Presidential Address, Neil Micklethwaite – Thursday 21 September

OUR NEW President for the 2017-18 session will be Neil Micklethwaite, Commercial Director – Rail at Stagecoach Group. Mr Micklethwaite is a qualified accountant who has worked extensively in the rail industry. He joined British Rail as a graduate trainee 25 years ago. As well as having two periods out of the industry working in financial services, telecommunications and central government (non-transport), he has held senior finance, customer experience and commercial roles at First Great Western, Chiltern Railways and most recently at East Midlands Trains, where he was Customer Experience & Commercial Director, prior to taking up his new appointment in early 2016.

Neil Micklethwaite will open this session with his Presidential Address on Thursday 21 September at the Marble Hall and Gallery, 1 Birdcage Walk, London SW1 (the Institution of Mechanical Engineers headquarters) starting at 18.30. There will be refreshments and a networking opportunity following the meeting, so members planning to attend are requested to send an email to nathalie.zaharia@stagecoachgroup.com so we know how many to cater for.

SIMON FEAST WRITES

The RSA would like to thank our outgoing President Karen Boswell for her support and excellent speaker programme over the last two years.

We welcome Neil Micklethwaite as our new President, who I know has a full and wide reaching programme of speakers lined up for the coming year. He also has some new ideas of how we can do things a little bit differently over the coming year of exciting transformation for the RSA, details of which he will reveal at his Presidential Address. Details of the future programme for the Midlands section are still under consideration and will be advised to all the regular e-mail contacts when they are clearer.

Following the Extraordinary General Meeting in June, discussions are ongoing with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) as to the details of how the merger to form one of its rail fora will work. Details will be sent to members once these are finalised.

You can read a write-up of the talk from Nick Hughes, Sales Director at Hitachi, on page 70 in this issue of Modern Railways. You can also read Modern Railways’ write-ups of previous RSA talks on the Activities – Past Meetings page of the website.

The RSA postal address for all correspondence is: Railway Study Association, PO Box 1210, Chislehurst, BR7 9BU. Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope for a reply by letter mail.

If you wish to keep up to date with developments you can follow us on Twitter @railwaystudy and also on Facebook using the link on our website.

Hear the speakers, ask the questions and then read all about it in Modern Railways!

R S A

Railway Study Association

Developing railway professionals

www.railwaystudyassociation.org