On 20 March we held our annual Community Conference at the fabulous National Railway Museum in York. Our regional Stakeholder Managers Alex Bray, Richard Gibson, Jody Ball and David Jones arranged and hosted the event and were joined by delegates from many of the 28 Community Rail Partnerships (CRPs) that CrossCountry supports across England and Scotland. Regional Director North East & Scotland, Ben Simkin, warmly welcomed everyone and gave a business update plus some highlights of the great community projects delivered with CrossCountry funding support over the last 12 months.
Our new regional Stations Liaison Managers explained their new roles and how our community partners can work with them by helping to identify issues and opportunities at stations for us to work collaboratively with Station Operators to improve the experience for all rail customers. Leaders from our Customer Experience team, also gave a well-received presentation about our Customer Proposition plans for imaginative marketing campaigns using our new branding, refurbished trains and improved catering offer.
There were three highly informative and engaging Railway 200 presentations from guest speakers, including a key member of the national Railway 200 Steering Group, Mike Lamport, who told us about some of the many commemorative events being planned around the country. Barry Coward, a retired CRP Chair highlighted some of the interesting archive material created by British Transport Films from the 1950s to the 1970s, and Karen Bennett from Community Rail Lancashire told us how CRPs and rail companies can assist her to source 200 railway themed personal stories from people in the LGBTQ+ community as part her Railway 200 Pride project. Our regional Stakeholder Managers also gave a brief talk about some of the Railway 200 themed projects we are helping to fund through grants from our Community Investment Fund during 2025.
As well as being a great networking event, many of our CRPs took up our offer of 5 minute ‘speed slots’ to show case some of the fabulous community projects they have delivered with the help of CrossCountry funding support – projects which have made a real impact and difference to people's lives in the communities we serve.