West Somerset Railway General Discussion

As someone involved in the administration of grant-giving bodies (and with only a passing, but quite horrified interest in WSR matters), I can say that in the vast majority of cases it is true that grant-givers will wish to see stable and well-managed organisations led by 'calm, purposeful and experienced management'. However, they will also wish to see that there is a track-record of grants being used for the purposes for which they were intended, good governance, probity in legal agreements and a track record in project delivery. I leave it to readers here to judge whether the situation at WSR fits that description.

As an example, one (non-heritage, non-railway) charity with which I am involved gives out three categories of funds - very small ones to individuals who fits its charitable criteria, significantly larger ones to small charitable groups who can in turn themselves further its objects and what could be defined as comparatively whopping amounts to well-organised, well-resourced and well-run charities or groups that would maximise the effect of the grant. However, before contemplating the step-change to the latter they will look for evidence that by making the grant they will have the defined effect.

To have an operating company that is in lock-step with the associated charitable body would significantly increase access to funds, and a track-record of delivering charitable outputs would almost certainly be a pre-requisite to success at large-scale grants. The fact that in community development (note NOT railway) circles the perceived failure to deliver objectives from community projects was commented on (referring to reports that not all the Hinckley point monies delivered their original outputs) by someone I deal with from time to time, and who happens to know that I am interested in railways, indicates that there may be some distance to go... If people in an indirectly related grant-giving field are aware on the other side of the country that there can be problems in delivering promised outputs, then I think that there is a problem.

(As an aside, from my experience the practice of interviewing trustees is desirable where there is either a 'closed' body of trustees (i.e. where trustees are themselves responsible for all appointments, or where there is an appointing body), or where trustees are seeking to fill skills or knowledge gaps that can result from election of trustees in membership-based charities. I have not been aware of it being general practice in the wider charitable field as a pre-requisite for member elections. (And when reading the CC guidelines, I think it is worth remembering that a huge number of charitable and other trusts are 'closed', and for whom this will be the main route of appointing trustees, rather than membership bodies, where trustee nomination will/should be a far less frequent.)

 

To me, the present looks VERY like the X6 period. Folk who believe they hold the sacred flame and appear to have forgotten that diversity (a big thing for me) and co-operation is strength.

I had that minor privilege. The co-ordinating group was three WSRA Trustees, and one WSR plc Director. But the work was performed by or involved a considerable number of other folk including bodies outside the railway who all focussed on the common objective. Refreshing. Co-operative. Strong. Successful.

 

@WSSRTcandidates & @ikcdab

I joined the WSSRT to support the work of the trust, fairly recently, but before the 14/10 thing started. (As an aside, I visited the WLLR on sunday, liked it, and joined the WLLRCo on tuesday)

My simple message to ALL OF YOU is stop your bickering. We, the members of the trust, have a right to a free election of trustees. We purchase that right with our membership. If we think the home team are doing a good job, we will vote that support. Our views of the new proposed trustees we can only show at the ballot box. You have to trust us, the members to vote how we want OUR WSSRT to be run.

There is an AGM coming up, where hopefully we, the members, can sort this out, if you will only let us. Frankly the way everyone is behaving, slinging mud and doing the railway as a whole a great deal of damage, NONE OF YOU PRESENT YOURSELVES AS WORTHY OF ELECTION.
Set out your stall if you want to be elected. Tell me what YOU have achieved, and what your proposals are for the future.
Do not waste your time and our time slanging the 'opposition'. It demeans you and it demeans us, the members you want support from. Do you all think we are too stupid to make up our own minds about candidates? Do you think we so idiotic to be swayed by hysterical phrases like trojan horse? Or allegations that this person or that person is in thrall to the PLC?

Cut the crap. Send out the forms, count the votes fairly, openly, honestly, anonymously, without threat or challenge, and for pity's sake lets get this side of the WSR debacle put away.

 

Well said Sir.
It would be nice for a change if someone posted a report of what was actually happening on the West Somerset Railway.
A life time ago,Or was it three or four days somebody posted that two RRV load of "Orange Suits arrived at Williton and held a meeting for two hours.
That suggests to me that there really are staff out there working on the line, perhaps some kind soul could post some pictures of what progress is being made.
All of this pointless wibble on here of late is to say the least very boring and I whole heartily agree with "ross" (Post 33783) that all it is doing is damaging the reputation of the West Somerset Railway.

 

Dare I suggest that the reputation of the West Somerset has been a little more than damaged?

 

Clarification please!
Do the above provisions apply to the election of trustees at the forthcoming WSSRT AGM?
If so, and given that the AGM will be well over thirty-five days since the original nomination of the (then) 14 new candidates, are new nominations needed?

 

A lot of company/incorporated charity AGM's are struggling with the impact of Coronavirus. The ominously entitled Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act was rushed in and allows such entities to ignore much of what is in their Articles with regard to AGM timing and administration. The one key right reserved is to vote by proxy. Professional advice has been along the lines of "do the best you can" and accept that there may be procedural flaws. In other words use common sense. I suggest this falls into that category although it would be a simple solution for the proposers and candidates to confirm their nominations.

 

A replacement batch of nomination forms were completed to resubmit, so as to strictly comply with Article 35 in relation to the rescheduled AGM date. In the event our (WSSRT) chairman provided a written assurance the our original nomination forms were acceptable for the new AGM in the circumstances.

 

Thanks for the clarification about nominations.

 

If I can give a recap on my views of Grant Funding which I spoken about here before, sorry if it teaches some people to suck eggs but it seems many on the WSR don’t understand how it works so perhaps it needs spelling out from a base level. My experience of grant funding is limited to what I did to secure the HPC Bid and a few other smaller things on the WSR so I was new to the environment.

Both @Robin Moira White and @5914 from what I was told by Grant Funders make very valid points and use language I have heard other Grant Funders use. I take no credit for knowing anything, I only know what many other experts in the environment have told me in detail over an 18 month period from different directions coming to me as consistent messages:

The first lesson I was taught was that grant givers give money based on their remit not the remit of the recipient. Grant givers will have a number of boxes to tick, for example: We have £1,000,000 to award if you can prove your project upskills people in the local community, provides a community resource, allows the community to integrate & engage, gives an educational & training opportunity, ensures heritage is preserved and expanded, leaves a lasting legacy and has a positive impact beyond the amount given (money well spent measured in subjective not only tangible terms).

The grant givers mostly have no knowledge or interest in railways, they only see an opportunity and a resource for their investment. The grant money is an enabler: You bring the resource, we give you money to unlock that resource.

Its then for the bidder to align their needs with the award givers requirements: We want a carriage shed and a restoration workshop to keep 30 coaches in the dry and restore them. How do we do that? We have the land, the carriages, the people who know how to do it, the historical knowledge and a charitable structure to prove we are not a commercial business just looking to make profit. But what we don’t have is the money and most likely never will have selling tickets at the price we have to.

If the bidder turns their wants in the funders needs the funder can see how a project would tick the funders boxes, you have to speak their language so they can understand how it works for them as well as you: This project allows the community to come together to interact and be a part of securing history as a legacy for all to enjoy through future generations. The project has a 2 year build which will secure work for many local people who can be trained in building skills which will give them experience which they can use for a lifetime to secure future work. The local colleges and schools wish to be involved with their students being able to undertake real tangible work both during the build and afterward when carriages are restored and maintained on an ongoing basis or to just come and visit so they can see first-hand history in action rather than in a book. The project will include meeting rooms where local people can come together for all manner of reasons to engage and interact with each other and the overall outcome will leave a lasting legacy for future generations to enjoy which will touch the lives of xxx,xxx people in the community over the next 10 years. We only need £1,000,000 of your money to unlock that opportunity for the community.

The railway gets its carriage shed and the funders get value for their money, win/win.

The second main thing I heard was a negative turned into a positive. All of the grant funders I spoke to said: ‘What, are you saying the WSR has never been funded at large levels before, really? You mean with all of that massive cost, resource, people, expertise, potential to improve and more projects that a lifetime of money wouldn’t drain you haven't funded before, how on earth has the WSR survived this long on just people paying for tickets?'. That opportunity from their perspective lit most people’s eye up as they saw that the WSR has not been “funded to death” previously and their projects would have a “real impact somewhere not exploited before” (again their words not mine).

The key points which came across to me are:

• Robins, large/small grant award summary in post #33751 re numbers of charities.
• @5914’s, views of needing a track record of delivery to gain confidence that the money is safe, will be well used and that the recipient would have a structure “that would maximise the effect of the grant”.
• Grant funders look for chances of success for their money, they like all investors want a ‘safe bet’. More than one Charity gets confusing to them, “who is the Charity with the remit and the authority to ensure our money is used for our stated purposes”?
• As it stands the WSSRT have taken and want to keep the education, history and legacy remits (museums) but nothing else. These are key parts of the overall WSR Charity remit, if you split them between competing Charites how can a funder give money to one charity when any one charity doesn’t have the whole remit they are awarding and measuring against?
• Merging the existing two Charites if done properly will allow internally each group to continue the work as they are doing now, but to the outside world it shows one charity, one remit and one authority. It just needs people to work together.
• Grant Funders are not stupid, they don’t just hand money out, they do Due Diligence into all aspects such as looking at internal Policies (yes, including HR to see how they treat their people), structure, finance and sustainability. They don’t just give you a cheque and leave you to it. Its review periods, staged payments on results and asking a lot of very focused questions during the project. They pay the money, you must deliver the goods in detail and to spec. so no deviating and changing the rules with “we need to money for something else otherwise the railway closes”.
• If they sense a chance of failure they will not invest, their money is important to them, this is why a track record of delivery is needed first for large scale funding later.

The HPC bid was the opportunity to prove and unlock, but now it’s a negative because the WSR and in particular the PLC would not deliver on their promises signed up to by all, its just another broken contract in my opinion. That has set the whole thing back for the WSR for years in my view and more importantly it will need the WSR to prove beyond doubt they can deliver in the future. In my opinion that means a ‘clean sweep’ of people who have been associated with the failure to deliver and new good governance along with a better structure going forward in order to start to rebuild the environment for funding with the confidence needed.

That will be difficult and painful but it is doable, so the only question is: Does the WSR want to do it and gain a new income stream as a part of a healthy balance diet, or does it want to continue to carry on funding itself from the farebox alone?

These are the debates the WSR Management should be having, not spending their time repelling borders and insulting each other.

Sorry for another long post, I’ll step off my soapbox now but I welcome comments to challenge this or if anybody has a better way, I'm happy to be proved wrong if it benefits the WSR.

 

Thank you, Andy, that is very interesting for the broader railway community too!

 

For someone 'mentally unstable' that's not a bad post.....

 

For comparison, the NYMR template structure being proposed has the following:

“To educate the public in the history and development of railways by a) the preservation and operation of the historic and scenic railway line across the North York Moors between Grosmont and Pickering, North Yorkshire, including the preservation, conservation and maintenance and repair of: i) heritage locomotives and rolling stock ii) heritage railway buildings, bridges and other historic railway structures iii) heritage railway signalling systems iv) railway archives, historical records and artefacts and b) the operation of heritage trains over both the railway and other third party owned or controlled railway lines wholly or partly within North Yorkshire and over which such third party has authorised the trust or its subsidiary to operate such trains”

To me a similar set of objectives for a newco charity would cover the WSSRT’s current set, the relevant extract being:

To educate the public in the history and development of railways by [..] the preservation, conservation and maintenance and repair of .. heritage locomotives and rolling stock ... heritage railway buildings, bridges and other historic railway structures … heritage railway signalling systems … railway archives, historical records and artefacts

Should the WSRA or WSSRT have qualms it’s feasible that they could transfer their assets to a new charity with a restriction, and even (with the newco charity’s consent) continue to fundraise and operate at arm’s length (say, a continuing WSSRT group operating the museums). An example of the latter is the LNER Carriage Group or Friends of Locomotive 4930 Hagley Hall which are both part of the SVR Charitable Trust with the funds they raise reserved for their projects.

Whether such a thing is desirable, or whether it needs a newco or a merged charity with new objectives under an existing company are other matters.

Patrick

 

Many years ago (well, five actually) I made the following suggestion to the Coombes Review as to potential new draft articles; they would seem to fit as suitable for a pan-WSR charity:


Suggested draft articles for the charity

a. the advancement of education for the benefit of the public by the acquisition, restoration, preservation and operation of heritage railway locomotives; carriages; wagons; station buildings, track, signals and other associated infrastructure; in particular items associated with the Great Western Railway, the Bristol and Exeter Railway, the West Somerset Mineral Railway and their later successor companies, and with a particular focus on items associated with the historic and present railway running between Taunton and Minehead.

b. the establishment of buildings to house and preserve the Charity’s rolling stock collection and other rolling stock as may be needed to operate or develop knowledge and understanding of the West Somerset Railway;

c. the provision of educational and interpretive displays for the travelling public; and

d. the provision of education and skills training used in the restoration, repair and operation of historic railways to ensure their long term survival.

Edit to add: Probably needs recognition of archives and small objects in point (a).

Tom

 

Guilty as charged re the orange suits. I just happened to be scrolling through the webcams, noticed the activity and wondered if the company was actually on the ball enough to have scheduled work and start spending that grant so promptly. (Which would have seriously surprised me...)

No one seemed interested enough to reply then and now, having just checked the Williton webcam again I see the two RRV are still parked at the same spot in the platform and all the orange suits have disappeared... I'll just go and sit back in my corner and try not to get so excited next time something other than name calling and arguing appears to be happening on the railway.

 

Mostly every other preserved railway seems to get on just fine with having one major charity, so why is it so hard for those people who make the decisions for the PLC and the various charities to actually say OK ,lets do it, The WSRA has already in theory agreed to ask its membership, and If the WSSRT want nothing to do with it, then they should re locate, away from the line, gifting their shareholding to the new charity, same as WSRA should do, with their shareholding, either that or start talks' about how their interests can be best accommodated with in the new charity,
I would rather that the PLC,, WSSRT, WSRA all were amalgamated into one charity, and the operating company, owned by that single charity, it would make it easier to get grants, streamline restorations, allocate budgets etc,

 

Andy,

Thank you for laying out what external funders are looking for.

Now will those in controlling positions on the WSR please judge themselves and the structure against those criteria, then let us know how well they think they are doing

 

Steve's web site - accepted to be non partisan, gives these details.
http://www.wsr.org.uk/news.htm#2189
A better idea of their success would be to ask how much funding, that has been applied for, has been refused.

Recent posts suggest that the only way to gain more donations for the WSR is the merging of groups, but that seems to have been achieved already by the setting up of this joint fundraising group. The recent award of over £800,000 seems to be raised that way.
https://www.wsra.org.uk/fundraising/

 

I draw slightly different conclusions, because I don't assume that the DCMS "Culture Recovery" scheme was a typical grant scheme, so assume rather different priorities - hence the number of preserved railway beneficiaries out there.

If I look at the breakdown on @Steve Edge's site, it suggests that organic fundraising within the WSR has not matched other high profile appeals, and has raised limited funds - of the total £1,177k raised, only 16% has come through the core WSR appeal, compared to 73% from this one grant. That total might be higher if the PLC appeal attracted Gift Aid - I estimate that there was up to £30k potentially available, but not materially more.

Methinks this grant is welcome, but that one swallow does not begin to herald a summer.