CALDER NORTHERN DIVISION
TRAIN ORDERS
October 2022
Welcome to the latest edition of Train Orders.
Member news
Tony Gath and his wife Carol, succumbed to Covid but thankfully are now feeling better and on the road to a full recovery.
We have a new member, Bill Matthews, who is a retired vicar from Liverpool.
The Committee
This is advanced notice that I wish to step down from the role of secretary at the year end, so
please think about whether you could takeover that role.
We have decided to call an Extraordinary General Meeting for the meeting on 10th December. The reasons arise from the poor attendance by members over the last couple of years due toillness and other commitments, the fact that the weekend layout roster has a small band of about 11 members on it and the groups’ general financial situation. There is also the fact that CHC appear to be wanting to open for more days and what that means for Calder Northern.
The Convention
Preparations for the convention appear to be going well. We have over 100 registered attendees, the conference dinner is well booked. There will be 8 layouts, traders and the NMRA library. If you want a particular book from the library get in touch with the librarian to ensure he brings it to the convention for you. After many trials and tribulation over hotels I think you will find the Wychwood Park comfortable and welcoming. It is not as big as we would have liked but the alternative would have been no
convention.
The “virtual” NMRA
The “Brew & Natter” virtual meetings on Saturdays have continued during the summer. It has been noted that attendance has diminished somewhat now that we are no longer in lockdown. Please do consider joining in as it can be very enjoyable and a great way to get to know people from other parts of the UK
Layouts
I would like, on behalf of the committee, to thank Paul for all his hard work in keeping the layout manned at weekends this year. He has managed this with a work crew of about 10/11 people only. Well done to Paul and thank you to the volunteers.
Crewe Heritage Centre
Recently there was a meeting of the volunteers/members of the Heritage Trust on a Wednesday morning. Roy and Terry attended the meeting and made some notes of the proceedings. These are the notes-
Firstly Gordon Heddon introduced each member of the Trust. Most of them we know already, but significant new members appear to be:-
Chris Simon – experience of running heritage railway in N. Wales.
Kevin Edwards – Volunteer Co-ordinator.
Vicki (?surname) – Crewe Town Council Heritage Office – now a permanent post. Spends one day each week on CHC work. This is her first local government job. Previous roles have been caring for 2000 years’ worth of artefacts in York Minster with liaisons with NRM and various museum and grant/lottery applications.
There was a brief slide show of ‘then and now’ showing how the Centre has been tidied in the past 6 or so years. Specifically reclamation of full car park, removal of LNWR clutter and general tidying of debris. This has been reflected in online reviews of the attraction with none below 3* this year.
In 2020 the site applied for a Town Investment Fund Grant. This failed because of governance issues. Subsequently the Trust has undergone a governance review to make further applications more likely to succeed. There will have to be safeguarding training and better member records.Kevin said that they would introduce role descriptions, to be produced in conjunction with the volunteers so that new members would have a clear idea of what to do. There will be a volunteers policy and handbook. Prospective volunteers can only be put on a waiting list until this is in place,
There is a need for a proper management structure so that CHC can get museum accreditation.This would lead to loans from other museums [Accredited museums will generally only lend to other accredited museums. The accreditation covers aspects such as customer experience and treatment of artefacts. An accredited organisation will always take precedence in the distribution of artefacts. e.g. A class 91 has arrived on site today but will only be here temporarily as an accredited museum wants it.]
Vicky said her remit is to try and keep artefacts in Crewe and look after them. She is keen to build up the Centre as an attraction and increase spend in Crewe.
Seven areas have been identified where the Trust is lacking, including project management, finances, visitor ops. and charity legislation. CHC is currently a company limited by guarantee. This will be considered and MAY be changed to a charity company . I’m a little puzzled by this comment as Crewe Heritage Trust is already a registered charity.
There will be new rules about election of Trust members and how long they may serve. Which will require changes to the governance document. The lease needs to be renegotiated to 25 years, which is complicated by the land ownership.
The Wednesday opening during the summer gained £1,900 in café and shop receipts.
There are work placements for catering students from Crewe College; hopefully other areas will follow.
Cheshire Connect is providing pro bono legal, management and H&S advice. There has been a professional H&S report which was not good.
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They are looking at heating for the hall and had a surveyor in to evaluate options. The red signal centre will go with HS2, so the land would be available on the far side of the
Chester line with the possibility for having a proper entrance over there with a bridge (described as ‘no problem’ by the surveyor).
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Roy introduced himself as the de facto representative of CN. He made a plea for better communications with CHC on two levels. On overall strategy of the Trust and day to day matters. The example was given that CN had not been notified of the summer opening and were operating power tools when a child walked into the layout room. The CHC response was rather defensive, saying communications was a two way process. Roy noted that we could not ask about something if we didn’t know it was happening in the first place. John Gough was kind enough to support Roy on this. Vicky said that comms. was important and thanked me for bringing the matter up.
Various existing communication methods were mentioned:
• TeamCreweHC Facebook page
• Gordon’s summary of Trust meetings posted in the volunteers’ cabin.
Roy asked if the latter was typed electronically could it was be copied to the CN sectrary. Roy, further asked if the volunteer safeguarding/training would affect CN members or if we would be a separate entity. Vicky thought that eventually there would be a position where our members would have to be members of the Centre, then everybody the visitors met could be operating on the same footing. Chris thought it may be helpful if he eventually had a list of CN members who attended the site.
There were numerous questions from active volunteers how this would affect site operations etc. From the Calder Northern perspective the committee foresees a need for quite a bit of discussion
with the CHC trustees to deal with issues arising from the direction in which they appear to want to move.
Alan.
8 October2022
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