MEMBERS’ MONTHLY BULLETIN, JANUARY 2022

Engineering

This month West Shed took delivery of a lathe suitable for the in-house production/finishing of a wide range of components for 5551. This will generate cost savings and improve project progress and quality control over the life of the project. LMS-Patriot provided loan funding to make this investment possible.

Further components including the inside cylinder have been removed from the frames: shot blasting is now expected to be carried out in February.   The driving wheel pattern has been moved to  William Cook Cast Products, Sheffield, pending contract negotiation.

The tender chassis has been relocated to Leaky Finders’s new workshop facility at Hele near Exeter, which opened this month. Discussions are in progress on the next phase of work there.

Sales

 January sales have continued in a steady fashion with calendars still being the most popular item. We still have a quantity in stock for those who would still like one.  We now have two new design of mugs and matching coasters which are proving very popular. Look out for these on the website soon. At the end of January  we had a most successful event at the Great Central Railway Winter Steam Gala. Gross takings were in the region of £1750 with £478 from donated items that will attract Gift Aid at 25% adding another £120 to the coffers. It was nice to see some familiar faces again after the enforced break from events, and we hope that this signals a return to normality in 2022. Thank you to all those who bought products from the stand or made a donation. Of the donated items sold, most were model wagon and coaches. If you have anything in that line (of any gauge) that you would like to donate, please get in touch.

Contact with Stafford Office  

You may experience difficulty contacting our Stafford office at the moment as our office manager is ill. We wish Linda a good recovery, and ask you to bear with us until we can get back to normal.   

Finance

After much research into costs and our needs, our Treasurer thinks he has found a system whereby annual membership renewals can be set up via direct debit. We are trialling this system: once it is proven we will roll it out, with potentially considerable cost and volunteer time savings. Another cost saving mission has proved itself. At the beginning of last year our bank increased charges considerably for paying in cheques and reduced the number of free in-payments per month. Thanks to everyone who used the alternative methods suggested, in particular when paying for raffle tickets, our actual banking costs have halved.