TCC conducted a meeting to create common understanding with partners
On August 3, 2013, Thailand Cycling Club (TCC) organized a workshop, “Creating common understanding to advocate public policy on walking and cycling”, at Kanmanee Palace Hotel in Bangkok. The workshop was participated by 116 researchers and representatives from groups/organizations that expressed interests to carry out sub-projects under the Walking and Cycling Public Policy Advocacy Project – 41 persons from local administrative organizations and NGOs in 20 provinces, 23 persons from provincial networks of cycle users and pedestrians in 9 provinces, and 30 researchers/academics from 15 universities, a medical centre, Ministry of Education and the Army.
The workshop began with a review of the project’s objectives, results, especially in the past years, and what is planned to do by Dr. Anusak Kongmalai, TCC Vice President and Chairperson of the Project Steering Committee (PSC). Mr. Kittisak Intaravisit, TCC Committee Member and PSC Deputy Chair, then gave ideas and advice about cycling campaign, using a lively street campaign in Vienna, Austria, during Velo-city 2013 as an example. He invited Mr. Pornthep Ditsayabutr, President of Krabi Cycling Club, and Mr. Sajja Kuthranon, Chairperson of National Cyclists Community, to share their experiences, which confirmed that street campaign could be successfully conducted and well attended without having to give out any materials to participants.
Mr. Pornthep described how he successfully organized ‘Car Free Day’ (CFD) in 2012 at his home village of Bang Pung in Krabi Province. The event was attended by about 600 people, more than half of the village’s population, and many reporters, while a CFD event organized by the provincial authority was attended by only 200 people. Mr. Sajja, on the other hand, added that any campaign which relied on hand-out, such as T-shirts, to attract people would have higher costs all the time and many people attended it only because of hand-outs; some just left after receiving them.
The participants then broke into three small groups to discuss how to form and do projects on cycling community building, networks of cycle users, and research. The participants actively shared their experiences and joined discussions which revealed diverse ways to promote walking and cycling in daily life suitable for each specific areas.
In the afternoon, TCC financial officer and accountant explained and gave advice on how to prepare financial documents, such as budget plans, accounts, reports and accompanying documents. The workshop ended with reporting of discussions in the small group.
Reported by Gawin Chutima
Committee Member, Thailand Cycling Club