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  • A few people I know are interested in what happened at the Londoners on Bikes meeting on 20/01/2011.

    I've popped this in the Private section, and in a new thread rather than the campaigning thread as I'm not sure how much of it is to be floated in public.

    The meeting was quite interesting. There were a number of people on there, a couple of whom admitted to being on the Forum (I can't recall exactly who you were, but hi anyway). People that have stuck in my mind (in no particular order) were the chap who organised (and is organising) Bikes Alive, the bloke who I think writes the Cyclists in the City blog. I can't recall exactly who else was there, but all of them were interesting and had interesting points. One of the Candidates appeared (the independent lady who's been in the ES a couple of times). She vanished once we broke into smaller groups.

    The main thrust of the whole thing is that the difference between the main two candidates is around 20,000 votes at the moment. If 40,000 cyclists pledge to "vote with their bikes" cycling should become a big campaign issue.

    The main aim is to get the candidates to up their game on cycling safety, not by telling them what they should do, but by saying "whoever comes up with the best proposals gets our vote".

    They acknowledged that there are risks, if they fail to get enough people pledged, then the candidates know that they can safely ignore cycling, which will have a knock on effect on other cycling campaign groups, but, given the success of the cycling lobby in certain recent US cities, the other campaign groups seem to have taken a bit of a "if not now, when?" approach.

    The first thing discussed was an overall what do we know about the state of the race for mayor, what TFL's plans are, who to target, etc, etc.

    Then it broke down into smaller groups, focusing on Media Relations, Finances, the Website, Online Media and Offline media.

    Media Relations discussed what the "story" that was to be sold to the press was, why the campaign was important, and how best to get this across.

    Finances concentrated on how funding could be raised, and how much was needed.

    Website looked at what needed to be done to make the website look more professional, and easier to find.

    Online and Offline media (two separate groups) looked at how the message could be got out into the wider world, via both the internet and more traditional methods.

    There was also a a sheet for people to put down "Celebrities" that they knew, who might be contactable, and might be willing to support the campaign.

    This was then all fed back into a larger group session, and was taken away to organise/plan/expand on. I understand that details of this is due to be sent out shortly, and that the next meeting is on Monday 23rd at 7pm, after the Bikes Alive protest, in the Somers Town Coffee House.

    I'm happy to answer any questions on anything that I've not covered to the best of my ability!

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