S&D Railway Trust

Just to clarify, by "magnificent efforts" I was not referring to the work on the locomotive or the fundraising therefor, magnificent though that was. I was referring to the regular posting of illustrated updates on Nat Pres.

 

So you say, but, of course, only in jest. So what else is unique to the West Somerset Railway, apart form its tendency to self destruct? Perhaps it is the way that its governance is set up. In the absence of anything else, could the two possibly be connected?

 

Pleased to see that you haven’t left us completely, Mike.

 

They possibly are, though I suspect not in that way - it has long seemed that the structures on the WSR tend to exaggerate issues already present, not cause them.

 

Having the Plc at one end of the line and the WSRA at the other also feels a bit odd. I appreciate it's probably mainly for practical reasons of space, but working 22 miles away from each other can hardly help in fostering a sense of one railway.

 

Ah, happy days; working on that Road Van with Peter Davies

 

Valid point and it doesn't help but ultimately in my opinion this is all about people not being able to work together. Yes the structure is not good, change is needed and it currently allows all sorts of long standing problems to continue when people don't work together and 'try and take each other out' rather than fix it positively. It's been that way now for a long while and the solutions to fix that have been available, debated and discussed for a number of years. However the people in charge have not worked together and won't agree to fix it. No-doubt individuals will respond to this post saying "its not our fault, its...." and that will rather prove my point.

Even with a poor structure it could be made to work if everybody on all three Boards were united, aligned and working together with a common aim, but they aren't. Although again some will say they are, its all great and lets plant some more Daffodils.

The operation of the WSR as a whole can only ever be about people, they are responsible for working together for a common aim (whilst of course not always having to agree in all things), the structure whether its right or wrong can't physically do anything and can't be held responsible, only people do things, take actions or of course just blame their tools and everybody else.

 

Just bookmark and visit www.wsr.org.uk/pics for regular postings of illustrated updates of magnificent efforts on the WSR.

Steve
(Proving that WSR volunteers are not banned from posting to social media as wrongly suggested earlier)

 

Move both organisations to brand-new Arend Towers at Williton Grand Central then ??? Should only cost a few £M....

 

Indeed, I did say I do appreciate the practical reasons too! It just seems to be yet another thing that perpetuates the "them and us" feeling that seems to be part of the problem from where I'm sitting 70 odd miles or so away.

 

I understand the plc will have admin staff present at BL once train operations restart. The BL shop and cafe are also plc-run operations now.

 

The original complaint was the lack of such things on Nat Pres. Perhaps you could rectify that?

Always glad to be proved wrong in this sort of case.

 

I’d suggest that the two are mutually re-enforcing.

Bad actors can take advantage of poor organisational design - causing more dysfunctional and increasing the chances of powergrabs etc.

Good organisational design can limit the ability of those with the malign intentions from carrying out their plans.

Good actors can make bad organisational design work better.

The WSR has the worst of all worlds.

 

Most pics on wsr.org.uk are covered by a Creative Commons licence which allows re-use providing the CC link and wording is applied. Feel free to post 'em here. I'm afraid I'm busy enough putting pics online via one site. Chip in and help out by all means

Steve

 

This thread is entitled S&D Railway Trust and Washford Eviction Notice for those who haven't noticed.

 

Right Ok.

I suppose I should clarify our comms strategy from an Association perspective.
Our members will always be top of our list either via the web site, which is public, or by e-mail news letter or via the Journal.
We know many enthusiasts of the WSR follow our railways happenings on WSR.org.uk, the excellent site run by Steve Edge a long time WSR fan and supporter. So we try to make sure we keep Steve in the loop.
We try our best to maintain contact with all who donate to the campaigns we run for the WSR but even that is difficult. We know we must do better there.
While we welcome Nat Pres residents posting links to our news items We simply do not have the resource to keep NP up to date ourselves.
Robin did make a special effort during the 9351 rebuild but that sort of effort is hard to sustain.

I will end there or some of the members of Nat Pres will accuse me of special pleading.

 

Welcome back!

 

Sadly it's a thread involving the WSR so that means massive thread drift is all but guaranteed.

 

But are certain people attempting to water down or derail this thread, that personally I consider to be of huge significance to the preservation movement generally, and obviously in respect of the SDRT.

Perhaps, Mike, but what you have contributed today on this thread is totally irrelevant to the subject of this thread. As acting WSRA Chairman you could have posted something more relevant and in support of the SDRT. The impression you provided today is that you have no view on the SDRT's 'Notice to Quit' served upon it by the solicitors for the WSR PLC board.

Good luck on Saturday!

Cheers,

Julian

 

Sadly Julian attempting to assert order onto any thread in any internet forum is about as likely to succeed as trying to put milk back into bottles.
Look how hard the mods try to keep the WSR Operations Thread focussed on WSR Operations matters.

I assume on Saturday both you and I will be cheering for Wales? Unless you know something that I don't, in which case probably a mistake to post it in public.