West Somerset Railway - Removal of the PLC Chairman and related matters

Try the handy "ignore" option

BTW I gather the Plc board are working on improving 'public relations'. I hope they don't take too long about it

Steve

 

I thought I was replying politely to a comment that had been made following the (now satisfied) request to have WSRA Trustee e-mail addresses on the WSRA website.

Robin

 

To be fair Robin - the words in the reply were fine; the four giant pictures of your lunch in the same message look a touch, erm, self aggrandising.

Tom

 

There do seem to be an excessive number of "squirrels" appearing in this thread. Is somebody trying to run a diversion campaign ? If so, they are only damaging their own cause.

 

You were Robin and as Tom says in his post the wording was fine. However the thread is about the PLC and not the Association and does, I believe, illustrate to those looking on see the continual blurring at the edges of what the PLC is and should do and what the Association is for and should be doing.

 

The interests of the company surely centre on the successful and continuing operation of the railway, and that surely depends on the co-operation and goodwill of many individuals and other organisations. We are assured that co-operation at ground level remains good, but for how long if the current shenanigans at Board level continue?

 

I don't necessarily disagree but my post was in answer to Fred Kerrs's post and was correcting his misunderstanding of company law, nothing more nothing less.

 

Regarding the content of this thread, a Lewis Carroll quote comes to mind...

"But I thought this was a serious thread," Alice objected.

"When I post in a thread," Humpty Dumpty said, "it is just as serious as I want it to be---neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make a thread be about so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master---that's all."

 

I suspect the whole point is that neither seems totally sure, or, at the very least, each has a different view of the answer to what they, and particularly the other, are for and should be doing. Also, I suspect, possibly in part due to their answer to what the other one should be doing is incorrect, they consider that the other isn't actually doing it very well!

Of course, the latter may be true even if the former isn't!

Steven

 

Point taken.

But ‘le diner’ at Le Train Bleu restaurant at Paris GdL is one of the great European railway experiences.

Robin

 

So is the girl who worked in the buffet car on the Thalys between Brussels and Amsterdam but that doesn't mean I have to post pictures. It involved the French Foreign Legion, a skateboard and a lot of champagne. It is absolutely true however I'll save it for my memoirs.

Anyway to get back on topic, the latest word on the street is that the recent announcement of a 7th director may have been premature resulting in a "now you see him, now you don't" moment on the plc website. Rather like the Cheshire cat in Alice In Wonderland instead of Schrodinger's cat.

 

May I give a small example of lack of cohesion between PLC & WSRA.

Buried in the June minutes of WSRA it was resolved to turn down a request from PLC to sponsor a spitfire or tank for the 40’s w/e. Reason not within their charity remit. Fair enough.

But....... did the PLC ask the wrong question? Would they have had a positive response if they had asked WSRA to fund the military train which I guess cost around £1K for the W/e? I would like to think so .

You could also ask why the WSRA did not make this counter offer.

This posting is based entirely upon published and public info - I have no other info.

 

And its relevance to this thread is?

 

I think that there is one idividual who who is leading (flying?) on these distractor posts.

 

I wasn’t a WSRA Trustee at the time but I would think that just ‘paying for things’ which form part of Gala events may be hard to justify against Charitable objects.

A second point is the Gala, which to the casual observer appeared to be financially very successful, should bear costs like that itself.

Otherwise, in both cases, they are revenue support for the operating company.

Robin

 

I’m sure that I read reference in previous years minutes that the WSRA was not adverse to sponsoring the hire of an auto train for Galas etc. This would also constitute revenue support.

I attended a presentation a good few years ago now with a heritage railway director from a railway located some miles away. The said railway had a charity and related company structure. The view taken by the trustees regarding charity support of a related company was rather different to the view above.

Basically i think that the WRSA needs to think about how it presently interacts with the Plc and what benefits it receives. This may not be obvious, for example there may be an arrangement for free storage of rolling stock. If there is sufficient goodwill/advantage in the present arrangements as a whole (emphasis) then financial revenue support to the PLC might well be justified.

Looking at arrangements or requests in isolation is a definite weakness in my view.

Regards

Matt

 

There is plainly much internal communicating about mutual support to be done. On all heritage railways.

Robin

 

Good question, Tim. I've bolded a couple of things in your message.

If you think of the WSRA as a grant-making body, then any request has to fit their charitable objectives, as RW pointed out, usually with a high educational or interpretive content.
I agree that it wouldn't be a hard case to make (the tank/Spitfire), but I suspect that the Plc did not phrase their request adequately. There's a great deal of 'creativity' that goes in to grant requests!
Grant-making bodies do not generally make 'counter offers' but they do often suggest a different/better approach for a subsequent application.

I'll comment that your £1K estimate is probably low - if you dig through the published figures for hiring trains / coaches / driving experiences I suspect you'll find the cost to the Plc is around 6 or 700GBP to run any train the length of the line. I'm happy to be corrected.

I have a feeling that the 1940s weekend, thanks to a massive amount of work by many Volunteers, groups & even an entire Town, developed into a much larger & more successful event than was originally anticipated. Maybe not the financial salvation of the Plc, but a handy injection of funds.

(This message sent from over 200 miles away, outside territorial waters, outside the EU & outside fishing limits).

 

I think that belongs in the Operations thread, not here.
Please post it.

 

A little bit of humour should not come amiss.