New Club Room - Update
Welcome to our new meeting venue at Eaton Bray, we have agreed dates for the remainder of 2009, they are listed below. However because of an existing arrangement with the Church Sunday School we will not be able to start our meeting before 11.30am, to make sure that we don’t lose any running time we will continue until 5.30 as long as we have members who wish to stay.
The storage for Ridgmont is under the stage, whereas it will not be so far to move the Boards, we will need extra bodies to manoeuvre it in and out of store. It is usually at the end of the day that we have a problem, having had their run members just seem to drift away forgetting that somebody has got to put it all away again. Please bear this in mind and try to do your fair share of the moving, there are of course a number of our members who can’t help for various reasons.
The confirmed dates are as follows:
5 April
3 May
31 May
5 July
6 September
4 October
8 November
20 December
As yet we have not agreed a date for Steam in Beds 2009, because of the time limitation on Sundays we are hoping to be able to fix it for a Saturday in November/December. We will keep you updated via the Smokebox and our Web Site.
Exhibitions – 2009
The two exhibitions Ridgmont is booked to attend in April are fast approaching. As this will be our last meeting before them I must finalise the arrangements for both this weekend. As in previous years I have arranged to hire an LWB Transit van for both shows. I have a list of the members who have agreed to run at the events, but I do need to be sure that we have a team to load and unload Ridgmont here as well as at the shows. I have the named Passes for the LSS. So far the G-Scale show organisers do not seem to bother about issuing Passes, if they do turn up then I will post them or hand them out on the day. Just as a reminder the dates are as follows:
Large Scale Model Rail, 18 & 19 April
G-Scale AGM,25 April
Other news, I am still waiting for confirmation of our invitation to the Soar Valley Exhibition on the 26 and 27 September 2009. The good news is that our invite to the Kew Steam Show on the 14/15 November has been confirmed.
Wags Wharf
All the work is now completed on the Barn to house Wags Wharf at the Pitstone & Ivinghoe Museum. Over the past 3 months the team, Geoff, Roy, Pete and myself have transformed a draughty old Barn without a front into a very cosy home to Display and Operate Wags Wharf.
The open days scheduled for this year are as follows:
13 April, Easter Monday
4 & 25 May, May Day & Spring Bank Holiday
14 June, Sunday
12 July, Sunday
9 August, Sunday
31 August, Summer Bank Holiday
13 September, Sunday
I have a quantity of leaflets for the Museum’s 2009 season so please take one, apart from the obvious attraction of Wags Wharf the Museum has a lot to offer, well worth a visit in 2009. Do please come along and if you fancy playing trains for an hour you’re very welcome.
Members News
Since our last Smokebox I have heard from Martin Lay, unfortunately Martin has had a spell in hospital having suffered a series of mini strokes. So he will be out of circulation for a while, we wish him all the best for a speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him at the Club again soon.