Thank you to everyone who has booked places for the OAUK 2023 Conference; at present we are almost booked to capacity, which is really pleasing. However, our plans have been somewhat thrown by the latest dates for UK rails strikes, which perfectly sandwich our main event.
Strike Days
As you may have seen, yesterday, fresh train driver strikes were called for 1 Feb & 3 Feb. The strikes are expected to halt most train services across 14 train operating companies on those days, including intercity and commuter routes, with potential disruption on 2 Feb as well. In terms of context, the 1 Feb strike day coincides with industrial action by 100,000 civil servants in their dispute over pay and jobs, a strike by teachers over pay and nationwide protests against the government’s new strike law.
Conference Plans
These dates are of course, somewhat unfortunate for our conference plans. We know that many of you may have to reconsider attending because of travel arrangements.
After meeting with some of our Board members this morning, at present we are planning to go ahead with most of the event as planned. We may have to change some of our speaker line-ups and other parts of the content and perhaps include some remote contributions. We will reconsider some of the activity on the pre-Conference day (Wed 1 Feb) and will probably adjust some of the timings. We also may have to come up with a new idea for the lavish dinner we had planned and replace it with an informal drink reception.
Travel Plans | Car Sharing
Some of you will be local, so hopefully will have minimal problems. And of course, there are alternatives to trains that may be useful.
We thought to co-ordinate some car-sharing information for those intending to drive and those who need a lift, so please add yourself here: CONFERENCE CAR SHARING
Refunds
If you find you are unable to attend, we will, of course, give a full refund on ticket and dinner places. Cancelled trains should generate an automatic refund and hopefully, there will be some flexibility with the accommodation bookings under the circumstances, but please let us know if you have any issues.
Thank you for your support and for bearing with us – we will be back in touch with ticket bookers again soon.