Community Rail Lancashire, and the Community Rail Education Network, and its funding partners including the Community Rail Network, Avanti West Coast, Cross Country, ScotRail and Freightliner had a very good evening at the Awards ceremony held in Swansea yesterday 18 March 2024.
In the first category – Involving Children & Young People, The Feel Good Field Trips project delivered by CRL and funded by Avanti West Coast took first place.
Train travel has the power to widen horizons and opportunities for all. However, many of the young people that community rail partnerships engage with have rarely or even never been on a train and lack the confidence to travel by public transport. The ‘Feel Good Field Trips’ initiative, launched by Avanti West Coast in March 2022 and delivered by Community Rail Lancashire, set out to change that, demonstrating to teachers and students the breadth of opportunities available that are only a train ride away.
As the key delivery partner in the project, CRL has taken over 2,500 students aged 4-18 from some of the country’s most disadvantaged schools on 160 train journeys to 20 different venues, providing free, fun, and educational trips along the iconic West Coast Main Line. The trips enabled schools to offer unique cultural experiences, from learning to cook curries in Manchester and recording music in Soho, to taking part in outdoor adventures in the Lake District and learning about dinosaurs in Coventry, all whilst delivering rail safety and confidence messages.
David Savage, from Community Rail Lancashire, and who leads Feel Good Field Trips said: “I am delighted that The Feel Good Field Trip initiative has been recognised with a significant accolade at this year’s Community Rail Awards. Receiving this award is a testament to the dedication of everyone involved in the Feel Good Field Trip initiative. I am immensely proud of the impact this project has had on the lives of thousands of young people. Central to its success has been the support of Avanti West Coast, whose generous funding has made these experiences possible.”
David Savage, from Community Rail Lancashire, and who leads Feel Good Field Trips said: “I am delighted that The Feel Good Field Trip initiative has been recognised with a significant accolade at this year’s Community Rail Awards.
“Receiving this award is a testament to the dedication of everyone involved in the Feel Good Field Trip initiative. I am immensely proud of the impact this project has had on the lives of thousands of young people. Central to its success has been the support of Avanti West Coast, whose generous funding has made these experiences possible.”
Next up was category 2 – Empowering Diverse Groups and CRL took second place with its ‘East Meets West’ project. The project brought together women from South Asian backgrounds, many of whom faced isolation or had no experience of independent travel. Through a series of trips and days out, including afternoon tea in Accrington, a trip on a narrow boat in Hebden Bridge and a visit to Bradford’s Science and Media Museum, Community Rail Lancashire supported them with the skills and knowledge to travel confidently via public transport.
Category 5 – Most Effective Communications Campaign saw the Community Rail Education Network scoop first prize for Bessie Matthews ‘Arlo’s Adventure: There and back. Seeing firsthand how passionate community rail partnerships are about improving young people’s rail safety knowledge and instilling them with a culture of life-long, confident rail use, the Community Rail Education Network was keen to produce its own resources to distribute to young people, empowering them to continue rail safety conversations at home. Through funding from Community Rail Network, ScotRail and Freightliner, this became a reality.
Inspired by her Freightliner driver training where students learn through scenario-based situations, author Bessie Matthews chose a ‘pick a path’ style adventure when designing the book. 20,000 copies were initially printed and distributed to five national hubs – since then, over 90,000 books have been shared across rail industry, education, and youth engagement settings as far as Australia, Japan and America.
Bessie Matthews, author of the Arlo book said; “I have never felt more welcomed than I have with Community Rail. When I first shared the little idea of Arlo with the brilliant Karen Bennett, I never imagined for a second that I’d now be watching that little idea grow with the help of so many fantastic and supportive people in to such a loved part of Community Rail’s history. I am blown away by CR every single day and I’m honoured to be a small part of this beautiful, inclusive, creative, caring family. I can’t wait to bring you more stories of Arlo and his friends. Thank you for inspiring me every day.”
Karen Bennett from CRL and Chair of the Community Rail Education Network commented; Bessie was one of our original 100 women at Community Rail Lancashire and reached out to see if we could support her dream to publish a children’s rail safety book. The Education Network were keen to produce a resource for the primary school children we work with so it was perfect timing. No one could have predicted just how popular the book would be, but it’s an integral part of rail safety nationally and even internationally now. I was delighted to manage this project and look forward to see how it can grow further.
Finally in Category 9 – Influencing Positive Change and Sustainability the Community Rail Education Network and Cross Country took first place for their ‘Travel Green with Daffnee Green’ project that set out to support the change in the National Curriculum to include teaching on climate change. During a Community Rail Education Network meeting, members saw it as an opportunity to create a suite of resources to engage Key Stage 2 children in learning about the rail network’s green credentials. From the outset, the Education Network recognised it was important to listen to the views and experiences of the many CRPs who work closely with schools and have developed local materials to support classroom delivery on sustainable transport. Through these conversations, the team realised that there was a need for a high quality, data drive set of teaching materials which could be used independently of a CRP officer being present in the classroom.