Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

I have been impressed by the General Manager, but what is he to think when (it is alleged) the Chairman washes his hands of involvement in the recently purchased Barnstaple Town signal box that he is reported to have quickly grabbed the opportunity to acquire. I suspect to lose the GM would be disastrous. And the Chairman is listed as being responsible for Heritage. It is bad enough seeing the reputation of the Railway destroyed in Monthly Journals on the bookstall with justifiable criticism portrayed in some cases as being keyboard warriors sitting at home, but all that has been achieved is in danger of being lost with the younger generation and donations of the more mature being driven away. And all because of people you can count on one hand. And I write as one who has been a member for 44 years and interested in the railway for over 60.

 

I do get rather p****d off by those who, as @MichaelB has correctly identified, post in the media in derogatory terms about so-called 'keyboard warriors'.

It is true that there are those sad individuals who seem to see their only purpose in life as being to 'troll' everyone about everything on social media, but fortunately I think that so far the L&BR has avoided the worst of that problem. Most contributions come from people who seem to have an interest (to a greater or lesser extent) in the success of the railway, but may have wildly differing views as to (a) what may be wrong and (b) how to put it right. However when it comes to talk about 'keyboard warriors' then it is hard to avoid the suspicion that such postings come from people who fail, or are unwilling, to appreciate that for the majority of the Trusts' membership factors such as geographical location, health, domestic responsibilities etc etc mean that they are simply not able to volunteer in person in North Devon, and so they appear to regard such members as somehow not 'genuine enthusiasts' and so not qualified to comment.

Things do not 'just happen' on any heritage railway, they require many hours of detailed planning and preparation, much of which happens away from the railway and out-of-sight of most members of this forum. It all takes time and effort, just in a different form. Equally it may give those involved a different perspective on, and insight into, various issues than that gained those actually working 'on the ground'. Both points of view may well be valid, but equally - if they differ - then one is not necessarily better or worse than the other. There are different ways of "working to help the railway" and this needs to recognised by those who give the impression that there is only one correct way, namely their way. [#]

Anyway, I must now get back to the bit of L&BR-related design work at which I've been working on my keyboard for the last few days.....

[#] Those who may have seen the opening sequence of the most recent 'Doctor Who' episode will be aware of the potential extreme consequences of such a point of view !

 

@Michael B has been doing sterling work in trying to piece together what is going on with the Trust's finances, demonstrating in Martin Swainson's response the level of paranoia that seems to be affecting Mr Miles and his five friends.

I am concerned that the "Confidential Letter" that we all received over the last month at a cost of more than £3000 was paid for by the Trust when there had been no Trustees meetings to approve it, and that it was a nasty, factually inaccurate, smear piece by six trustees against three of their colleagues. Whilst this would be distasteful and damaging at any time, it is doubly so here - and without a Trust meeting, this cannot be considered legitimate Trust business.

I therefore wrote to Mr Swainson, copied to all the Trustees last Saturday - before Mr Nicholson's intemperate outburst to Trackside magazine was published - to which I've received neither an acknowledgement or answer from him or any of the Trustees.

_________________________

Dear Martin cc: All

Like other Trust members, in early November 2023 I received a publication entitled "Confidential Letter". At first sight this appeared, in look and feel, to be an official Trust document, but reading it revealed that it was solely the work of six L&BRT Trustees, including yourself.

This raised some immediate questions, namely:

1. How much did this cost?
2. Was it paid for from Trust resources?
3. If so, at what Trustees' meeting was this expenditure authorised?

The content of the document makes the grave allegation against the three non-signatory Trustees that they are running a campaign against the railway - for which, I note, the six signatories produce not one scintilla of evidence. In which case, it appears vanishingly unlikely that the three Trustees would have agreed to the production and distribution of such a document.

Consequently, in addition to answers to the three questions above, I would like:

either

(i) your assurance that no Trust funds or resources whatsoever were used in the production of this inaccurate and frankly scurrilous "letter",
or
(ii) confirmation of the amount spent, together with
(iii) the steps you are taking to recover the full amount plus statutory interest (currently 13.25% pa) from the six signatories, plus
(iv) the date by which you expect to recover these funds plus interest.

These are all very straightforward questions, so I would appreciate an answer by Wednesday 13 December 2023.

With all good wishes for the festive season, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

Toby
________________________

Having heard nothing by Thursday, I sent a chaser again copied to all of the Trustees, without either acknowledgement or response.

________________________

Dear Martin,

I sent you the attached letter on Saturday.

Given the importance of the questions from a propriety and ethics perspective, and that the questions themselves are disarmingly simple, your unwillingness or inability to respond indicates either rank incompetence or an active attempt to conceal the position: for the record, I don't believe you are incompetent.

However, this naturally leads to an attempt to conceal an unappetising truth: if you and your five co-signatories wither paid for the mailshot or have reimbursed the Trust, you would immediately say so.

I would appreciate a response by return, or goven the significant public interest in ensuring Trust funds qre used for charitable objectives, I will be forced to publish this correspondence and pass this on to the Charity Commission as part of their on going probe into the L&BRT's management.

I look forward to hearing from you by return.

With all good seasonal wishes,

Toby
___________________________

It is now clear that Mr Swainson and his 'majority' colleagues are refusing to reply. The only conclusion a reasonable person could reach for any of the six Trustees failing to reply confirming that no Trust resources were used in sending out this smear sheet is that in fact the Trust did pay for it, and that those six Trustees have not - and are not planning to - reimburse the Trust this £3000 or more.

This is simply not good enough. Either the six Trustees show that no Trust resources were used, or they provide the bills and the bank statements to show that they have reimbursed the Trust in full.

I'm appalled.

 

It is worth making a general point that at least one railway and one loco owning group have got themselves in serious trouble by libelling members.

 

The West Somerset thread has been reporting mostly ordinary goings-on lately, a far cry from the excitement and mud-slinging of a few years ago. Sadly this thread has taken over, with a saga of thoroughly nasty goings on a bit further west.

 

If it wasn't so sad I could believe that is was something in the cider of that part of the country, but sadly this is being done by the very people who were asked (elected) to rebuilt this railway for us and as far as I know none of them come from that part of the country.

I dread to think what long term damage this is doing to the project, it is so important to be clear just how the management works in a project like this. I am thankful to Tobbes and the other guys for trying to get to the bottom of all of this. All I hope for is that this is not to late to save the project itself.

 

Meanwhile, on a more positive note, If you are in Barnstaple over the next few days, this may be of interest...

 

Went quite on here ,

Guessing the positives such as a great and successful Santa specials along with a great after christmas/new year running session isn't interesting enough

 

A successful Festive season would be positive news but unsurprisingly the cabal don't bother communicating anything to we, the unworthy plebs.

An example of good communication is the regular flow of updates, including occasional bad news, issued by the Spa Valley Railway. The L&BR could learn a lot from them.

 

The commercial team have only today finished compiling the numbers from the festive period...... Give them a chance!

 

Thomas, @Glenmutchkin was responding to the comment by @Small Prairie so perhaps it is Small prairie who should 'give them a chance' before making such a comment especially seeing that he volunteers at WB so he should know such figures wont be ready, he also has plenty to say about how others should ignore any comments on here as Nat Pres is full of B*ll*cks yet here he is trying to stir things up. I think both of you have missed the point over the years that no criticism has ever been aimed at how well these events do or how well the volunteers present the railway to the general public, the criticism is aimed at the trustee's and directors ,their attitude towards governance, failure to engage with members, failure with planning and failure to accept responsibility for such failures, also the vindictiveness some of them show towards fellow trustee's who are trying to highlight such issues to members that some are trying to hide and some of us know your feelings toward a couple of those trustee's at least and seeing that you seem to be so very well informed about everything perhaps you can explain why after 3 years of granted planning permission at Chelfham everything was left to a mad 6 week rush over the festive period to get things done and that then was cut down to a 4 week rush which gave the volunteers no time to do anything so extra costs have been incurred to try and save face to secure the planning because as usual everything is left to the last minute

 

There are so many questions that haven't been answered from 2023 as we enter 2024, but the key ones revolve around the Trust leadership - will the "six" respect the Members choices and work with the "three"? Or will the "six" just as they've lost a majority of the election last year (2-1) (and, notably, after they failed to rig the ballot by refusing to put all valid nominations to the membership) attempt to entrench their power by changing the M&As to require the Trustees to approve or endorse candidates?

If the "six" had learned anything at all over the last 18 months, it should be to respect the Membership and the democratic process - the greatest strengths of any membership organisation. Failing to do so would be both an admission of their own lack of popularity, and their principal concern being the maintenance of their power, rather than the future of the railway, @Small Prairie .

 

I remain to be convinced without a poll that the "six" are unpopular with the circa 2800 members as a whole, who (in bulk) might not have read 'the facts' as much as we have. Will the majority read into the criticisms as being levied by moaners angry at the failure to extend the railway and wanting to take it out unfairly on the trustees ? And will they therefore side with the incumbents when in comes to voting in May ? They have built-in advantages in several ways. Which is why I was hoping some individuals reading this site with impressive cvs would be prepared to put themselves forward so that 'we' can put our weight behind them.

 

I'm confident that there will be a good slate of well-qualified candidates for May, @Michael B - and I'm less pessimistic of the chances of change. First, only about 1000 members actually vote, and in last year's election, the Members made their views clear and it wasn't in favour of the status quo. We need to get behind Chris Duffell and other reform-minded candidates - and get our friends to vote similarly.

 

That's an interesting view point to have that the 3 you trust more than the other 6 , you also belive would have the M&A's writen to suit them to over power the other 6

Because as you know , you was there when Chris Duffell spat his dummy out , he is the one who has been stalling getting the M&A's done and published .

 

considering we as a railway probably have a lower ratio of paid staff compared to other lines , I do imagine it would take a little longer to get the info out .

Considering the magazine was finalised yesterday ready to printing , it will ( im assuming) be out soon with correct figures

 

In which case, might it not have been financially more prudent to have held back the very recent Newsletter 82 and saved the cost of a second mail-shot? I'm not sure that N82 contained anything earth-shatteringly important enough that it could not have waited a bit....

 

See if I can get this out in between the full page overlay adverts...

Not all Newletters are required to have earth shattering news. Being as the raffle tickets were due to be posted anyway and have a return dead line of 26th Feb, you could say the newsletter piggy backed the raffle tickets.

 

Fair point. But would it not be possible then to plan that the first Magazine issue of the year is ready to go out together with a Newsletter and the Raffle tickets?

 

Perhaps stalling the revision of the M and A is a good thing right now. If Tobbes were right that a change would be used to entrench existing power, then it is a very positive thing in my view to prevent that. The changes that have gone in the “best practices “ direction recommended by the HRA and CC have in a number of instances I know of personally had very undesirable side effects in more than one heritage railway. Right now anything that resulted in the reduction in the opportunity for change in the trust board would be very bad. The “6” have run out of ideas. It’s time they gracefully permitted some alternative viewpoints