In February, our Communications Officer Matt McDonald left the Transform team and has now started with the Scottish Youth Parliament. We wish him all the best in his new role! To replace Matt, we welcome on board Rachel McFarlane, who previously volunteered with Transform during her time at university and is excited to take on this new role. Here is Rachel’s report on our recent activities.
‘Moving the Vote: Transport Conversations with the parties’
Since our last newsletter, we have held the first two ‘Moving the Vote: Transport Conversations with the parties’ events.
On 15 February we welcomed Graham Simpson MSP, the Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity from the Scottish Conservatives. Graham gave an outline of his party’s welcome (if as-yet unpublished) proposals for active travel, before the discussion moved on to priorities for road and rail spending on intercity routes. Delegates expressed disappointment that while Graham supported new road-building he appeared somewhat ‘under-briefed’ on the need for investment in our railways.
On 11 March Carole Ford from the Scottish Liberal Democrats joined us to share her party’s ideas on what Scottish transport could look like under Lib Dem leadership. Carole summarised her party’s four priorities for transport under the headings of climate emergency, passenger experience, economic impact and social equity. Whilst delegates were again disappointed to hear more support for road-building, there was common ground on other issues such as the importance of safety and public transport – particularly for women – in light of recent events.
We were delighted that Alastair Dalton, Transport Correspondent for The Scotsman / Scotland on Sunday, was able to chair both events and help them to run as smoothly and informatively as possible.
So far, each event has created a great space for our members, the wider transport community, and members of the public to engage with representatives of the main political parties in Scotland.
We hope you can make it to our next three events in the series where we will be talking to spokespeople from Labour, Greens, and SNP.
Transform Creative
At the beginning of the month we had a birthday to celebrate: Transform Creative’s 6th year anniversary.
What started off as “let’s just try this and see where it goes” – essentially a way to cover the salary of our then Communications Assistant, Ana Soldatenko – has now turned into a thriving business. Our first job was designing a short Active Travel Manifesto for Transform Scotland and its partners. We’re still designing transport manifestos but can now add to this filming, animation, websites, copy-writing, photography and branding. We’ve also expanded into other sectors and now have international clients too: our recent projects include climate change videos, report design for the health and social care sector, and clients in Norway and Belgium.
Through all of this we’ve built up a great network of friends in the creative industry that we are delighted to have in the Transform Scotland family.
New Business Coordinator position filled
We are thrilled for Ros Browning to have joined the team to fill our new position of Business Operator.
Based in Moray, Ros now helps to support the Transform staff with their roles, as well as leading on financial administration, office and volunteer management.
Welcome, Ros!
