Marie Daly, Chair of Women in Rail

Great start to the week putting into action some feedback from ASLEF women’s group. Kerry Cassidy BA BSc MCIRO great to start the conversation on how Women in Rail (WR) and ASLEF's women's group can work together to better support women in frontline roles. This next year a key focus for WR is how we engage at a greater level at Driver, Conductor and Station?front line level #collaboration.

It was great to hear from so many fantastic speakers at the Rail Cymru event and well done to Peloton and all companies presenting. There was an obvious step change in diversity in both presenters and topics from previous years. We still have a long way to go but celebrating small steps ???? I wanted to call out the presentation from Eleanor Bamber from Hugh James on diversity in our sector and her call to action to organisations to look at how they can make quick wins to achieve “positive action” versus “positive discrimination”. Eleanor has kindly shared her presentation with us so please have a look here.

It was also great to see our regional lead Gemma Southgate ?at the WR stand sharing all the great work happening across WR.

I was delighted to attend CBI (Confederation of British Industry) Women’s Leadership Network for Wales event. It was great to hear from CEO Rain Newton-Smith around CBI role in driving diversity. There were so many takeaways to share but the headlines were again the power of storytelling Alison Orrells you are an inspiration for all women ??

?- in terms of gender equality we don’t have to step far back to see how far we have come

- we speak up as we want organisations to change

- how we address role modelling when women are leaving work early

- how can we keep women in work

- promote flexibility for all parents

- continue to normalise conversations that are uncomfortable to support moving the dial for gender equality #myfavouriteone

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It was great to see that the Swift event with Bernadette Kelly is back in the diary I know like me so many of you are really looking forward to a hearing from a truly inspirational woman in leadership #rolemodelling. Shamit Weinberger Gaiger OBE

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Goodluck to Sharon Salmon MBE (she/her) who is speaking at the Matchtech CP7 launch party on the 25th April in London on challenges and lessons learnt on fostering a diverse workforce in the rail industry. If only we can get all of our industry as passionate about EDI gap data as we are about performance data. This will go a long way to helping us make decisions that really move the gender equality dial. Matchtech thank you for being a Silver corporate member your support allows us to continue to provide support and membership free to our members #inclusivity

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So this is my last day before 10 days leave and I am mentally struggling with my commitment to be “off off” ?? but I am telling myself to get a grip I have a great team who have everything covered. This is definitely a “me” thing.

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See you in two weeks ??

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M x

Marie Daly