March 2022 Newsletter

A lot has happened since my last Newsletter in October last year, not the least of which has been the outbreak of war in Ukraine; an unthinkable atrocity in this day and age. Our hearts go out to all those suffering in Ukraine and the millions of refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries. Here I hope that Bucks Council will soon put in place support for those of us willing and able to house Ukranian refugees.

Following its lack of daily use during the pandemic, the bus has given us a few electrical and mechanical problems since restart last July. However, our skilled and determined Management Committee member Ian Firth has kept on top of the difficulties and thankfully, very little service running time has been lost.

Predictably, passenger numbers have been low, currently around half that of re-Covid numbers. The wet, cold and windy winter weather has not helped and I suspect that some of our former passengers are understandably still a little wary of venturing out too far. The onset of Spring will, I am sure, embolden more folk to use our bus and we are planning a promotion campaign on social media to encourage younger members of the community to take advantage of our service.

I do hope you like our new website – www.racb.co.uk – which has been designed for us by the same company that devised the yellow and green logos on the side and front of our bus. Do let me know if you have any comment on the site – we are always open to suggestions for improvement.

Although passenger numbers on our scheduled services have reduced, the resurgence of our outings has been a great success, thanks mostly to the enthusiastic efforts of another Committee member, Roger Brown. Since we restarted outings in October last year, most of the trips have been fully or even over subscribed. And I know that Roger is planning some exciting new places to visit in the months ahead. Information on outings is on our website, in the Chiltern View journal, in the Library and on the bus itself.

Outings Schedule for April

I hope that those of you possessing concessionary fare cards have welcomed the ability to “swipe” them on our new ticket machine. For us, it is a great leap forward. Our drivers find the new machine easy to use, information from the new machine is more accurate than from the old one and Debbie, our coordinator, has seen her workload reduce significantly.

Eventually, we may enable debit and credit cards to be “swiped” but because the number of cash fares we take is low, the capability is not a high priority for us.

You will see that we have retained our advice to wear a facemask on the bus if possible. That decision, made a few weeks ago, has proved prescient because sadly there does seem to be a resurgence of Covid in most parts of the UK. We must hope that this is a temporary blip that will soon decline.

I am looking forward to the warmer and sunnier weather of Spring and Summer and I hope you are too. Petrol prices are rising fast so leave the car at home, hop on our bus and, in the words of Flanders and Swann, enjoy the “Transport of Delight”!

Peter Johnson
5 March 2022