West Somerset Railway General Discussion

Well the word charge would certainly be in Arkwright's vocabulary but I doubt gift would be.
PS: note the smiley....

 

So it is. My apologies to all concerned. My mistake was that from the Projects drop down I went straight to the blog sub-tab without realising that the 'Assembling 9351' item was a link itself.

 

Speaking as a software developer: users should never apologise for not understanding the UX when it doesn't do what they expect. That's the UX designers' and the developers' fault.

(I would be surprised if the WSRA website has been through proper usability testing, because after all it's a charity website, and I can see it was put together with free software, quickly and cheaply. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - there's no point paying more than you need to, and the hard work will have been in preparing all the content, not in putting the design together. What you do miss out on, though, are eyes who are seeing your content afresh and will make sure your site ends up intuitive to use - not to mention, I can see a couple of CSS glitches on it that I wouldn't let my team get away with, such as the drop-down menus moving slightly on mouseover/exit events)

 

What I don't understand is WHY any third party should derive benefit from any 'gift' I may choose to give?

Can't the WSRA handle it themselves with one of their paid staff?

 

Always good to have professional comment. I am sure, Jacquie Green, WSRA Manager, would be pleased to receive your comments and pass them on to those responsible for maintaining the website.

‘Just giving’ is widely used by many good causes because it allows instant donations at 2 in the morning and without any intervention from office staff. In these days of instant on-line shopping, such a facility has been found to significantly ‘up’ donations. That facility, of course, comes at a (modest) fee.

However, delighted to hear that you would like to make a contribution. I believe you have my e-mail address? If not, please PM me and I will pass on the e-mail address of the appropriate WSRA person who would be delighted to receive your donation (electronic transfer, cheque, postal order, luncheon vouchers, gold sovereigns, whatever) and provide you with a gift aid form if you are eligible. (If you are a UK tax payer.) That will avoid any percentage going anywhere other than to the castings.

The present on line facility is focussed on the Watchet casting but if you would prefer to donate to the Dunster or Stogumber castings, that would be fine.

Anyone else is welcome to follow the same course.

Regards

Robin White

 

I’m sure they could. But they’d also need to pay someone to make the changes on the website to allow card payments to be taken online, and make all the administrative changes to support that. That cost will run into the thousands, with no guaranteed return and the certainty of further costs as standards change.

I administer Gift Aid for a church, and do all I can to avoid having to pay firms like JustGiving. But there are times when using them raises far more money for us than it costs us in fees for their services. We had one sponsored event where online donations were triple the sponsor forms, and we took far more than we expected - because we could get the word out to friends and families and they could just pay online.

Many people do not want to say “I’ll donate”, then wait for a form, before sending in a cheque; or even wait for the Gift Aid declaration. If you put barriers in, you lose donations.

One other point. One poster queried why use JustGiving when the point of the WSRA is to allow Gift Aid to be claimed. The point is that JustGiving do the work of claiming with HMRC on the charity’s behalf, but that the Gift Aid can be claimed because WSRA is a charity.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

A joint statement has been issued about the future of 4110, the bid has failed.

http://www.wsr.org.uk/4110-feb-2019.pdf

 

Quite. It's a pity that BT MyDonate are winding up their operation, as they only charged a flat 15p fee, so a £10 donation with Gift Aid was worth £12.35 to the charity. The costs of the service were absorbed by BT as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, but they are redirecting that money to other purposes. There are nonetheless more cost-effective online platforms than JustGiving.

Tom

 

Thank you.

Always pleased to learn from others’ experience.

Perhaps you could PM me the links?

Robin

 

It appears to me that in response to the GWR 4110 Ltd pledges of £100K plus, the WSRA have raised just £13K.

Add to that the £100 pledged to the 9351 Restoration Appeal on Just Giving, and it tells me all I need to know about the ability of the WSRA to fund-raise for the WSR.

Stef.

 

On Steve Edge’s site.

 

Good to know there are alternatives but presently I have some horrendous bills I must defray on my own account first without making a preferential contribution to the WSR first - A basic OAP does not go very far unfortunately!

 

While I am not a great fan of Large Praries, IMHO the small ones are much better looking, given the connectuion that 4110 had with the WSR in pre preservation days it is rather sad, and indicative of the problems tha railway faces

 

PM Sent.

Tom

 

oh dear oh dear how utterly inevitable!

and sadly no surprise after the cockameme way in which the money was to be raised following the WSRA intervention.

This has led me to take the decision NOT to renew my WSRA membership no 189 which was due on February 1st

and I am not sure I can be bothered to attend the revised plc meeting either, but will have to take that decision when the revised date is known

 

That figure brings into question the future role of the WSRA does it not?

What will happen to the £13,000 now the engine is lost?

 

The WSRA have made a comment about your last point on the WSRA website (also posted on wsr.org.uk)

Steve

 

Thanks Steve missed the Jacqui Green Statement!

 

Me too. I have sent an e-mail notifying my intention not to renew.

In future I will contribute directly to the Plc, although I am very unhappy with the way they have handled this sorry episode.

Stef.

 

Me too.