West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Or it could try Appealing for funds and keep all three, as well as bringing in new money to the West Somerset Railway.

The first stage to successful fund raising is having a mindset that it might actually work, so being willing to try!

Steven

 

No! Only the ones who repeatly make negative comments unsupported by any evidence as you do.

 

The present WSRA Trustees certainly have a ‘can do’ attitude.

It should be noted that we took the initiative to offer both the ‘gift aid shares’ route to 4110 Ltd and have been prepared to take on 4110 when the WSR plc decided it was unwilling to sell to 4110 Ltd.

Mind you, too much reading of certain contributors to this thread might cause the most positive Trustee to consider a trip to Beach Head...

Robin

 

I think you only have to look back at a few of the 16000 posts on here to realise the WSR as a whole is broke. You seem to be the only one in denial. Yes there are many good things about the WSR but the overall organisation is not one of them. One railway rather than lots of organisations doing their own thing. It's not rocket science.

 

Although I agree that the negativity of some people on this thread must be disheartening to those who are trying to get things done, perhaps we shouldn't make comments such as the last sentence.

 

Remarkable as it may seem to some, WSRA Trustees are human beings as well.

Robin

 

You could always request it for a gala in a few years, I'm sure it would be a popular visitor!

Tom

 

Ha! ha!

Could you manage an up to date photo?

Robin

 

Lots of them online

Getting back to fundraising: There is lots of support and advice and good practice available. My take is that to be successful, you require:

(1) a collective, shared vision of what is important, and that vision needs to be widely held by stakeholders before you start trying to raise funds, not after. Big successful appeals don't happen overnight. On our own railway, I doubt you would find anyone who would argue against undercover storage being just about our number one development priority. But the seeds of that attitude were laid back in the mid 1990s, and there has been a rolling delivery of different phases since about 2000.

(2) Utilise the resources you have so each party is doing what it is best suited to. In the WSR case, I'd suggest that means the charity leads fundraising (because it will be more financially efficient than a plc); but the plc leads delivery. In other words, the charity grant-funds the plc; obviously that requires proper oversight and governance, not just "here's some money". (The charity trustees have specific obligations in that regard, a point often forgotten by people asking "what has the WSRA ever done for the railway?"). The delivery part of the equation needs a solid track record on delivery to help convince the donor that their money will be well spent.

(3) Not everyone will support every project. But if the projects have been through a proper approval process with widespread buy-in and you still don't like it, don't try to actively undermine someone else's work - you'll just waste everyone's energy, including your own.

From postings here and elsewhere, I can see some welcome green shoots, particularly around point 2.

Point 1 is harder to see, but maybe that is because there are so many things that are now of critical importance that it is hard to see how you might prioritise them. Track renewal? Loco strategy? Passenger numbers? All are essential. Possibly from a charity point of view, the objective would be to leave the PLC to deal with passenger numbers; concentrate the charity really hard on fundraising against a defined loco strategy (because that is probably the easiest win for fundraising) and then assume that PLC budgets are somewhat fungible, so if the charity makes up the shortfall on loco renewal, it means the plc can re-prioritise its own spend on infrastructure.

Point 3 - I despair. The reason so many of us keep coming back to discussions around governance and structure is that the current state of those seems to lead to a widespread attitude that could be characterised (politely) as somewhere between "not invented here" and "it's my way or the highway". Come back to my point 1 - a collective, shared vision of what is important - and point 2 - utilise the resources you have so each part is doing what it is best suited to. The structure actively works against both, though number 1 is of primary importance. I fully expect the usual suspects to say that I am wrong, and all is rosy in Somerset.

Tom

 

Good point or otherwise I cannot see how they could fund it!

As for Ditcheat stuck here in Swindon I think it will be here many more years yet or for as long as MacArthurGlen want to give it storage. I may never live to see it back in Steam!

Perhaps the WSRA should have concentrated their efforts on that and 4561, (when will it ever be finished?) rather than indulge in the complication of 4110.

As I have said previously is it guaranteed that the people who offered money to the 4110 people want to transfer their funds to the WSRA and most important of all will the instigators of that initiative want to actually work on an engine owned by the WSRA? A lot of questions to which I hope we get answers on February 2nd!

 

Not in its present state.

Now there’s headline:

‘WSRA announces bid to purchase 80151...’

Only kidding folks.

Robin

 

Well we did enjoy the use of 80136 a few years back and I believe it was not only liked but highly effective as well?

 

Tom, you are 100% RIGHT with the diagnosis. Some of us are actively working on administering the prescription. Cures are not always painless.

Robin

(As you know, I was a Bluebell Trustee in the mid to late 90’s...)

 

My reaction to the request for funds from the WSRA for 4110 4561 and 7821 is that it was too expansive and therefore a bit fanciful - it would have been better to run one separate restoration campaign at a time

So was this the reason why the 4110 money was forthcoming so quickly because the objective was clear cut?

 

WSRA website not working


Keith

 

Appears to be fine when I try it.

Robin

 

It is for me with Chrome just now.

I can understand your reaction - even a phased appeal - 'Finish 4561, overhaul 7821 (because it is complete) then restore (let's not forget that is what is needed) 4110' might seem more realistic to some. Greater detail as to what is needed and how it is to be tackled would undoubtedly assist. A reminder of past achievements as listed here too.

Now I am commenting that as an outsider and it may well be that this is all in place. There is also a place, building on @Jamessquared 's suggestion, for a 'Friends of' Group within the WSRA (note to @Yorkshireman - nobody is suggesting abolishing all groups, but that a cohesive structure which they all slot into - but that is another point) to raise funds for and work on specific locos within the overall Appeal, so you may have, just as an example, the following situation:

4561: Being worked on at Williton by staff and volunteers, and the main focus of Fund Raising and activity.

7821: Safely stored at Swindon, but also acting as a publicity for the wider West Somerset Railway and the Appeal. Can have its own specific funds for those who wish to support the loco, accumulating for when work starts.

4110: Being worked on by volunteers, allocated space at Williton and with the 'Friends' running specific fund raising events, as well as its own funds for supporters.

When the NYMR ran the very successful Bridges and Wheels Appeal, there was a main account but also a separate account for those who wished to support 80135 - the 'Wheels' part. Some contributed to both, spare funds from the 'Bridges' part transferred to the 'Wheels' part and fund raising continued.

All intended as helpful suggestions and neither trouble making or criticism.

Steven

 

Should the locos should be priority (as you can hire them in as indeed is currently done)? I think I saw in a post that the WSRA had hired a fund-raising officer or at least agreed to pay someone for their time. On the basis that a bunch of people, in their spare time (who if one believes some reports also have the disadvantage that they struggle with English and cannot understand what "We will not sell to you" means!), raised £120k in a short time, it seems a pity to give the professionals the low hanging fruit tasks.