The Spokes strategic workshop held on Saturday 28^th October at Newbury Canoe Club (thanks Ed) was well attended by most of the committee as well as non-committee members. That allowed for a wider set of thoughts, views and ideas, making the workshop all that more valuable. A big thank you to all the attendees and I hope you all thought your time was well used.

Since Spokes formed in 2002, there have been various internal changes to the voluntary group. Spokes has grown to almost 170 members, but as various committee members have come and gone, capacity to be able to contribute has ebbed and flowed. There have also been changes outside of Spokes – for example changes to other local cycling related organisations and overlaps with what WBS does.

Hence it was time for a re-group and to look how we can focus our mission which could be crudely put as “getting more bums on bikes” by playing to our unique strengths and looking to partner where we need help to achieve our objectives. In fact, we even questioned our official mission statement but found it to still fit our general ethos, albeit with a few minor suggestions for improvement.

The day began with a general introduction followed by a review of our current status, the mission, what our successes have been over the years and which of those are recent, a summary of what other local groups do, and some thoughts of successes of other similar groups.

Next, we split into groups and then came together to perform a SWOT analysis, so looking at our Strengths and Weaknesses, and the Opportunities and Threats that may help or hinder Spokes in fulfilling its mission.

After the coffee break, we then looked at what activities we should continue to do, ones that we needed to start (or re-start) and any that we should actually stop doing.

Most of the things we do today, we decided to continue with, such as:

• Cycle counts (and thanks to all those that help with these)
• Social Bike Rides (but with additional support for those new to cycling, e.g. ‘Couch to 50k’)
• Attendance at the Cycle Forum (one of the reasons WBS was formed)
• Campaigning on cycling issues
• Responding to consultations
• Progression of the Hermitage to Hamsptead Norreys Cycle Route towards Newbury

And some of the things we need to start (re-start or get much better at):

• Communications and publicity
• Commenting on major planning applications
• Developing a Cycling Charter (taking inspiration from Winchester)
• Address demographic issues (we are pretty much the “grey” haired folks at the workshop)
• Assist with clearing overgrown vegetation onto cycle routes

In terms of things we should stop doing, the consensus was that it should be more a pause. Except for the cycle counts, we will tend to focus on the western part of West Berkshire. However, once we have started what we need to, and hopefully have a few more active members, we will cover West Berkshire more fully.

If anything piques your interest, or you would like to help with something, then please reach out to us at: info@westberkshirespokes.org, or pop along to our monthly meeting, on the first Wednesday of each month (please see the calendar).

Full minutes of the workshop can be found here.