Hi Neil,
Thanks for speaking with me and providing some of the info I requested. I was hoping you could provide us with the decision by senior management to have no association with CTUG. Please provide the list of senior management involved in that decision. It is unfortunate that you perceive change as threatening. I can only suggest that you revisit the imagineCalgary document and reconsider how the terms "open, honest, inclusive and responsive" apply to Calgary Transit admin, operations, policy and management.
We accept your offer to be included on all distribution lists and to have our group URL added as a link from the Calgary Transit website. We certainly appreciate that you have committed to responding to our questions and requests for information.
As for the suggestion that we change the groups name, we are Calgary Transit users. The name will remain as is. I have polled our members and it is unanimous that we are very clear in our vision of independence, inclusiveness, responsiveness, transparency and autonomy. We are an active, citizen driven, public policy group that focuses on innovations, ideas and positive change with Calgary Transit. We also raise concerns regarding admin, operations, policy and management on behalf of Calgarians.
The term 'official' is not applicable with respect to civic engagement in redemocratizing the public policy process. Our ideas are not binding to any party. They are ideas to be shared, considered, dismissed or expanded.
As for the suggestion that we change the groups name, we are Calgary Transit users. The name will remain as is.
To date, we have not received any information from Calgary Transit. You also said you would provide the names and contacts of other parties who would be interested in our policy council. I suggest you simply provide them with my contact info or the URL for our group.
Again, please provide policy or the decision by Calgary Transit to not allow our group access to distribution of information via your present marketing capacity, eg Buses, Trains, Benches, et al.
We would like to schedule an opportunity to present our initial policy recommendations.
We invite Calgary Transit to join us in the redemocratization of the civic process.
Respectfully,
Paul Hughes
Calgary Transit Users Group
Cc CTUG member listserv
On 4-Jun-09, at 4:51 PM, Mckendrick, Neil wrote:
Paul: Further to our conversation today and your request for use of Calgary Transit advertising space for your transit user group, I want to emphasize the following points:
Calgary Transit will commit to support your user group by providing information or responding to requests or suggestions regarding policies and practices. We will include you on distribution lists for information that is sent to the media and other public outlets, public reports to City Council, and we will respond to any of your questions and requests for information.
We ask that your site should be designed so that it is clear to all who visit your site that you are not in any way associated with Calgary Transit. As we discussed, your group's autonomy should be important to you and your members. We can not provide you with any special status since we have to provide others with the same opportunity if they so chose.
We will consider providing a link to your site from the Calgary Transit webpage.
Calgary Transit cannot provide your group with any of our advertising space allotment (buses, trains, shelters, benches, etc) for the purpose of promoting your group. Aside from contradicting the second bullet point above, our space allotment is fully booked for the rest of this year. As well, I do not believe that our contract with our advertising agency would permit us to use this space for this purpose.
Once again, we request that you consider a name other than "Calgary Transit User Group" (see my previous note below).
We look forward to working with you in this context.
Neil McKendrick,
Manager, Transit Planning
Calgary Transit
From: Mckendrick, Neil
Sent: 2009 May 28 9:24 AM
To: '1111'; Wong, Fred
Cc: growingspaces@2011calgary.ca
Subject: RE: Introducing the Calgary Transit Users Group
Paul: I have read your note that you sent to me on Sunday and I discussed it with several of my colleagues on Tuesday.
Since Fred is away on vacation at the moment, we would like to discuss this with him before getting back to you on all of your ideas and requests.
However, a couple of initial thoughts:
It will be important that when people access your site that they understand that this site is an independent group that is not associated with either the City of Calgary or Calgary Transit. I think this will be important for both parties (you and the City). One idea that we discussed was that the name "Calgary Transit Users Group" sounds rather official. Would you consider "Friends of Calgary Transit"? It has a much less official and more folksy sound to it.
In any event we would like to see a disclaimer when one enters your site that explains this is not sponsored by Calgary Transit.
Once we have discussed this with Fred, we'll get back to you with an outline as to what support that we can offer to you and your site.
Fred is back next week, so we should be able to respond by later in the week.
Neil McKendrick,
Manager, Transit Planning
Calgary Transit
Sent: 2009 May 24 12:01 PM
To: Mckendrick, Neil; Wong, Fred
Cc: growingspaces@2011calgary.ca
Subject: Introducing the Calgary Transit Users Group
Hi Neil & Fred,
We would like to introduce the entirely volunteer Calgary Transit Users Group? http://tinyurl.com/CalgaryTransit
As per imagineCalgary, any citizen is welcome to join this innovative, creative, transparent, open and democratic group that seeks to enhance the transit service experience for all Calgarians. We believe citizens who use public transit are?extraordinary citizens and?CTUG would like to thank all employees of Calgary Transit for their commitment to providing exceptional service to these Calgarians.
The digital infrastructure of the group will grow over time and we?welcome you to join our group.
Can we set up a schedule that will allow us to?present our ideas to Calgary Transit once a month?
We would also like to access the internal marketing structure of Calgary Transit to create awareness of CTUG with all our customers. Could you also add a link to our group from the Calgary Transit launch page?www.calgarytransit.com?
Please also advise of Calgary Transit committee meetings and events so we can post to CTUG.
Please also advise of any other individuals or groups operating in the best interest of Calgarians as it applies to public transit. Neil, you mentioned some individuals in our meeting you would put us in touch with. We have also heard of a low transit fare group called ULITP. All contacts would be appreciated.
Can you also identify the members of the City of Calgary Transit Committee and their respective contact information.
We look forward to working with Calgary Transit to make our mass transit system the best in the world.
Respectfully,
Paul Hughes
Calgary Transit Users Group?http://tinyurl.com/CalgaryTransit
Monday, June 8, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
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