Chairman's Chat
April 2022
At long last the weather shows signs of improvement. We have had several nice days already and looks good for the Easter weekend. I am attending a model steam event in Hereford.
It looks like our two planed events are coming together and as long as the weather is good for us, I am sure we will have a great time at both. I will be attending both events and hope as many of our members will attend too as a lot of work will have been put in by the organisers.
I hope the steam apprentice club will take us up on the offer to attend the Tewksbury event, I have emailed them and await a reply. It is clear to me that the future of our club lies in being able to attract youngsters, if we do not achieve this in a few years I fear our numbers will start to decline. As I see it, we need to make our engines accessible to young people who have an interest in steam engines. The difficulty is the cost of owning an engine, unfortunately it is beyond the budget of most family’s and I fear with the cost of living out stripping pay increases the problem is only going to get worse. So, it is essential that when we run these events, we make a special effort to make our engines accessible to these young people giving then the opportunity to see how they work and get involved in running an engine under the supervision of the owner or who is running the engine on the day. The engine would always be under the control of the owner and it would be their judgment as how involved the young person was allowed to get.
It looks like a lot of events are going to be on this year and I hope all out members will be able to attend them.
John Kidley
Chariman.
At long last the weather shows signs of improvement. We have had several nice days already and looks good for the Easter weekend. I am attending a model steam event in Hereford.
It looks like our two planed events are coming together and as long as the weather is good for us, I am sure we will have a great time at both. I will be attending both events and hope as many of our members will attend too as a lot of work will have been put in by the organisers.
I hope the steam apprentice club will take us up on the offer to attend the Tewksbury event, I have emailed them and await a reply. It is clear to me that the future of our club lies in being able to attract youngsters, if we do not achieve this in a few years I fear our numbers will start to decline. As I see it, we need to make our engines accessible to young people who have an interest in steam engines. The difficulty is the cost of owning an engine, unfortunately it is beyond the budget of most family’s and I fear with the cost of living out stripping pay increases the problem is only going to get worse. So, it is essential that when we run these events, we make a special effort to make our engines accessible to these young people giving then the opportunity to see how they work and get involved in running an engine under the supervision of the owner or who is running the engine on the day. The engine would always be under the control of the owner and it would be their judgment as how involved the young person was allowed to get.
It looks like a lot of events are going to be on this year and I hope all out members will be able to attend them.
John Kidley
Chariman.
January 2022
Dear all,
I hope you all had a good Christmas and a happy new year without making new years resolutions that you will not be able to keep. I personally gave up doing so many years ago.
Well not much has happened since our last meeting, I personally have had a quiet Christmas and new year period the highlight for me was the road run organised by Pet Redfern from his home to a local pub and back. The weather was very kind to us in the end but started off not promising at all. The run went well until I took a wrong turn on the way back and ended up doing at least twice the distance that Pete intended. But it was a glorious run thought the countryside around Gloucestershire.
It seems that the latest Covid threat is being well contained with the vaccine programme, I know the infection rate is very high again but the numbers who are getting very sick and needing hospital treatment are still very much lower than it was this time last year.
This gives me heart that we will be able to have a much closer to normal steam event programme this year than we have had over the past two. I guess this is the start of the new norm.
I am looking forward to our events as well as the Highnam Court event which I am sure now will take place.
John Kidley
Chairman.
Dear all,
I hope you all had a good Christmas and a happy new year without making new years resolutions that you will not be able to keep. I personally gave up doing so many years ago.
Well not much has happened since our last meeting, I personally have had a quiet Christmas and new year period the highlight for me was the road run organised by Pet Redfern from his home to a local pub and back. The weather was very kind to us in the end but started off not promising at all. The run went well until I took a wrong turn on the way back and ended up doing at least twice the distance that Pete intended. But it was a glorious run thought the countryside around Gloucestershire.
It seems that the latest Covid threat is being well contained with the vaccine programme, I know the infection rate is very high again but the numbers who are getting very sick and needing hospital treatment are still very much lower than it was this time last year.
This gives me heart that we will be able to have a much closer to normal steam event programme this year than we have had over the past two. I guess this is the start of the new norm.
I am looking forward to our events as well as the Highnam Court event which I am sure now will take place.
John Kidley
Chairman.
An introduction from John Kidley
I grew up in Monmouth and upon leaving school I did a traditional motor me-chanical apprenticeship in a local garage in Monmouth. (This was when a mechanic actually repaired cars instead of plugging in their diagnostic computer and who then blurted out “you need a new one of these mate”). My apprenticeship included working in the machine shop as back in the dim and distant past motor cars needed a lot of mechanical repairs so it was usual to remove an engine or transmission, dismantle it and overhaul it. So, I learnt at an early age how to use a lathe and mill and have dabbled all my life in the machine shop. I worked in sev-eral garages as a mechanic but by the time I was twenty four I was offered the po-sition of workshop foreman so came off the tools then and at the age of twenty seven I changed career and joined the insurance industry as a vehicle motor engi-neer assessor, this is a role I did more of less for the rest of my working life.
I have been married to Liz for forty-three years now having three children and five grandchildren. She has been my rock through all this time, working tirelessly bringing up the children, keeping house and home together and now being very involved with the grandchildren. I do not know what I would do without her
I have always been interested in steam and steam models but due to family com-mitments I have not been able to have my own steam model until in my fifties I decided to build the one I currently run. I have had an enormous amount of en-joyment building it although it was frustrating at times. I also get a lot of enjoy-ment running it at rallies etc an activity that my wife and family are also involved in.
I have only been a member of M. S. R. V. S. for a couple of years now but have enjoyed being a member and feel it has a lot to offer the steam model world with helpful advice to all who come looking for it. I hope we can continue to uphold what is dear to the club and move it forward. We all know nothing stays the same for very long and we must embrace the challenges which the club will face over the next few years, and I am sure that we will emerge as strong a club as we are today.
Please get in touch if you have any ideas, suggestions, or comments on where the club should be going and if you feel we can do different things.
Hope to see you at the club nights and the rally.
I grew up in Monmouth and upon leaving school I did a traditional motor me-chanical apprenticeship in a local garage in Monmouth. (This was when a mechanic actually repaired cars instead of plugging in their diagnostic computer and who then blurted out “you need a new one of these mate”). My apprenticeship included working in the machine shop as back in the dim and distant past motor cars needed a lot of mechanical repairs so it was usual to remove an engine or transmission, dismantle it and overhaul it. So, I learnt at an early age how to use a lathe and mill and have dabbled all my life in the machine shop. I worked in sev-eral garages as a mechanic but by the time I was twenty four I was offered the po-sition of workshop foreman so came off the tools then and at the age of twenty seven I changed career and joined the insurance industry as a vehicle motor engi-neer assessor, this is a role I did more of less for the rest of my working life.
I have been married to Liz for forty-three years now having three children and five grandchildren. She has been my rock through all this time, working tirelessly bringing up the children, keeping house and home together and now being very involved with the grandchildren. I do not know what I would do without her
I have always been interested in steam and steam models but due to family com-mitments I have not been able to have my own steam model until in my fifties I decided to build the one I currently run. I have had an enormous amount of en-joyment building it although it was frustrating at times. I also get a lot of enjoy-ment running it at rallies etc an activity that my wife and family are also involved in.
I have only been a member of M. S. R. V. S. for a couple of years now but have enjoyed being a member and feel it has a lot to offer the steam model world with helpful advice to all who come looking for it. I hope we can continue to uphold what is dear to the club and move it forward. We all know nothing stays the same for very long and we must embrace the challenges which the club will face over the next few years, and I am sure that we will emerge as strong a club as we are today.
Please get in touch if you have any ideas, suggestions, or comments on where the club should be going and if you feel we can do different things.
Hope to see you at the club nights and the rally.
