Members' Monthly Bulletin - October 2020

Engineering: At West Shed, work continues on the lubrication system and on various brasswork and fittings such as valve chest drains and tail rod bushes, and others. More components – the reverser shaft and the cylinder covers – have been returned to West Shed.

We have moved quickly on the repairs needed to three of the driving wheels. A work package has been agreed with Riley and Son and all three wheelsets were moved to Bury earlier this month. Two of the driving wheels have already been removed from the axle and repairs are proceeding to the standard required. When the welds were removed from the wheels, significant defects were evident.  It has not proved possible to press the third wheel affected off its axle without risking wheel damage, and at the time of writing we are examining our options for this. For the bogie, we have done detailed design work and are assembling a costed work package: the next steps will be to decide the timing and contractual arrangements for the work. Members can expect to read more about these developments in the next Warrior.

Fixing the boiler stays continues at HBSS in preparation for the move to West Shed.  Additional work is required on the boiler before it can be placed in the frames and a quote has been requested.  

Steady progress is being made on the tender at our budgeted rate. Leaky Finders fits our tender in on an ad-hoc basis depending on other commitments. Full details of works, certificates and costs have been provided. 

 Sales: Once again over the last month on-line and postal sales have done quite well with calendars and our new face masks leading the way. But please have a look at the web shop to order these and other products. Christmas is coming, so if you’re looking for that special gift for someone we have a good selection to choose from - and keep a look out for face-masks featuring new designs which should be arriving soon.

We had hoped to attend the MidHants Gala this month, but couldn’t resource it.

This year’s prize draw has done particularly well after our appeal to members to offer extra support by way of compensating for the lack of events. The draw itself was held during our 31^st October members meeting (see below) Thank you to all those who contributed. The results will be published in the next Warrior.

2020 Members’ meeting: our meeting via Zoom videoconference took place as planned on October 31^st. It allowed a open exchange on questions raised by members before and during the session. We had one or two technical problems with access, but big thanks to those of you who attended and made it very worthwhile. Details will be published in the Warrior.

 Finance: The quarterly and half yearly results for the current financial year to 30^th September were presented to the board at the Zoom meeting on 24^th October. The full details will be included in the next Warrior. However, and briefly, July to September was our 2^nd best quarter in the previous 18 months. Total income was £99.5k which put us back on target for the financial year.

Regular donations exceeded £19k for the quarter - having dipped to below £19k in quarter 1 - and other one-off donations and sponsorship amounted to £55k. During October, the amount credited to our bank account was £28k including £3k credited through our PayPal account. And we are still awaiting a refund of VAT and gift aid amounting to £16,800.

We have now projected income/expenditure to the end of our financial year. A full analysis will be provided in the next Warrior, but it will show, as you would expect, that we do need your financial support.