West Somerset Railway General Discussion

This is utter nonsense. If you are a member you will have received four issues of the journal and the annual accounts. These would have told you a completely different picture and considerable detail of what the association did for the railway. You appear to be talking about the situation when the disgraced ex 6+1 were in office. As for the £400 tarpaulin appeal this was not instituted by the WSRA but was a private initiative by a few individuals. The reason it was channeled through the WSRA, which is a regisred charity, was so the gift aid could be claimed by them.

 

Dennis

I was brought up on the old adage, if you like the restaurant, tell your friends, and if you don’t, tell the management. I am sorry you were not aware of that practice, especially as you have from time to time sent me private messages to which I have always promptly responded.

Nor have I received any offer of help from you. Why have you not responded to my requests in The Journal (which you received while you were still a member) for volunteers? Why did you not put yourself forward as a Trustee last year?

Later you post, as though this was some dreadful change, monthly meetings are now every six weeks. Meetings are less frequent because we have established the direction of travel (remember we are Directors) and ensuring that it is maintained. Do you believe that we should have meetings for the sake of it?


Paul
Chair of Trustees
WSRA



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Dennis

So as you have been discussing this with others perhaps you would explain your thoughts. What have we done or not done that upsets you so much?

Is it the mention of Mike Lea in the most recent synopsis? Someone told me that people wanted to know who he is. If they read the Minutes and Synopses which we publish regularly they would know, as unlike the former trustees we were determined to have a suitably qualified treasurer.

We are spending our time trying to improve the way we can raise money, increase membership and generally support the railway. Constructive criticism is welcome, but we shouldn’t have to waste our time in answering this type of post.

Paul


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How quickly people forget.

The wagon work resulted from a small band of volunteers getting off their backsides and giving up time during the week to prepare the wagons for Andy's event later this year. As Yorkshireman says, the WSRA were used as the fundraising avenue for tax efficiencies. Had the old regime still been at the controls, they would probably have declared that the programme was non heritage. This was a piece of work that came out of left field and most importantly, has been completed.

Also... For those who don't know, there is a pub quiz evening planned by the WSRA for March 9th. The details can be found on Mr Edge's excellent website.

 

Why use up funds (such as membership surplus, if there is one - I recall much debate including mention of payments to WSRplc for members' travel privileges, but seem to recall this has stopped) when a simple appeal has covered the cost with new money, enabled the donors to feel useful and involved and informed.

While there is a danger that those who know what is going on forget that not everyone knows what they know, there is a limit to what can realistically be expected in terms of 'running commentary', both from a time point of view (for both preparer and reader!) and at times due to 'commercial confidentiality' - I can think of plenty of instances where loose talk (including a national magazine putting 2 and 2 together and getting about 180!) which has lead directly to things that were hoped would happen not only not happening but also possibly never happening. There are also the cases where a half-story about something in progress can cause unnecessary concern, even panic.

However, I do think Paul that reducing the number of Board Meetings needs careful consideration - I would agree don't meet for the sake of it but was once told by a fellow Director that such meetings were key social occasions in his diary, when he got to see friends he otherwise wouldn't see!

Steven

 

My old mathematics master once mentioned, with his habitually wry and (ever so slightly jaundiced) view of life, that when he retired from teaching recalcitrant schoolboys, he intended to pass his time doing something more relaxing, such as swimming through treacle.

I do sometimes wonder whether @Paul Whitehouse ever misses the simple Byzantine machinations of the Home Office and Lewes. There can't be many roles better suited to prepare for his positon at the WSR than the politicking and Machiavellian plotting surrounding the higher echelons of public service!

 

There are multiple sources of news from the railway. Mainly websites and facebook as far as I know. Facebook is very good at hiding the information you're most interested in and some sections do report on the web at all. The PLC and association have their websites but the former is geared towards information for visitors and the latter contains very little substance. There are a also other websites belonging to the stations and associated organisations. We also have Steve's excellent wsr.org.uk which supplies a compendium of WSR news and images and is the most reliable place to find some of the most recent news but even that is not all encompassing.

Unfortunately this makes it impossible to keep fully abreast of all that is going on on the railway.

Furthermore some news is not being reported at all or made difficult by PLC policies. As far as I'm aware the news that an external body had been engaged to report on the broken springs first came to our attention in the railway press is an example of the former. The request to take down images of the Minehead relay resulted in little or no news of the progress becoming available is an example of the latter. Proper reporting of both would have led to more good will towards the railway.

Making WSR news easily available to the online railway supporters should be a higher priority as we are the ones who respond to the appeals for support.

I don't regard the WSR Journal as an important source of news as once read it is recycled and with a limited circulation to existing supporters. News posted on the internet is available to all and for long periods.

Making WSR news easily available to the online railway supporters should be a higher priority as we are the ones who respond to the appeals for support. The success of the £400 appeal is an excellent example of this and I hope we see more low value appeals in the future. I'll support one to bring a new restaurant car serving meals to Minehead station!

 

Peter,

I apologise for mis-understanding the private initiative regarding the tarps.
As for WSRA, I am a member and I do receive the Journal, and as you correctly point out the ballpark figures I mentioned off the top of my head related to the 2015 accounts. However, when looking at the 2016 accounts (for much of which the T6+1 had gone) published about 6 months ago, my point still stands.

You say "These would have told you a completely different picture and considerable detail of what the association did for the railway." I looked hard at the 2016 accounts to see what the Association did for the railway. It did NOT tell me a completely different picture and I failed to find much, apart from making grants of £20k in total.

In the notes to the financial statements: Total Income was £844k, Total Expenditure £908k, Net deficit £63k

Of that £908k expenditure, £265k was listed as "Charitable activities" which one might assume was spent on railway projects but it does not. It represents the following costs:

Staff £236k, Sales £353k, Property £76k, Journal £10k, Membership £19k,
Fundraising £4k, Support and governance £187k.

In addition,the figure also included grants of just under £20k made up of £13k to Bishops Lydeard and £5k to Crowcombe Heathfield. The Support and Governance costs included bank, legal, audit, accountancy and professional fees totaling around £33k.

So, in what way was my post "Utter nonsense"? Please point me at the projects.
Robin L.

 

I know I've said this before, but seeing as it's being mentioned again, the GWRT, which has a smaller income than the WSRA, managed to give grants of the same ilk of those made to BL and CH but managed roughly £300k for the last accounts that I saw.

 

Many of the costs in the last published account were incurred by the ex 6+1 and not under the current board of trustees. Your assertions simply don’t make much sense. I suggest you put your complaints directly to the WSRA Chairman.

 

I have to smile here. The blame to the previous trustees is reminiscent of politicians blaming the previous government when things go wrong I wonder how long those former trustees will get blamed for the unpleasantries that keep occurring?

 

In the interests of balance, I did not receive a request from the Plc to take down images of the Minehead relay and there are fifteen or so images on the wsr.org.uk Feb 2017 picture page which should have helped folks follow progress.

@Anne C-B is right to say that more efforts could be made to provide more WSR news although everyone currently involved is working flat out.

Steve

 

I apologise if I got that wrong. Something somewhere was said that gave me the impression that news about the relay was being restricted.

 

I suggest you take a close look at the accounts. The money squandered under the previous regime and consequences thereof are still affecting the WSR as a whole and the WSRA in particular. Don’t forget their mismanagement went on for at least five years. Repairing that damage is not going to be completed quickly. Just one example is the huge amount wasted on a poorly designed refit of the QB set.

 

No probs - I was merely pointing out that I received no request and that pictures were posted at the time and remain online. I can't recall any restrictions on publishing news and pics of the relay (beyond dealing editorially with the standard topics such as safety, security and access restrictions which apply every day, every year)

Steve

 

Anne - you make some good points but I must take issue with you over the journal. Every vox pop or survey of members we have undertaken says the Journal is important to them. Even when it is explained that it's production and distribution eats over half of their membership fee (which could otherwise be used for charitable purposes).
We are hopeful of introducing an "electronic" class of membership which will both be cheaper and will provide a larger donation into charitable funds.

On a general point I've checked and the accounts for the charity are freely available to all on the web site.
I feel there are many people who assumed that the change of trustee board nearly two years ago "fixed" all the problems. The reality is somewhat different as the accounts and the minutes will indicate to those who study them. When I was elected as a trustee and indeed when I was re-elected a year later I would have loved to be in a position where we had a large surplus from fundraising activity that we could distribute to good causes around the railway. What I and my fellow trustees were confronted with was a mess that's taken close to two years of hard work to bring under control. I'm please to say that we are almost out of the woods now and, as reported elsewhere in this thread, are now engaged in positive discussions about the future of the railway and how all the constituent organisations can work together to make it better.

Now I know this is going to sound like a broken record but I'll make this plea to those who support the WSR again. There are a few things those of us who love the WSR can do to help it survive and prosper. They are not mutually exclusive and in no particular order they are:

1) Take a ride on the railway, or perhaps 2 or 3 rides during the year.
2) Join the WSRA
3) Add a small donation to your WSRA membership fee (you can specify the type of activity you want this donation to be used for).
4) Volunteer on the railway. There are opportunities for engineering at both Williton and Minehead, signalling, track maintenance, station duties at all stations, catering including the QB, operations and even locomotive.
5) Buy shares in the plc (this is not as tax efficient as making a donation via the Association if you are still a UK tax payer, if you are not a UK tax payer it makes little difference.)
6) Buy something from one of the many shops on the railway.
7) Participate in the upcoming quiz at Bishops Lydeard.
8) Volunteer to help with the rally.

End of advertisement.

 

You are not wrong. It was definitely debated on here about news/pictures being discouraged, but I think it was about the Williton works not Minehead?

 

I received that request.

The recent social media debacle shows that some learning still needs to occur about modern means of communication. Nothing is new under the sun. Totalitarian regimes of the 40’s tried to Control printing presses. Fax machines in the 1980’s had, by law, to have identity imprints that only technicians could alter (the fear was that folk would pretend to be financial institutions) and now social media is the bane of folk who would wish to restrain communication.

It takes intelligence to use these wonderful inventions positively. But they are difficult if you have to uncomfortable truths you would wish to remain hidden (as the X6 found out to their cost and the Railway’s gain.)

HMG understands these issues. The greatest concentration of cyber hacking experts in the western world live and work for western democracy at GCHQ Cheltenham.

There are those of us willing to help, if asked.

Can I also, a little immodestly, draw attention to the ‘crowdfundng’ of the purchase of Minehead Signal Box plate by 30 supporters before Xmas in less than a week, with not a penny spent on fees. Delighted to see it works for wagons as well.

‘Stronger together’. (Perhaps a slogan we will revisit during the increasingly likely second EU referendum...).

Robin

 

Peter, don't worry, I've concluded there are a few who post on this thread who have little idea of the sheer amount of hard work it takes by many, many volunteers to make the railway run.
I'll throw down this challenge to echo what the WSRA chairman has already written.

Rather than post about how badly the volunteer directors, volunteer trustees, volunteer workers and paid staff might be doing from the comfort of your armchair turn up and volunteer to do something positive on the railway. We will welcome you with open arms. There are vacancies at all levels

 

Compared with the Olympic grade "argumentatives" in the WSR "fraternity" I am an utter amateur. A private arguments channel for WSR associates' eyes only would avoid your becoming a source of schadenfreude for the rest of us.

PH