Webinar presentation to the Scottish Region by Erin Meehan, CILT Nations Regions And Forums Manager: 22 June 2020

The community platform is a new membership benefit which provides on an online space for members to communicate with each other, share best practice, share views and information, ask questions and solve problems.

This is a tool that the Institute sees as supporting communication throughout and beyond the current pandemic. Simply go to My CILT and type in your username and password, clicking on Community where you will find sections on All Menus, Forums & Committees, Volunteers and Coronavirus response and will be able to share information and articles, with provision for Nations and Regions to emerge by the end of the summer. You can update your interests in the MYCILT area in order to see further information provided in the platform.

GDPR informs communication, but it is hoped that we shall be able to email Scottish members. There will be a dedicated space for students, and FAQs will help promote debate in these challenging times.

In discussion it was suggested that UK policy post-Covid had become deeply discriminatory, hitting the already marginalised by talking up the safety of private transport while closing public toilets - an issue perhaps for the Accessibility and Inclusion Forum. Additionally in Scotland policy has been governed by extreme caution, so that the country is coming out of lockdown at a slower rate than south of the border, which may impact particularly on tourism.

Those who have died of Covid-19 caught on public transport may have already had underlying conditions, and there is evidence that bus and train capacity can be safely increased by placing people side by side instead of face to face. With passengers and staff all now wearing facemasks, the need is to keep surfaces clean with overnight sanitisation - for the message to avoid public transport is not sustainable as the economy restarts. CILT had not been invited to participate in a DfT investigation about buses in residential areas.

Euan Merrilees is helping with a Napier careers webinar. Some universities do not allow use of Zoom because of a risk that students can feel horribly intimidated by uninvited individuals invading the debate. Erin Meehan from CILT assured the group that CILT (UK)'s experiences with Zoom have been entirely positive so far and the Institute has invested in this as a platform approx. 18 months ago with great success in delivering webinar and online activity and facilitating online meetings. The Institute recognise in changing times, that there is a need to look at investing in other online platforms to ensure that all members can participate with online activity and this will be shared with members when possible.

Notes by John Yellowlees