Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

How do these compare with those on Carriage 2 at the NRM? I can see both sides of this - we should do everything to get it right, but we have already invested donors' funds into the incorrect ones. Is it possible to retro-fit those currently in use to make them more accurate over time?

 

Carriage 2 in the NRM now has none fitted.

 

Absolutely no insult intended, remember you and I have an eye for detail and we may notice, but I know of no one else who has noticed in ten years.

I will confer with Charles and our chairman when I see them next week, ultimately though it is not my decision.

 

That's because the lamps and the bungs were removed from the coach at Clannaborough before I first knew it in the early 60s, probably by Mr Cheriton who lived there during the war and until that time (we discovered when chatting that my sister's school in Harpenden had been evacuated there during WW2). Wilson Mitchel, who inherited the coach with the property when he bought it in the late 60s or early 70s, lent me two slightly incomplete lamps from the garden for recording purposes. I have posted a photograph of one of them before, but here is another composite one. Two of them show the Bristol W&CW Co Ltd plate. Charles has copies of several and of the full size sections and cross-sectional drawings I prepared at the time. You mentioned the interior in a previous post - as far as I know the lamp globes and fittings did not change when they altered from oil to gas (except, of course, the burner). When this happened, I was told, instead of climbing up the end steps to lift them out to light them with a taper, the guard entered each compartment and dropped the glass globe. Globes were of two types - straight sided, curled over and open at the bottom, and coming to a point at the bottom. There was the smashed remains of one of the latter in the garden. See the cross-sections in 'Measured and Drawn'. The NRM had copies of these pictures and drawings many years ago, sent at a time when it was still intended to restore the coach. When the coach was being loaded on the lorry to be taken to NRM in April 1982 (photo may be in the next Magazine), I searched the garden for as many bits of coach I could find, and put them in the coach, but I only found later when I came to measure the Chelfham signal, (or Mr Mitchel found), two or three lamps and the acetylene gas piping that had been removed a long time previously.

 

Widely recognised by whom?

 

Well, embedded in Charity Commission guidance for a start.

I’m a school governor, where best practice is two terms of 4 years. As a trustee elsewhere, I’m limited to two terms of 3 years. And as an ordinary PCC member, the Church Representation Rules impose a single term limit as an elected PCC member (though co option is a possibility and ex officio roles aren’t limited in the same way).

My view is that a maximum stint of about 10 years is about right. On each board I’ve joined, it’s taken me time to become effective; as a governor, I know I’m getting a bit stale and need to think about how much longer I’ve got to serve.

As I mentioned a particular name, I should be clear that this isn’t specifically about any individual trustee, but using one who is expected to be up for election as an example of the issues that exist with repeated re election to a board.

In this board, where is the fresh thinking, or the new perspectives? When I look at the Charity Commission, I see people who’ve been in post a long time, and an average that is high (4 of them since before the CC started recording appointment dates, which means a minimum of 12 years). It’s that that triggers concern rather than any specific individual having been there for ever and a day.


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According to the listings in the Magazine Mr Cowling has been a Trustee for 15 years and Mr Summers 21 years; before that he was a director of the Railway Co.

 

You really really must get those books done! So much info, not only on the physical items of the L&B but so much more.

 

If my health (and wife's slight intolerance about how many years it's been) doesn't get a lot worse I hope Volume 1 (up to 1923) will have my design wallah put it together this autumn. On present progress that sounds realistic; just filling one or two gaps and editing the last third. For example at the AGM weekend I hope to get to Ilfracombe Museum to ask to use an illustration of a packet steamer along the Bristol Channel of the 1860s. And there are a couple of permissions I need to obtain. Volume 2 should follow - two original drawings of the travelling crane have come to my attention (from different sources), to add to the one of the match truck found in 2012, but need a lot of work to make them publishable (or trace). So, tempting as it might be to rush into print, this particular revelation is important enough to deal with beforehand as the drawing in M & D used main dimensions and photographs. Expectations have risen beyond belief since the last history in 1964, so I hope to rise to it as a fitting tribute to the people with the dedication to build it and those who worked on it. There will be the odd annoyance - like being unable to find the date the footbridges at the Barnstaple level crossings were updated from wood to reinforced concrete, despite determined efforts to find out in newspapers, the Company private ledger and Council minutes in the absence of a date on the blueprints. But it will not be held up for that.

 

Wonderful news @Michael B and so good to meet you last weekend. These will clearly be the definitive histories, and I can't wait!

 

Whereas the incumbent trustees have tried to prevent people who don't agree with them from standing. They have done this at least twice; leaving one candidate off the list and, just recently, seeking to change the rules to give themselves total control in future over who could stand and who could not.

 

Let's see how things go forward, all sides are tending wounds I dare say at the moment, it all needs to simmer down as there is no doubt it was starting to severely effect staff, donors, volunteers and visitors, and that isn't good by any means.

We can chew over the why, whens and wherefores forever but it won't get us anywhere.

 

Some, admittedly and fortunately a minority, on here would have us believe everything in the L&BR Trust garden is now rosy and that we should all just 'move on'.
I don't see how we can do that with all the Trustees' transgressions. Let's summarise where we are:
* Two eminently sensible and valuable Trustees have been sacked by the membership for no justifiable reason;
* The current cabal of Trustees remain in office, temporarily strengthening their hold on the Trust;
* The AoA have thankfully not been appropriated by the Trustees, enabling a fair AGM election to proceed in May, with four Trustee positions open;
* The EGM results indicated that the membership are largely unaware of, or more worryingly unconcerned by, the Trustees transgressions.

I wonder how a summary of events culminating in the EGM might be brought to the attention of all members before the AGM?

The two sacked Trustees, Anne Belsey and Chris Duffell are working enthusiastically and effectively for Exmoor Associates / Yeo Valley Trust. (See EA Trackbed Trails No. 43.)
(I wonder what plans Anne Belsey, as owner of Sir George Newnes (previously Charles Wytock), now has for the locomotive?)
The six current Trustees should resign before the AGM and offer an apology for their actions. It should be left to them individually and their consciences whether they then seek re-election. In any event Mr 'Chairman' Miles and Mr Ian Cowling should step away from their positions. Mr Tony Nicholson should relinquish his role as Trust Secretary but might continue with his role as Editor of the L&BR Trust Magazine. An impartial Trust Secretary is an urgent requirement.

 

Besides that, Happy Easter everyone, I hope you have a great day whatever you are up to!

 

Things are certainly not rosey, but we do have to try and move forward from here, otherwise this will just go on for years and years, back and forward, more accusations, more division, more upsets and more damage to the railway as a whole.

I'm not sure about Charles Whytock, I think it's now owned by a consortium? I might be wrong.

 

I have suggested a way forward Dave. It involves contrition and apology from the transgressors. Continued hubris will not help us all 'move forward'. Sadly, I doubt they are capable of this and so, ultimately, a complete renewal of the Trustees might be the only way forward.

 

I don't think the membership as a whole will put up with much more of what we have seen these past 12 months. Many are now seeing the Egm as a point in time where it all needs to stop.
We have an AGM soon, where new trustees may come on board, we don't know, that's for the membership to decide.
Personally I think for the good of the railway as a whole, the whole lot needs to cool off for while.

 

The membership may not understand what has happened, as I have suggested. They must surely be put in the picture. As you say, some may find this all rather difficult, as indeed I think, do we all. It would be nice if a new start could be made at the forthcoming AGM and I have suggested how. Then perhaps a start might be made to recover from this dreadful episode.

 

I wont beat about the bush here Dave, two individuals who's names have been mentioned in a very recent post have been the cause of mistrust in the trust for many years, from the underhanded attempt to take control of EA and their lies about 'legal advice' in that case to their arrogance towards everything they don't approve of or those who don't approve of what they want to do is the sole reason that we are in this position, there was argument on points raised at the EGM by members that the trust had sought 'advice by phone calls' but no hard evidence of this was produced, it is blatantly clear that Chris Duffell wasn't welcome on the board from the day he was elected, let alone from when he actually started questioning the decisions that were being made, Annes removal too is no doubt because she is not afraid to 'speak up'. The removal of both Chris and Anne is now what it is, nothing will change whatsoever apart from the fact the board might not get questioned on what they want to do so much, luckily resolution 3 was defeated, i was informed on the Saturday morning by more than 6 volunteers that if that resolution was passed they would no longer be willing to volunteer for the trust or CIC, Anne has since suggested she will now be reassessing how she spends her time and where as she now doesn't feel obliged to 'cover' any short fall of volunteers needed to run the railway at short notice, which of course she did on numerous occasions last season, the arrogance and ignorance of two men has caused so many deep rooted issues that whilst they remain in their positions nothing will move on

 

I'm not sure of the legal status but yes, a consortium - if that is what it is - headed up by Anne Belsey.