7th April 09..........AGM Isle of Wight Steam Railway

The day for the joint AGM dawned bright and sunny and I was in the office to finish preparations at 6.45! This wasn’t helped by feeling extraordinarily tired after entertaining ACoRP’s Managing Director Neil Buxton and family who had come to stay with us in Cowes.

However, ever the professional, I had a completed presentation, annual report and paper work for the day. Neil and I got to Havenstreet to the steam railway (who again were the kind hosts) at 9.45 a.m. ready for the IoW AGM which started promptly at 10.00 a.m. with apologies from Nick Farthing, our chair who had to go at the last moment to a SUSTRANs meeting in Holland and Southern Vectis.

The meeting was well attended by our regular members, with invited guests the Department for Transport (DfT) Network Rail (NR) and South West Trains (SWT) Stakeholder Manager.

A good meeting, kindly chaired by the Manager of the Steam Railway and deputy chair Jim Loe, the budget was discussed, I gave my annual report and AOB was a ‘lively discussion’ where transport was generally discussed finishing with the positive news that Phil Dominey, SWT SM has taken over the promotion of the real time information for Wi Fi screens to go at stations, both rail and bus, plus passenger terminals for the ferries. The information displayed will be updated regularly and relevant to connections.

The meeting finished as planned at 12.00 when we then broke for lunch, a wonderful spread, courtesy of Isle of Wight Steam Railway and I was relieved to see our Lymington-Brockenhurst Members arrive on time to eat.

I tried to make as many introductions as possible whilst setting up the room for the 1 O’clock start, but in hindsight I should have arranged name badges.

However the afternoons meeting went well, with a tiny glitch at the start of a dodgy laptop connection for the projector (thanks Phil for raising my blood pressure!)

An alternative was provided and I was able to give a snapshot of the work I have been doing for both Partnerships. This was then followed by a talk from David Hibbs on the importance of linking community rail to government policy and Neil Buxton finished with his report on the value of community rail.

Amazingly the meeting finished on time (I was getting spooked by now!) and our Lymington-Brockenhurst Members were able to leave on time for their ferry in Yarmouth, courtesy of both Southern Vectis and Wightlink. Thank you both.