Lynton and Barnstaple - Operations and Development

Is that controversial? Certainly when I attend a BRPS AGM, I have to show a membership card to gain entrance to the hall (or marquee these days). Once in, you can vote without it being validated a second time, but there is strong border security

The counter-factual: if you don’t show a membership card, how do you asset your right to vote?

Tom

 

Surely though the point being made is that there are a number of paid-up members who have not been supplied with the membership cards that are necessary for them to assert their right, as members, to vote at the AGM.
No-one is complaining about the requirement to have a membership card to vote- it is reasonable.
What is not reasonable is the society not issuing the membership cards

 

Why is there - apparently - always some sort of administrative problems with AGMs these days? It's not as though those involved have not had experience of running such things in the past .......

 

They’ve moved/are moving to a new system of card issuing and mailing.

Many people (including on this thread and inc me) are paid up members not in possession of a valid membership card. Mine expires midnight tonight. No one without a valid membership card is getting into the AGM (taking the statement in the docs at face value).
See the issue?

 

This is one of those claims made by railway enthusiasts.
"Families won't accept it if they have to go an hour without the lavatory"
"Families don't care what colour the locomotive is, or if its steam....."
"Families won't be interested as children won't leave a screen for an hour"
As far as I can see, these claims are used to justify what that railway enthusiast wants, rather than an actual consideration, or knowledge, of what the regular paying public actually want, think, believe or desire.

 

Indeed, and it would be wrong if an organisation can't manage something as simple as returning a membership card by return on receipt of a membership fee. That feels like fairly basic admin.

Tom

 

Well, speaking as a 'railway enthusiast', I find that we often tend to be so 'wrapped up' in the experience that we forget what non-enthusiasts do want. I know that my good wife wants a clean, comfortable seats and clean functioning toilets for a start, and I don't blame her.
I can recall getting on one train after a 20-minute lay-over at the railway's terminus to find almost every table or seating area covered in the sticky residue of rubbish from the on-train or platform buffets. The train cleaning staff had been noticeable by their absence, no doubt gone for PNBs We went thru' 4 coaches before we found somewhere that she considered acceptable to sit.

 

The voting forms state that you need to take them to the meeting if you are attending in person. My DD has always been taken on 1st April andthe membership card arrives after the AGM.

 

In my day, when I was Membership Secretary, I used to make sure that all the membership cards had been sent out by the end of January If I had up-to-date information about the member, I think that this is no longer possible due to a rolling membership joining date.

 

I have no idea what PNBs means. whether with a smile or not
Ok, I agree that if a lavatory exists, it should be clean. But we were expected at age 8 to endure double french- an hour and twenty minutes of utter boredom without needing to be excused, or triple games, two hours of sport on a field totally of facilities. Have children really lost bladder control in the 21st century?- my kids didn't/haven't.

 

The reasoning, explicitly stated, was that an economy was being sought by issuing the cards as part of a wider mailing. Given the annual renewal window, this isn't entirely unreasonable. I do however think that some other things need to change to ensure that all of the processes join up effectively - and I don't think this exercise has been done.

 

I think the point is that the trust want to save money and effort by avoiding a separate mailing just for membership cards and to send it out with the next magazine. I think (but don't quote me) that they have a new process this year.
Bearing in mind all the possible problems with demanding to see membership cards for the AGM, a simple membership printout which names and addresses can be checked against would appear to suffice. It was good enough in the old WSRA toxic 6 days and you don't get people more paranoid than them.
Ian C

 

Sometimes it's more "never acquired", or at least "took far to long to". And it's not the 8 year olds but their little brothers and sisters who are the challenge here - once upon a time, my son only needed a train to start moving and his bladder called.

The point is not whether a particular journey is or isn't too long without xyz facility, but that thought has to be given to what will be expected by customers and therefore what, if absent, will generate adverse or hostile feedback. That comes back to the points made by others about being able to articulate why "this attraction" is essential to visit.

 

I've said before, and I'm glad someone has mentioned the Tallylyn, but see also Vale of Rheidol - a very commercially focused enterprise but they still successfully use original design non-corridor stock with no toilets and they don't seem to have trouble filling the trains.

 

I must admit I do wonder how all these people who need toilets every hour or less get on in getting to North Devon in the first place when travelling from many hours away on the motorway. Most I know make stops about every two hours or even more, even older people and those with young kids.

 

The connoisseurs choice with young children (so I’m told) is to get up very early in the morning while they’re still half asleep, and drive as far as humanly possible before they wake up and start disrupting progress. Allegedly such feats as Birmingham to Salcombe non-stop (just shy of five hours?) have been achieved…

 

Its not necessarily kids, i could work all day without needing the toilet, these days I'm lucky if its 2 hours and thanks to medication it seems when you gotta go you gotta go

 

I always understood it that depending on when you initially took out a yearly membership it ran out on 01/04/---- and that if it was past a certain date it would roll on for the following year so that all membership renewals would fall on 01/04/---- therefore if like myself no new card has been issued but you have received the AGM paperwork it should stand to reason that your new membership has been accepted. If like some have said the new cards will come out with the next magazine to save costs then why not include it in the AGM paperwork instead seeing that that package has to be posted x amount of days before the AGM!

 

Sandbach services still makes me wince when I pass it, from the urgent reaction it inspired in one of my children too late to pull in.

More to the point, there's a difference between what one "has" to do, and what one "chooses" to do. If I've booked a holiday, I have to get there - hence the approach commended by @gwralatea. If I'm on holiday, I don't have to visit any particular attraction. And the nature of the attraction will influence which ones I do or do not visit (as will many other factors).

The point that matters here is not whether my (now university student) offspring had a small bladder as a child, with the parental trauma that inspired, or whether people do/do not like wooden seats, or whatever (have I mentioned that I can't nearly stand up in any NG carriage I've travelled in because of my height?). It's about how a restored L&B (or any other railway looking to get visitors) offers something compelling to potential visitors that will generate "wow" feedback on TripAdvisor, Facebook, etc. Fairly or not, that also means that a "new" railway will represent a different proposition to that of one that has been continuously open.

 

I have checked the situation regarding to the presentation of membership cards at the AGM.
I can confirm that the person on the door will have access to the full membership list, and that no member will be denied their right to enter the room or vote due to a lack of a membership card.
Rob Prosser (L&B Trustee)