This is a circular to all emailable Spokes members... A. PUBLIC MEETING - THURS 19 NOVEMBER - PRINCES STREET A reminder of our public meeting this Thursday - full details in our recent Bulletin 105 which you should have received - in case not, it's on our website www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress - see November 3 news item there, or click on Bulletin at the top of the page. St Augustine's Church, George IV Bridge, 7.30-9.30. Doors open 6.45 for coffee, stalls, chat, and Lesley Riddoch there to sell signed copies of her book about cycling round the Scottish islands. More details - jackie.howlett3@googlemail.com 664.0526. B. SPOKESWORKER 11.11.09 The latest issue of Spokesworker is now online - see the Nov 11 news item at www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress, or click on Spokesworker at the top of the page there. As always, lots of things going on, letters to write, etc. C. SCOTTISH BUDGET See lead article in the above Spokesworker. We urge all concerned members to send a short email/letter to their MSPs on the need for more funding for cycle projects. Particularly ask your MSP to speak to their party's Finance spokesperson, and to raise the issue within their party group. Budget consideration by the Parliament's Transport committee is now complete, and discussion moves to the Finance Committee - which is the stage where we lost out last year. The Transport Cttee report remains confidential until after it has been considered by Finance, but we have had positive verbal hints from one or two politicians, so we are hopefully the Transport Cttee report will be supportive. D. DECEMBER 6 RIDE PLANET EARTH If you intend to come on our special Sunday Ride - or just come to the lunch, where Mark Lazarowicz MP will say a few words about the Copenhagen climate talks - please remember to sign up in advance, ideally by Nov 20. Cost £6.50 for the lunch. You must book in advance for lunch - email spokes@spokes.org.uk or answerphone 313.2114. More info in Spokes Bulletin 105, page 3. If our ride is too long (20+ miles) or you are worried about the weather, it's fine to come to the lunch event only, but please book in advance. There will also be a stall by Greener Leith with info about their Leith sustainable transport initiative. For more on the inspiration for Ride Planet Earth, see Kim Nguyen's fascinating blog at rideplanetearth.org. E. MISSING WHITE LINES *** PLEASE REPORT BY MON 23 NOV One of our members, Tom Rye, has recently had some successes with reporting lost white lines to the Council - for example the faded-out Gilmore Place Advanced Stop Line, opposite Kings Theatre. Tom is now planning to send in another list, with as many bad cases as possible. PLEASE EMAIL TOM WITH LOCATIONS OF ANY LOST WHITE LINES - including lines that are faded out, and lines not replaced where roadworks have taken place. Please follow these instructions... a. Email T.Rye@napier.ac.uk, with MISSING LINES as the subject line, no later than MONDAY 23 NOVEMBER. b. Only report genuine missing or extremely faded lines, not examples which you only half remember! His report needs to be taken seriously. c. Only include lines on through-routes likely to be used by cyclists, not side-road car-parking bay markings for example. d. Please be as specific as possible about location, including which side of the road and any nearby landmarks/side roads etc. e. Don't include coloured surfacing requests. These arrangements are different, and we understand the council is looking into their procedures on this, following lots of complaints. [Meantime, report badly missing coloured surfacing to clarence@edinburgh.gov.uk, and if that doesn't work then take it up with your councillors, so they continue to realise this is an ongoing concern]. F. SPOKES WEBSITE As you will have noticed if you've looked at our site recently, we are moving to a new site, although the Forum is still on the old site - we hope to move this over soon. At the moment www.spokes.org.uk takes you to the old site, and www.spokes.org.uk/wordpress to the new one. G. TWITTER AND FACEBOOK We are now using twitter to announce significant news items, downloads, etc as they are added to the website. If you have requested notification of new spokesworkers by email, that will continue, but twitter will often be a day or two quicker and will also notify you of other important news items. It's very easy to sign up and become a 'follower' - we are called SpokesLothian on twitter. For more info and recent messages, see http://twitter.com/SpokesLothian. We also have a facebook page - see http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118534348748&ref=mf H. STOP PRESS - CYCLENATION 2010 A bid by Spokes to host the autumn 2010 meeting of CycleNation has been accepted - this is the twice-yearly get-together of cycle campaign groups and CTC campaigners from across the UK - last held in Edinburgh in 1998. Anyone with ideas, and/or interested in helping with organisation, please contact Spokes as soon as possible. Dave du Feu for Spokes