A marvellous 5” gauge model of a LNER Thompson Class B1 1005 “BONGO” on display at the Derwen Fawr Miniature Railway earlier this year. Photo by Gwion Rhys Davies.
COMMENT
Very few news items to share this month although do note the dates for Christmas events and club closures over the season. There’s news about our popular competitions, too, but first a note about the monthly newsletter.
Increasingly, over the past three or four months, distributing the newsletter has become an increasingly time-consuming chore. It normally takes two or three hours to compose and edit, which I’m quite happy with, but the problems then arise when I try to distribute it. When e-mailed, it is always sent ‘bcc’ to safeguard your e-mail addresses but a growing number have started to bounce back as ‘undeliverable – spam’ and so rejected at the recipient end. This is now always so in the case of ‘btinternet.com’ addresses, but some others reject the newsletter also.
The September newsletter took efforts over a day and a half to be certain that all recipients received it and it was necessary to resend it individually to many addresses many times to guarantee delivery. In excess of 200 copies go out each month and you can see that the effort now involved is simply not sustainable. In the past the entire address group was split into two and it worked satisfactorily: now, I am having to send out 50 or 60 separate e-mails with attachments as well as the groups addresses.
Obviously, this cannot continue. I don’t believe that it’s a matter of file size but this month I’ll exclude all illustrations other than an image of the 2024 Dapol commission to see whether that makes any difference. If it does not, then, and with great regret, it will be the end of the monthly newsletter in its current format. We’ll see how it goes.
CLUB CHRISTMAS CLOSING
The club never shuts down completely over the Christmas season but we do have notional dates when most choose to stay away. This year, the club’s formal closing will be on the last club Thursday before Christmas, the 21st. of December, with re-opening taking place on Thursday the 4th. January 2024.
It is important that any who choose to visit the club between these dates ensure that they sign the register when they enter and leave and also take great care to turn off all electrical appliances [with the exception of the fridge], make sure that any windows opened are closed and lock up carefully as they leave.
NEXT YEAR’S DAPOL WAGON COMMISSION
Mark Samuel has now provided an image of the 2024 wagon commission and I’m pleased to be able to post the artwork for this wagon below.
Dapol has been commissioned to provide 130 N gauge, 150 OO gauge and 50 O gauge models. The prices for each will be a competitive £16 for N, £18 for OO and £56 for O. With thanks once again to the commissioning team for taking this on and further information, including the likely 2024 release date, will follow in due course.
SKILLS WORKSHOPS
A short note to advise that Phil Place and Richard Hill have offered to lead skills workshops in the New Year. Phil will be showing how to weather stock realistically using weathering powders and Richard will lead on building convincing trees [you can see some of his work on the Downton layout]. A notice will be put up on the club’s board after Christmas to gauge interest and likely numbers, and the plan can develop from there. Shills workshops have been requested by a number of members over the years so please to be sure to support this initiative.
COMPETITIONS and A MINCE-PIE NIGHT
It’s very much that time of year again! Simon Durrer has already put up notices advising of the forthcoming Christmas modelling competition. This will be judged on the 14th. December with the winner chosen by popular vote. A [very] small prize will be given to the winner. The date for this coincides happily with the planned pre-Christmas mince-pie / small buffet night, so get building [and, maybe, baking]. The rules for the December competition have been posted in the club for a while now but if any have questions about it, please speak to Simon directly. Only one entry per member!
The club’s major annual modelling competition will judged on 28th March 2024. The categories have not change [kit-build, scratch-build or radically altered r-t-r [‘radically’ meaning the most fundamental changes, weathering or changing buffers for eg. will not be acceptable], diorama and junior section] but the rules have and these are being amended to provide greater clarity on what is / is not acceptable for each category. These will be available soon. Remember, the annual competition carries good cash prizes and, each year, the standard has been improving.
CLUB LAYOUTS
More information on this will follow, but we are looking at a timetable for future moveable layout use. Cwmfelin, Downton, Box and others being built [the juniors’ layout and Upper Bank] will fall into this category and to ensure that members have an opportunity to run their stock on all of these, a timetable for their erection in the large end room is being prepared. This does not mean that layouts might only be up for a week or two, far from it, but it does mean that we need to rotate what we have constructed so that all can be used in the space available.
That’s it folks!