Shed Notices

The February mailing of 16mm Today and Bulletin is scheduled for collection by Royal Mail from Warners Midlands in Bourne later this week.  The entire mailing to UK and overseas members will be collected at the same time. Mailing to UK members is First Class.  There are no mail delays at the time of writing.  Information for the UK can be found here.

Mailing to overseas members is by Air Mail. There are no major delays expected to non-UK mailings. Further information regarding mailing to addresses outside the UK can be found here.

SMT and Bulletin will be available on our Members Site from 09:00 on Saturday 10^th February.  If you haven’t received an invitation to activate your account on the site, or can’t find it, please email members.site@16mm.org.uk providing your surname, membership number and post code and we’ll send an invitation as soon as we can.

This mailing for UK recipients is heavier than other months as it includes the show guide for our National Show, the Annual Report and Prize Draw Tickets along with SMT and Bulletin.  We are unable to send the first three to overseas members, to keep the package weight under 500 grams.  Customs arrangements arising from the UK’s exit from the EU require additional processes for overseas mailings exceeding 500 grams and due to the infrequency of such mailings, Warners don’t have these in place with Royal Mail.  The Annual Report and Show Guide will be published to our Members Site concurrent with SMT and Bulletin.  If any overseas member requires paper copies of the Show Guide and/or Annual Report, please contact me at membership@16mm.org.uk and we’ll make arrangements to send them to you.  We’re only able to accept payment for Draw Tickets by cheque or money order in Pounds Sterling drawn on a UK financial institution, but if you’re an overseas member with access to this facility and want to participate in the draw, please contact me for tickets.

Many thanks go to the editors of the magazines- Mick Blowfield for 16mm Today and to Andrew Mawer for their work on Bulletin, with thanks also to Richard Huss for the Show Guide and to Mike Riley for the Annual Report. Thanks to George Sheppard for arranging the Draw Tickets

Thanks as well of course to all the members who contributed to the publications. Your input as always is very welcome and critical to the editors being able to present varied and interesting content.  I hope you enjoy what I’m sure will as always be an enjoyable read.

Tom Rowland, Membership Secretary

Invitations to renew your subscription for the membership year commencing 1st March 2024 are scheduled to be sent by email on week beginning Monday 29th January.  You will be sent an invitation unless:

• You have joined the Association since 1st December 2023, have already renewed your subscription or pay your subscription by Direct Debit (i.e. you do not need to manually renew at this time)
• You have previously advised us that you do not wish to renew your subscription
• We do not have a valid email address stored against your membership record

If you wish to act on the invitation, please take time to read the instructions provided in it, which are divided into three sections.  The first is for members who have joined online or renewed online in the past, the second is for those who haven’t used the online renewal system in the past and now wish to do so, and the last is for members who wish to renew by phone, mail etc.  If you want to renew by cheque please wait for February Bulletin, due for mailing from Warners on Friday 9^th February, which will contain full renewal instructions.  These will be on page three.

Please pay particular attention to the renewal option you select.  If you see a NEW subscription in your shopping basket as opposed to a subscription RENEWAL, you will pay £3 extra to renew for the coming year.  Please go back, empty your basket and start again.  Every year a small number of new subscriptions are taken out which were intended as renewals, resulting in an extra cost to the purchaser, and also creating extra work for the Association and the renewals team at Warners.  Remember also that you can change the type of membership subscription as part of the renewal if what you’ve had in the past no longer meets your needs.  You can also take out a Direct Debit to renew your subscription if you wish.

If you have queries or difficulty, please contact Warners at 16mmNGM@warnersgroup.co.uk or by phone number on 01778 392016 (outside the UK call 00 44 1778 392016).  Likewise, if you expect to but don’t receive an invitation, please contact Warners.  We’re unable to send out invitations ourselves.  If after two working days you haven’t received or aren’t satisfied with the response, please contact me at membership@16mm.org.uk.

Tom Rowland, Membership Secretary

Preparation for our National Show on Saturday 27th April is well advanced.  The show is full, though we haven’t had to turn anyone away, we have a wide variety of layouts, some new to the show, and the show guide is almost ready for distribution.  So it’s time to look for people to help us run it and make it successful on our return to the NAEC at Stoneleigh for the first time since 2011!

Chief Steward Stuart Timms has already approached people who have stewarded in the past, but inevitably some aren’t now available.  So could any of you give up a couple of hours of your time to help run the biggest garden railway show in the country?  This qualifies you for free entry to the show and a refreshment voucher to use before or after your duty.  We have a range of jobs that need doing and we’ll work with you to find a job that best matches your preferences and capabilities.  The least popular job in the past has been stewarding the car park.  Good news, venue staff do that this year!

Hard work as running the show can be, it can also be a lot of fun and there’s a huge sense of achievement and satisfaction when it’s all done and we hand the venue back to the NAEC early on Saturday evening.  If you’d like to be part of this please email Stuart at stuart.timms.16mm@gmail.com or me at show.director@16mm.org.uk.

Thanks in advance.

Alan Regan, Show Director

The August mailing of SMT and Bulletin is scheduled for collection by Royal Mail from Warners Midlands in Bourne later this week. The entire mailing to UK and overseas members will be collected at the same time. Mailing to UK members is First Class. There are no significant mail delays at the time of writing. Information for the UK can be found here.

Mailing to overseas members is by Air Mail. There may be small delays to non-UK mailings. Further information regarding mailing to addresses outside the UK can be found here.

SMT and Bulletin will be available on our Members Site from 09:00 on Saturday 12^th August. If you haven’t received an invitation to activate your account on the site, or can’t find it, please email members.site@16mm.org.uk providing your surname, membership number and post code and we’ll send an invitation as soon as we can.

Many thanks go to our new editors for both magazines; Mick Blowfield for SMT and Richard Huss (for Bulletin). Thanks to them for getting their magazines out on time, and to all the members who contributed to them. Your input is as welcome as it is critical to the editors being able to present varied and interesting magazines. I hope you enjoy what I’m sure will again be an enjoyable read.

Tom Rowland, Membership Secretary

If you’re interested in purchasing one of the WrightScale Wrens listed in this month’s bulletin, please contact the association secretary at company.secretary@16mm.org.uk.

The May mailing of SMT and Bulletin is scheduled for collection by Royal Mail from Warners Midlands in Bourne later this week.  The entire mailing to UK and overseas members will be collected at the same time. Mailing to UK members is First Class.  There are no mail delays at the time of writing.  Information for the UK can be found here.

Mailing to overseas members is by Air Mail. There may be small delays to non-UK mailings.  Further information regarding mailing to addresses outside the UK can be found here.

SMT and Bulletin will be available on our Members Site from 09:00 on Saturday 13th May.  If you haven’t received an invitation to activate your account on the site, or can’t find it, please email members.site@16mm.org.uk providing your surname, membership number and post code and we’ll send an invitation as soon as we can.

Thanks to editors Gareth Jones (SMT) and Mick Blowfield (Bulletin) for getting their magazines out on time, and to all the members who contributed to them.  Your input is as welcome as it is critical to the editors being able to present varied and interesting magazines.  I hope you enjoy what I’m sure will again be an enjoyable read.

Tom Rowland, Membership Secretary

Despite our best efforts, catering at the National Show in June 2022 fell well short of what we wanted and had arranged, so Carol and I have been working with the Arena to get it right this year.  We’ve been working with Michelle Sergeant from Abbots Catering, who is Head of Sales and responsible for the catering services supplied to the Arena.  We’ve met with her twice, last year and a few weeks ago as we finalised preparations.  She’s provided us with the menu below and assures us that lessons have been learned.  Clearly the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, but I’d like to share a few things with you as you prepare for your visit to the Arena.  Our catering offer on Saturday will include:

• A full English 8-piece breakfast available in the Peterborough Suite from 07:30 until 10:30.
• A hot lunch available in the Peterborough Suite from 11:30 until 14:00.  There will be four meal options including a vegetarian option.
• Bacon and sausage rolls available from both the inside and outside catering units.  Make it Meat, which was positively received in the past, is back again.
• Two payment positions in the Peterborough Suite – last year there was just one and this created a bottleneck.
• For coffee lovers, we’ll have two Baristas to rustle up the coffee of your choice.

The full menu is as follows:

• Bacon Roll (inside and Make it Meat outside) – £5.00
• Bacon and Sausage Roll (inside and Make it Meat outside) – £6.00
• Tea – £2.50
• Coffee – £3.00 filter (12oz), £3.70 for specialty (8oz)
• Sausage Roll – £3.00
• Pork Roll – £6.00
• Vegan Pasty – £4.00
• Sandwiches -£3.50
• Crisps – £1.30
• Muffins – £2.80
• Full English – 8 Pieces – 2 Bacon, 1 Sausage, Scrambled Egg, Toast, Beans, 1 Hash Browns and Mushrooms – £9.50 (does not include Tea and Coffee)
• Fish, chips and mushy peas – £12.50
• Beef steak and vegetable pie – £12.50
• Chicken with mushrooms in a tarragon cream sauce – £12.50
• Grilled vegetables and spinach pasta bake with Garlic bread (vegetarian option) – £12.50

In addition, the bar adjacent to the Peterborough Suite will serve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

We think that this represents a sea change from last year and hope that you’ll find something to tickle your fancy.

Alan & Carol Regan, part of the Show Organising Team

Further to my Shed Notice on 2^nd February, I’m pleased to announce that a venue for the 2024 National Garden Railway Show has been selected and a contract signed.  The show will return to Hall 2 at the National Agricultural Centre at Stoneleigh, near Coventry, on Saturday 27^th April 2024.

Six venues were evaluated both in terms of the facilities that they offered and the number of members, as at January 2023, that lived within a two-and-a-half-hour drive of the venue.  Hall 2 at the NAEC is, at 4,500 square meters, within a few square metres of the Main Hall at the Peterborough Arena.  It has an attached, dedicated catering area, Stroller’s Restaurant, big enough to accommodate 200 visitors.  A light and airy atrium provides access to the restaurant, toilets and main hall and will be used for ticket sales/verification before visitors access the main hall.  The main hall has vehicular access, so helpful during setup and tear down.  There is a hotel and further restaurant onsite, in easy walking distance of Hall 2.  The site also has abundant free parking.  We plan to provide a shuttle bus from Coventry station, subject to demand for the equivalent facility at this year’s show demonstrating a continuing need.

The venues evaluated captured between 47% and 64% of members in a two-and-a-half-hour driving time envelope.  The two with the highest capture rate, both 64%, are sadly unsuitable for different reasons.  The NAEC at Stoneleigh captures 61% of members in the drive time envelope, the second highest in our evaluation.  This improves slightly on 58% for the Arena at Peterborough.  Alan Regan, who performed the evaluations, will in the May issue of SMT elaborate on the selection criteria and process and share the data which the Board used to make their decision.

The 2024 show will be quite different to the eleven shows we’ve held at the Peterborough Arena.  All exhibits and attractions will be in the same hall, including MoTY, Member to Member Sales and the Grand Draw.  The AGM will be held in a large ,dedicated space off the main hall, so that we can confirm eligibility to vote at the AGM and not be disturbed by noise from the main hall.  The layout of the NAEC is different to the Arena but Hall Planner Gary Smith has already confirmed that we can get all the established components of our show into the space available.

The move to the NAEC opens a new chapter in the long history of the Association’s annual large gatherings.  I look forward to welcoming you to our new look show in 2024.

Alan Finch, Chairman

The first part of this post applies to those who pay their subscription by Direct Debit:

The claim will be made on Wednesday 1st March and the claimant is Warners Group Publications, who provide this service on the Association’s behalf.  If you use internet banking you can verify that the claim has been successful by reviewing your account.  My thanks to the many members who have taken out new Direct Debits this year.  You may not see the claim for this year’s subscription until 1st April, depending on how early in February you completed your renewal.

The remainder of this post applies to those who have not yet renewed their subscription:

Reminders will be sent out on Wednesday to those for whom we store an email address.

Please take just a few moments to read the instructions provided before clicking the relevant link in the email.  The instructions are divided into three sections.  The first section is for members who have joined online or renewed online in the past, the second is for those who haven’t used the online renewal system in the past, and the last is for members who wish to renew over the phone or by cheque.

If you renew online, depending on the screen size you use, you may need to scroll down to find the renewal option that you want.  Please also pay particular attention to what you select.  If you see a NEW subscription in your shopping basket as opposed to a subscription RENEWAL, you will pay £3 extra to renew for the coming year.  Please go back, empty your basket, review the instructions and start again.  Remember also that you can change the type of membership subscription if what you’ve had in the past no longer meets your needs.  You can also take out a Direct Debit to renew your subscription if you wish.

Finally, and this primarily affects members renewing from outside the UK, if you try to renew with a debit card and it fails, please try using a credit card.  We are obliged to implement secure anti-fraud measures, called 3D Secure, and I have received feedback that a small number of overseas members are having issues with their payment being processed.  If you have issues renewing your membership online please contact me at membership@16mm.org.uk and I’ll arrange for Warners to phone you to take your payment.

If you have queries or difficulty, please contact Warners at 16mmNGM@warnersgroup.co.uk or at the phone number in the email.  If after two working days you haven’t received or aren’t satisfied with the response, please contact me at membership@16mm.org.uk.

Tom Rowland, Membership Secretary