North Yorkshire Moors Railway General Discussion

A well known poster on this forum has more than once said that members of the Trust aren’t the cash cow many think they are and cost the Trust money in producing house magazines and posting them, not to mention the not inconsiderate cost of annual reports and other necessary postings such as sending out membership reminders and membership cards. As a result there is precious little left from their subscription to help the railway. This obviously ignores the fact that these supporters are often the source of donations and legacies, both large and small. The same person has also argued that volunteers aren’t free labour and cost the railway money and time in such as PPE and training. This also seems to be the view of others in high places on the railway and, if that’s the case, it really needs to change and change quickly. In fact tomorrow would be good.

 

I see Bahamas is still running tomorrow until Sunday when I log onto the website ,and no mention of dry weather ,fires etc .

Perhaps a volunteer working from home could update the website (though I assume it’s outsourced to an external company ),whilst the paid staff are busy replying to all those damming trip advisor reviews of I came for a steam train and it was a dirty diesel …

 

I may sound radical here, but whilst the people in question retain any sort of position of influence it will be hard to change approaches in the face of such dogged opinionation. The NYMR went through such a process of change years ago when Brian Horner was ousted in favour of a new management led by Roger Heath. It was painful but in the end lead to probably the strongest period in the railway's history. I fear that it will have to happen again, and the sooner the better.

 

I'd say today.

I'd also suggest that the equation needs to consider value, and measure that as the cost that would otherwise be incurred by not having those volunteers and/or have to be earned through the farebox.

 

The site has been updated this afternoon, no steam in service until next week:
https://www.nymr.co.uk/news/fire-risk-restrictions

At least the forecast is for sun the next three days, as it will be the only source of heat for the trains.

 

I agree. Whilst there is truth in the assertions about value of membership fees and the difficulty of using voluntary labour the fact remains that the cost remains much lower than the alternatives.

My experience suggests that there is a need to ensure that volunteers deliver something of value and that can be difficult to measure and hard to ensure. It is also the case that sometimes you have to use a full time person for consistency/predictable availability or rate skill set.

However, one long time Heritage Railway MD said to me that he viewed a key part of his job as being to “never use someone we have to pay if we can find a volunteer instead”. Now granted there are caveats, and it has got harder, but it seems to me to be a very hard headed approach (and he was a Finance person by background).

 

The costs of producing the house magazine must have increased when it was decided to take the editorship away from the volunteer who had been successfully filling that role for several years, and to place it in the hands of a paid concern. The resultant magazine being, in my opinion, much poorer for it.

 

At the time he knows the cost of all and value of nothing claimed it was cheaper ..you would also think the postage would be more for the holiday brochure version .

 

I see on this thread a lot of "My mind is made up. Please don't cloud the issue with facts".

 

Pretty sure that recently you challenged the sources for something I wrote, suggest that you take notice of that and provide some justification of your own!

 

A few clips from Monday featuring LMS 6P No.45596 'Bahamas'.

Video Available Here

 

Who is that addressed to?

 

I thought it was you who challenged me, but it's so far back I can't find the post! So, please ignore my post no. 5710.

 

Sorry Steve but that looks like a deliberate distortion of what was actually said. I've always been at pains to highlight the contribution of members to appeals and their leaving of legacies. However, on membership subscriptions alone the financial facts are a matter of record. In total they amount to around 2 to 3 per cent of the cost of running the railway. That's before taking into account the cost of Moors Line and the other administrative costs you highlight. (Incidentally whatever the view of the new format Moors Line it was cheaper to produce). As a result the net income from an adult member is around £25 per year. That's welcome of course but it certainly isn't in cash cow territory!
Similarly the costs of managing around 1000 volunteers are obvious. For example the NYMR could operate with around 5 or 6 full time paid signalmen. Fortunately it has the support of around 45 volunteers of which I'm proud to be one. Each of those has to be managed and competency assessed with medicals at age related intervals. Those can cost hundreds of pounds each. So as you will know from your own volunteer management role there's a substantial cost involved which is directly related to volunteer numbers. Pointing out the obvious, that volunteers are not entirely free labour, may be unwelcome but it's hard financial fact. That's not to suggest for a moment that their contribution isn't fundamental but an unrealistic assessement of the costs involved does no one any favours.

 

Other major railways are content for signalmen to self-certify their medical fitness, and the training and assessement of competence is often also done by volunteers, so those costs are not inevitable.

 

Setting aside the finer details, the point is balance and tone. The underlying message that comes through, intended or not, is "members don't pay the bills and volunteers are expensive". What doesn't emerge clearly, despite acknowledgments like that above, is the value of that contribution. Even here, you draw attention to the costs of having volunteers with a maximilist view of what those costs can be- but those are costs that, if required, would (a) be incurred per person and (b) need to be understood as offsetting the cost of employing permanent staff.

 

Well as to the former the challenge is to make sure there is a clearer understanding of the financial effect of members' annual subscriptions. As to the latter you confirm my point.................such costs are incurred per person and, as the volunteer signalmen numbers confirm, the ratio tends to be around five to seven part time volunteers equals, in terms of output, one full time employee. Obviously the absence of employment cost is a huge benefit but the unavoidable truth is that volunteering is not totally cost free.

 

I woud be surprised if any Safety Management System worthy of the name allowed volunteeers in any safety critical role to self certify medical fitness

 

A point which I have always acknowledged. But you demonstrate the core of my point - that by focusing on the costs of volunteers, rather than the value, you convey an impression that is at odds with your explicit statements.

Meanwhile, and accepting these costs as a given for the sake of argument, I also wonder how much more the cost of running NYMR would be without those volunteers. My hunch is that the net saving from using volunteers is in the order of £2m/yr, not to mention the financial contributions that they provide.

 

Perhaps not, but most heritage railways have their competency assessments performed by volunteers, and many have volunteer doctors that carry out medical examinations of safety critical staff.