Page 4 - January February 2014

President’s Car
A New Year, and more opportunities to make this a better year than the last for having fun, and doing what we enjoy best – don’t shake your head and grin in that manner, most of us are not as young as our minds think we are, and we have all that seasonal eating to work off! So what better way than to get off your ar . . . armchairs and start organising the events you keep telling us you want to see.
It is not the role of the BoD to organise an event, but I was hoping to kick something off by holding a small, informal, Achievement Program Judging event as an introduction to this cascading around the country. I sent out an email to a few that I hoped, or knew, would be interested, and offered to hold the first one at my house around about the time you are reading this. However, after feedback from people who lived too far away to be practical to attend, and really wanted to, I have decided that the only solution is to have more than one session in different locations to make it more accessible. For this I will need YOUR help, especially from those who have shown that they are very keen on this, have been previously involved, or are just curious. What we need is to identify some venues and some commitment to attending. To this end I suggest that we try to utilise a venue currently being used as a group meeting place that has a spare room. We used to have these sessions at just one venue a couple of times a year, and we always had a lot of fun. Now it’s time to get more people involved, so we need to take it out to the membership and make it more accessible to all.
So I’m appealing to all current and former judges, to those who are currently in the AP, and to those who want to learn more on how to build quality models. Give us a location and a date and we will attend.
Please remember, the Achievement Program is not about criticism, or knit­picking. It’s also not a competition, but a way to build confidence in your own modelling and to obtain and share knowledge on how to improve your own modelling skills.
My continuing travels now include a very satisfying visit to the Snake Bend Group (or Three Counties Group) at Viney Hill. I never thought I would have so much fun running N Scale, but it was a great day. This was rounded off with Carol and myself joining some of the team for a meal in a local pub and staying in a group member’s hotel. However, I was not the only one to enjoy myself; one of our new members was also along for the visit, and I want to thank him for furthering our enjoyment of the day by his own token of appreciation.
The following Wednesday found Carol and I driving up to Crewe to attend a presentation by Jason Shron and Dan Garcia of Rapido Trains. This was directed to trade representatives of British outline in the UK and magazine editors. This was a very interesting session, especially as Jason has a unique presentation technique that possibly left the attendees driving home thinking about how many rivets there are in a Castle tender to return to sanity. The real plus for me, was not only to get to meet this hero of Canadian modellers, but to get an advanced look at the GMD­1 and gondolas that are due very soon. If you have not pre­ordered, you are so going to miss out! If you want to see some of the video clips he showed us, go to www. rapidotrains.com. Other manufacturers have websites you can visit, but they may not contain such informative (and sometimes humorous) clips.
I ran into Dan again at the NEC, Jason having returned to his hotel to regenerate (not feeling well – Dr Who and Trains overload possibly!). Kathy, Nigel, Gavin, Des and Geoff were there peddling the new leaflets with various gauges of locos on display. There were also some excellent North American layouts on display, but unfortunately very little in the way of trade that was not over­priced secondhand.
As you may be aware, the D&H group has been meeting for 20 years in various locations around the Canford Heath area of Poole. Russ Cook has been the organiser of this group for all of
Keith Webb
this time, with his wife Sue
assisting. Earlier this year
Russ had decided that he now
wanted to step down from
arranging this mostly quar­
terly meeting, and announced
his intention to do so, as well
as stepping down from his
role as Division Representa­
tive. On 30 November I was
happy to accept an invitation
to go down and be part of the
event to mark this occasion. I
was very pleased to see a good
turnout, with both N­Trak and
HO modules available to run
on. There were two presentations made to Russ. One, an engraved vase, was presented by Neil Lancaster on behalf of all the group members, the other being a plaque presented by Sue Cook (photo in this issue).
At present it is planned for the group to share venues with the Bearwood group at dates to be advised. The Bearwood Group was originally an HO offshoot from the N­Trak D&H. You can read more on the D&H group elsewhere in RH.
Earlier this year I met with Lawson Little; many of you will know him or have seen articles of his in various publications. He said to me that he would renew his membership if we covered garden railways from time to time in Roundhouse. I’m pleased to see that like me, Lawson is a man of his word and has re­joined and submitted an article that was published in the previous issue of RH. I hope that he is not the only one enjoying the articles by Nick and Peter.
While we are on the subject of the last issue of RH, it was nice to see the report from a member who had attended the Convention for the first time for the whole weekend, to find out that for years he felt that he would feel out of place or not part of the event – to find he was totally mistaken and found himself making new friends and having a lot of fun! No money can buy this feeling and you cannot explain this in any marketing – you have to experience it, and you only get this reward when you start taking part and being involved. And no, although I know the author, I did not solicit this entry. In fact I have only heard positive reports from the experiences of last year’s Convention. So again, thanks must go to the team who found the hotel and organised the Convention.
Please note that, at the time of writing this, we still do not have a confirmed bid for a 2015 convention – which will be our 70th year! For any prospective members thinking of giving it a go (and you do not need to be from close by or from the same group), the hotel at Meriden did advise that they would be happy to have us back! If you’re not sure what’s involved, there is a very helpful guide available.
Not that I need to end on a positive note, but the New Year looks like it will be starting on one! I think I’m beginning to hear a good series of chuffs (or a throaty roar if you prefer), rather than a squeal and clunk! Notwithstanding the comments above, I’m very pleased to report that we have a new Librarian in new member Chris Whyatt. Once he has organised himself and audited the contents, he will advise you how you may make the most out of this still very valuable asset. Trust me – not everything can be found on the ‘net’, as I have found out in my own research! Thank you, Chris.
As I write this, we are heading into the Christmas holiday period, I’ve already started putting a couple of easy­looking craftsman kits together, and plan to also build some ‘temporary’ benchwork in place in order to start testing my 12­track storage yard geometry before I build the level above. I enjoyed another very good operating session last weekend on the B&O and am now looking forward to another on the P&NE next week, then Benson.
4 rOuNDHOuSe