change
  • The meeting is expected to end no later than 9.30pm
  • We are using GoWebinar software (kindly supplied and operated by Cycling UK Scotland). Your own microphone and video are automatically muted, and there is no chat function.
  • Questions can be submitted in advance by emailing spokes@spokes.org.uk with subject line  Spokes meeting question. You can also submit questions during the meeting, using the questions box in the webinar’s Control Panel.
Joining the meeting
  • To attend the meeting, please register in advance (though you can even do this once the meeting has started)
  • Register by clicking here
  • The registration page has a sentence about payment – ignore this, the meeting is free
  • You will be sent an email with a ‘Join Webinar’ button. This link is unique to you, so don’t pass it on
  • On the day, your link will be live from 7.15pm
  • Click the Join Webinar button in your link
  • On the next page, click Open GoTo Opener
  • If the meeting has not yet started, you will see a page asking you to wait – the meeting will then automatically begin at around 7.30
  • If you have problems with the registration process, or want a fuller explanation, see this step-by-stepguide to using the software (the guide uses a different meeting as its example).
After the meeting (and/or before!!)
  • The meeting will be recorded and available later on our YouTube channel
  • We’d love you to join Spokes! You’ll receive a roughly-monthly all-member email covering the whole range of Spokes activities, including information about current consultations which you might wish to respond to if they affect you
  • If you are a Spokes member, get in touch if you’d like to become an active member of our Planning Group
  • The Scottish Government has just published its ‘Programme for Government‘ which includes its policies on all areas of transport. See our article and, if you agree, take the actions suggested in the article.
Please help publicise the meeting
Related events
Thank you!
  • A big thank-you to Cycling UK Scotland for providing and running webinar software for the meeting

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