West Somerset Railway General Discussion

'If I ever miss paying a bill in future I'm going to try saying "yes but that's technically just an accounting issue" and see how far it gets me.'. Let me know how you get on!

I do wonder whether the members of the Board are taking a cut in their remuneration in the present difficult times. Are they enthusiasts or businessmen? Either way, they should meet their responsibilities for keeping to agreements for loco hire or buying assets such as 'Promotions'. Perhaps they will, and forgive me for any unjustified pessimism about this. But still I wonder whether 4160 Ltd will want to see their loco hired out again to the WSR, when they look at how the S&DRT has been treated over 53808.

My other cause for wondering is how the Charity Commission will react to the Serious Incident Report. Can they reverse the 'sale' of 'Promotions'? WSRA seem to have been a little naive, to say the least. I'm sure they mean to do their best, but they lost my sympathy when they backed the plc over evicting the S&DRT.

 

Can you take us through the reasoning for that? For most outsiders, the fact that the WSR has two overarching railway charities is perhaps the most noticeable anomaly on the face of things. Your "so it has been tried" sentence is a bit silly though, it only failed to succeed because certain people vetoed it! Reminds me of Mr Jones-Pratt on the subject of cross-board directors "we tried that and it didn't work". So that's it, no point trying again. I despair sometimes...

Oh, and as for PLC's being accountable to shareholders, technically, yes, but in practice, we all know that's not true. My feeling has always been that the directors of GWSR Plc would feel they're more accountable to the railway's volunteers than remote shareholders in reality.

 

Rodders already gave you the reason - the WSSRT membership would be swamped by the WSRA membership. It's about power to do your own thing, and it isn't likely to change...

 

I was hoping there might be more to it than petty things like that. FWIW, I think it would probably be least contentious if a merger produced a brand new charitable body, rather than one subsuming the other, but really, people are that frantic about things like that? It's still all WSR...

 

Others have commented on this, and I won’t repeat their views. But there is one point that you do miss that I don’t think has been fully picked up, which is about the difference between responsibility and accountability.

You see a structure where the plc holds the paperwork, is therefore accountable for the legal duties of the railway, and therefore present further centralisation as the only way to do things.

In the context of the issues reported by volunteers with the railway as currently run, I suggest that this is the wrong model. It is classic command and control, and is already evidently failing to work with many of those who are relied upon to make it work.

Whatever the corporate structures, and I completely support those who’d rationalise the structures around the railway, the issue appears to be a very binary culture, with people “in” or “out”. That may work in some businesses, though is thoroughly out of date as a model, but seems calculated to fail when those workers are providing their effort as a gift, not for money.

That leads to the ultimate question - what is the WSR for? If we take operation of trains between (at least) Bishops Lydeard and Minehead as a given, it seems that there are two models. One is of a “normal” preserved railway model, volunteer based and not for profit. The other is the “P&D” model, where the railway is run as a commercial business, with limited role for heritage or volunteers.

If that latter model is intended, then that is a big change. And “accountability” to the wider “WSR family” needs to be through a hell of a lot more than the agm of a small business with a widely dispersed and inactive shareholder base, the majority of whom have bought shares as a form of donation, not as a commercial item.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

It gives me no pleasure to agree with this analysis. We are now sitting on a time bomb, that will shortly blow our bottoms (I could use a coarser word!) off the face of the earth. The plc is behaving badly, and like the school playground bully, can get away with anything because the other kids would rather toady to him and fight each other, to avoid his attention. The WSRA has perhaps just realised that it doesn't work.

Perhaps the Charity Commission will be the teacher who steps in?

 

Or the HRA or the landlord, or the ORR or indeed the Official Receiver.

Some may say the ORR shouldn't be listed here as they only look after safety & regulations in a narrow window. However the attached document makes interesting reading, I have to say I'm impressed with this from them as a more holistic approach. I wonder if the WSR currently meets these standards ?

Edit, sorry MODs you had asked for links for references to be posted: https://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/23927/safety-strategy-chapter-13.pdf

 

Some might be aware of these standards but others have displayed an approach that indicates that they feel any talk about any kind of change is totally unnecessary. Won't change, won't be advised, refuse to consider that there are consequences. Meet these standards? Understand that meeting them might be a good idea? No chance, too ego bruising.

 

That rather depends on why the organisations were set up and what the members' goals are. Purely as an example, there is no point in a small loco oriented group merging with a large carriage oriented group if the smaller group think they'll lose any possibility of continuing their loco oriented activities. It isn't just "The WSR"; these organisations were set up for specific purposes which may be completely different, so a small group not wishing to merge with a large one may not be at all petty.

 

Then the WSSRT Trustees are not fit to be Trustees.
They are not there simply to ensure the continued existence of the charity, they are there to ensure that the charitable objectives are met & that any assets etc are dealt with in ways which most meet those objectives.
That can include merging with another charity.

You can rename it if that's whats needed, say the West Somerset Railway Trust
You can even have all of the Trustees from both continue together until the next AGM, when you then create a new Board.


At some point the Trustees & Reality will meet.
Either the Trustees take action now & come out of it all having done good, or Reality comes to them, & Reality will not be nice to them.

 

Quite a few people need to put ego to one side.

 

Do we know why the Trust declined to merge? Remembering that trustees have their obligations under law to the existing organisation and it's objects, perhaps we need to look at why the merger was rejected and what the substantive issues were. But the post from @rodders154 begs plenty of questions in my mind about whether we're dealing with rumour or fact about the possible merger.

 

Despite the holistic approach in the ORR introduction ( a cynic might say more "Motherhood and Apple
Pie" ) the real issue wrt any operator is in Paragraph 27. Paragraph 37 suggests, the ORR hope they are right
but further experience will tell.

A prerequisite wrt any Board is an assumption of cabinet responsibility, implicit in many of the
earlier paragraphs in the ORR document ? Assumption of authority outwith prior approval is a route to chaos I think ?

I hasten to add I am very uncomfortable with an ID being withdrawn other than for operational
failures or inability to carry out a specific job correctly. ( I have no idea how many volunteers
have lost their ID for any reasons other than these. I have been trying to find out. Is it more
than two ? )

You have earned yourself an enthusiastic following on this forum but I am not sure how this
helps the WSR survive ?

Let's all move on. Help the Railway survive Covid. Plan for life post Covid.

I agree with Rodders posting, I also empathise with Steve Edge's suggestion that planning wrt
a new overall charity for the WSR can happen now. I am though Steve nervous that taking
the eye off the ball might jeopardise surviving the Pandemic. I am, and have been for years,
enthusiastic wrt the concept for an overarching WSR charity. I also recognise this is easily
said, the ramifications wrt 40 years of WSR history appear complex but not insurmountable.

All easy for me to say sitting in my metaphorical arm chair, a quarter of a century away from
when I earnt my living. But certain things remain valid I am sure, ie working as a team, and
that includes cabinet responsibility, understanding the market you are in ( currently Covid ?)
and maximising the resources available.

Michael Rowe

 

It really is not a big deal at all. The various groups continue as before but with the opportunity of borrowing someone else's specialist skills when this would be a help. I can cite items for a railway's museum made in wood and metal by (very) skilled people in the carriage works. Apart from the beautiful objects which result, it binds people together.

However, OMG the WSR! The poisonous guts hating continues, upto and including some recent postings in this thread

 

But this isn't a 'loco group' & a 'carriage group' with no connections to anything else.
Both the WSRA & WSSRT are intimately connected with the WSRplc, & sometimes with each other. There will also be people that are members of both.

They are also not just 'groups', they are registered charities & have to meet all the responsibilities that go with that.


(I could also state the bleeding obvious if we want to stick to 'carriages' & 'locos', which is that if you want to see either one of them moving, you need the other & a railway line to do it on)

 

I can see why the WSSRT with their museums and 'Historic Train' might be a 'stand alone' operation within the WSR family

 

Indeed, & the organisation has an obligation to it's own objects.

However, the objects of a charity don't include 'continued existence of itself', as that would allow one to keep taking in funds from the public & never spending any on the other objects.


With regards to mergers;
Some 81 mergers involving 154 charities took place in the year to March 2018
In the year to March 2017 there were 70 mergers involving 142 charities, with 54 mergers involving 116 organisations the previous year and 61 mergers involving 129 organisations the year before that.
https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news...mmon-than-mergers-of-equals-finds-report.html

So, as can be seen, charity mergers are quite common, at least 1 a week.

 

Because, they, umm might just be GWR friendly ?The sad thing in all this is that petty mindedness seems to be all that matters, and its a dysfunctional family where everyone hates each other and is trying to play each other off against each other,

 

I'd be interested to see the details, from some experience of small charities in a church context. But trustees are trustees of an organisation, set up to deliver upon a set of objects. If they are doing that successfully within their means, then the fate of the organisation dedicated to those means is a legitimate concern of theirs.

 

It's not so much the remoteness, or not, but the suitability or not of the transport links.
You say 1 hour from Bristol to BL. I live in Bath and would consider myself very lucky if I were to get to BL in less than 1:45, and certainly 2 hours to MD. Different roads, far too many speed limits, too much slow traffic etc etc. Mind you trying to go to the L&BR is even worse - one Saturday by 1:30pm I'd only got as far as Exford (the road via Porlock being blocked) :-(