CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.

Women's Cycle Forum - who's coming?

(25 posts)
  • Started 10 years ago by sallyhinch
  • Latest reply from sallyhinch

  1. sallyhinch
    Member

    https://womenscycleforum.wordpress.com/womens-cycle-forum/

    Been mentioned before in passing, but I thought I'd give it a bump. Featuring SRD of this parish as well as other fine speakers (with a couple of final announcements still to come)

    I should clarify that the 'women' part refers to the speakers, the organisers and the agenda, such as it is - everyone and anyone is welcome to attend. We just got sick of seeing all-male panels pontificating about (among other things) 'why women don't cycle and decided to change the record. Given this forum's talent for taking a debate on an unanticipated but erudite detour at every opportunity, I'm really hoping to see some of you there.

    If you are coming and haven't booked yet, then it would help my blood pressure if you booked in advance, but tickets will be available at the door.

    Oh, and did we mention there would be wine? There will be wine

    Posted 10 years ago #

  2. AIMC
    Member

    One ticket bought. Always a pleasure to listen to SRD.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  3. fimm
    Member

    Me!
    Got my ticket.

    I have a nasty suspicion I'm supposed to contribute to the discussion. Quite what I've have to add, I don't know, given that I'm a woman who already cycles and generally conforms to all the stereotypes of the lycra-clad speed-merchant (apart from the being male bit).

    Posted 10 years ago #

  4. sallyhinch
    Member

    Oh don't worry, most will be cycling women so hopefully the discussion will have moved on from that. More about what we can do / already are doing to make cycling better, whether it's commuting, racing, utility, leisure cycling and whatever it is we wear. Or whatever comes up, I suppose.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  5. Claire
    Member

    I'll be there :) Looking forward to it.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  6. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Booking a ticket (not for me!). Note to organisers - the Hub Tickets site is appalling. I realise you may be stuck with what you're given, but it's really, really bad...

    UPDATE - it's not actually appalling. It's actually useless. if you're trying to add a named individual for the ticket that isn't yourself. Poor show of endless dead-end feedback loops and re-entering the same information over and over only for the form to wipe it.

    UPDATE - I've bought a ticket in my name, but I'm not coming. I promise. But really, that's one bad, bad website.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  7. Arellcat
    Moderator

    I haven't bought a ticket yet, but like fimm I'm kinda-sorta wondering what I can contribute. Quite hard to take a step back and think about my invisible bag (think I saw that idea mentioned on Twitter).

    Posted 10 years ago #

  8. SRD
    Moderator

    Arellcat - you can almost certainly add more than me. Please do come.

    I feel decidedly under-equipped for the task: http://deceasedcanine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/cycling-and-gender-dilemma.html

    Posted 10 years ago #

  9. sallyhinch
    Member

    After your 'enough is enough' post the other day I'd have thought you'd have a huge amount to add, Arellcat. Or you can just help us drink the wine...

    Posted 10 years ago #

  10. Arellcat
    Moderator

    WCF ticket now waiting to be collected. :)

    Posted 10 years ago #

  11. SRD
    Moderator

    Thoughts

    http://deceasedcanine.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/womens-cycle-forum.html

    (PS AIMC I hope you appreciate how much I've been worrying about this after your kind post above....).

    Posted 10 years ago #

  12. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Age old conundrum of what bike to take. Lots of posh fences along by the Ukrainian Club, but little other parking available.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  13. fimm
    Member

    I'm "worrying" about what to wear!
    @kaputnik I think men are welcome, just not on the panel...

    (I've rounded up a group of friends to come and see "Half the Road" on Monday, too.)

    Posted 10 years ago #

  14. fimm
    Member

    Well, I thought it was good. I've written half a blog post about it so will get that finished and published.

    My one criticism was that I thought the panel was a bit big or alternatively the panel members were not encouraged to be brief when introducing themselves, so it took quite a long time for all those introductions to happen. But that's a minor criticism, and the big panel did mean that there was a good varietly of interests represented, which was good.

    I think the discussion around my table wasn't very female-specific, by which I mean that if you took a transcription of it you'd probably not be able to say much/anything about the gender of the participants. I think that is probably a good thing too.

    Posted 10 years ago #

  15. sallyhinch
    Member

    @Fimm - I think that's a good thing too. I was interested that many of the conversations I sat in on or overheard didn't seem that female-specific, but perhaps the emphasis was different, and maybe the dynamics of the discussion were too. Hard to tell.

    I did try and keep everyone to 5 minutes and mostly succeeded. We could have done with more time generally, I think

    Posted 10 years ago #

  16. sallyhinch
    Member

    PS look forward to the blog post. Here's one from one of the 'token blokes' http://glasgowcycleinfra.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/uk-womens-cycle-forum.html

    Posted 10 years ago #

  17. fimm
    Member

    Blogged:
    http://wisob.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/on-the-womens-cycle-forum/
    a bit of a ramble with diversions into What To Wear and how to get there and infrastructure for my boyfriend!

    Posted 10 years ago #

  18. sallyhinch
    Member

    I'm beginning to think the most female thing about the Women's Cycle Forum was the amount of attention paid to what to wear (apart from the participants of course). Interesting...

    I was flying the flag for scruffy cyclists everywhere as you might have noticed

    Posted 10 years ago #

  19. fimm
    Member

    I think it is one of the good things about being female - we get such a big choice of things to wear, compared with men.
    I think it is also one of the bad things about being female - such a choice gives us dilemmas! Does what you wear say more about you if you are female than if you are male? Or is it just that women think that it does?

    Posted 10 years ago #

  20. chdot
    Admin

    "

    I participated in the excellent and popular Women’s Cycle Forum in Edinburgh – apparently the first such event in the UK – and will be speaking at a similar type of event in Bristol next week (although Bristol’s women-only, and more focused specifically around gender and cycling).

    "

    http://www.rachelaldred.org/whatson/two-new-lcc-policy-forum-seminars-planned-for-autumn/

    Posted 10 years ago #

  21. sallyhinch
    Member

    Suzanne Forup and I have been talking about tacking something female-led onto the Cycling Scotland conference (either the one in November, or more likely next year's) - eg. another WCF in some form or another. If nothing else, it might liven up the conference a bit. Would people (especially but not exclusively women) be interested in such an event? What would you be interested in? Would it need to be at a weekend or evening? And what form should it take? Would it make you more or less likely to attend the Cycling Scotland conference itself? (NB this doesn't mean we won't be doing another WCF next year as part of EdFoc, it would be an extra)

    Posted 10 years ago #

  22. sallyhinch
    Member

    This is on again this year as part of the EdFoC - details here https://womenscycleforum.wordpress.com/womens-cycle-forum-2015/

    The theme this year is 'Build a Better World' and we'll have speakers from successful campaigns (Playing Out and No More Page Three) who have in very different ways changed things that seemed intractable. But the main focus of the event will once more be about discussion and, I hope, inspiration to go out and do something ...

    Men, of course, entirely welcome to attend. As one of the attendees pointed out there were more men at the last event than there were women at the average cycling conference (although in fairness that is changing in recent years).

    Posted 9 years ago #

  23. fimm
    Member

    I have now booked my ticket to this. I like the choice of campaigning rather than cycling speakers this time. Who else is coming along?

    Posted 9 years ago #

  24. Arellcat
    Moderator

    I've booked my WCF ticket too. The germ of another blog post came into my head late yesterday evening, when I was much too square-eyed from a day of photo editing to think about sitting any longer at the computer.

    Posted 9 years ago #

  25. sallyhinch
    Member

    Bump! This is now a week on Saturday, so just wanted to remind people it was on...

    Posted 9 years ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.


Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin